A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Reduce Steps, Increase Flow

Ta and Ha can start where they have started in the past, hands linked by the racket.

Ta straightens down as Ha straightens sideways and up to form a horizontal yardarm.

In tandem, both arms can then go up together while keeping distance between them.

This move points Ha at the sky and front hip at the net while extending the distance between hip and shoulder while lifting front heel on toes while bending rear leg to catch weight.

Weight on the toss in other words has gone from rear foot to front foot and back to rear foot.

There is no transition from sky-pointing Ha to bending Ha. The fall from pivot point of the elbow begins immediately as rear leg and front leg in rapid succession drive up.

The natural racket fall compresses the two halves of the arm together and continues down in a slightly different direction due to upper arm twist.

The somersault continues to load the upper arm. Which won't release until the triceps muscle has fired.

ISR (internal shoulder rotation) pushes the ball leading to mediocrity if done too soon.

ISR clips the ball with great velocity if properly delayed.

Acceleration of racket edge is the way to go.

ISR then seems to happen by itself since arm wants to return to a healthy position.

Do you the player contribute to this process?

Perhaps but only if you "let go."

[bottle]

Reduce Steps, Increase Flow

Ta and Ha can start where they have started in the past, hands linked by the racket.

Ta straightens down as Ha straightens sideways and up to form a horizontal yardarm.

In tandem, both arms can then go up together while keeping distance between them.

This move points Ha at the sky and front hip at the net while extending the distance between hip and shoulder while lifting front heel on toes while bending rear leg to catch weight.

Weight on the toss in other words has gone from rear foot to front foot and back to rear foot.

There is no transition from sky-pointing Ha to bending Ha. The fall from pivot point of the elbow begins immediately as rear leg and front leg in rapid succession drive up.

The natural racket fall compresses the two halves of the arm together and continues down in a slightly different direction due to upper arm twist.

The somersault continues to load the upper arm. Which won't release until the triceps muscle has fired.

ISR (internal shoulder rotation) pushes the ball leading to mediocrity if done too soon.

ISR clips the ball with great velocity if properly delayed.

Acceleration of racket edge is the way to go.

ISR then seems to happen by itself since arm wants to return to a healthy position.

Do you the player contribute to this process?

Perhaps but only if you "let go."

This beginning is too complex for me to have gotten elbow up to where it needs to be. Better is if bent hitting arm Ha goes directly around and and up to a position where elbow seemingly points at the sky, a very fast movement. Accompanied by straightening of Ta which is exactly as fast.

The reason I say the elbow "seemingly points at the sky" is that it also points toward the rear fence, or, put other ways points at a patch of sky over the rear fence or points upward 45 degrees from yardarm. It's cocked high and back. To someone standing directly behind, the elbow points at the sky. But that is a trick of perspective. The images behind these statements come from the TED section of this article (https://www.tennisplayer.net/members..._the_kick.html).

To use clock imagery, Ta can now become second hand moving through 100 degrees of arc while Ha stays still other than tilting down a bit as hips go out as part of the toss. Ta then can become still as a minute hand as Ha, now the second hand, also moves through 100 degrees of arc but with a short radius (forearm as opposed to whole arm).

If "still" head doesn't veer left something is wrong. Am checking out own filmed serves now. Something is wrong. The upward path must be such that the head needs to get out of the way.

Form, according to Doug King, is the two hands close together so as almost to form a hoop. So violate this principle in the beginning of the serve and uphold it in the middle by shooting the right hand at where the left hand just was. Want to exaggerate? Then shoot right hand at left hand but don't be early.

The paused right arm is at right angles to the toss. The paused left arm is at right angles to Ha's clocking forearm.

100 degrees by Ta with Ha staying still. 100 degrees by Ha (though using a smaller clock) with Ta staying still. Envisioning these two circles or clock pictures in close sequence that completes 190 degrees of the same circle is one way of cueing the whole serve.

I think I'd be happy if the second perpendicular circle (would it help to think of a whirligig?) started just before the first ended-- that's why I said 190 instead of 200 degrees.

Now, to pursue this whirligig idea: a whirligig is a nature-driven fan that has a tail that acts as a weathervane. Can't see that it matters much whether the tail is on the net side or the rear fence side. The tail, to mix metaphors still further, suggests a rudder. Which suggests the back leg kicking back. It seems that there will be a lot of means by which to steer the ball in these serves.

I so prefer this imagery of two linked circles-- big and little-- to hanging from a steel ring to keep Ta up.

Keeping Ta up, with sexual connotation fully intended, was the subject after all of a stupid tennis movie called WIMBLEDON.

Film later. Never film a day too soon.

[bottle]

Ta Now is Straightening Horizontally Almost Toward Right Rear Fence Post

This means that the 100 degrees toss (from start to finish) can pitch ball into court as well as to one's left were it to hit the ground. I'm not sure I can do an eleven o'clock contact but am probably good for straight over the head and a bit into the court. Twist has now been all but completely purged from my serve in favor of shoulder over shoulder forward rotation. I'm even wondering now why hopping left foot needs to do its little Charleston step in mid-air. Yes, I am influenced by Brian Gordon's current video article. I tend to be carried away by intelligent expression and sometime try to embroider it too much. But my serve now is finally not cramped with low elbow coming painfully around right side of bod. More of the serve-- none was before-- is behind the back. This is the future of serving for me, partial left knee replacement or not. I just plan not to land hard. The serve gets to breathe.

[bottle]

In Praise of Lopsided Loops

There isn't much I can add to the title of this post. The bulge in the backswing for forehands and one hand backhands can be high and to the outside.

The arm, swiveling freely from the shoulder, is bent from wait position to the bulge and beyond, then straightens as it divebombs down to the inside and outside, after which both ends of the racket go straight for a short while after which everything heads for the barn.

That's just one kind of forehand, propelled by pad at base of index finger, with the rest of that finger along with ring and pinkie fingers slightly off of the handle.

Another species, wiper-viper-hyper, is loose from the shoulder the same way but can use the index finger (forefinger) extended up the racket and propped under it.

Will arm remain straight to twist or scissor at the elbow? The answer should make a difference in the direction the fingers turn the racket. I see tip of forefinger as being active but in longitudinal direction if one scissors, active instead as baton twirl if one doesn't.

Scissoring, it seems to me, has never been sufficiently discussed by me or anyone else. Yet quite a few prominent coaches propose it as fine option for their students. Should scissoring even happen if there is ISR (internal shoulder rotation) going on? Does scissoring combine well with other means of rasping the strings upward or not, and if so, with which ones?

[bottle]

Serve: How about Changing Direction of Toss Arm once it has Released the Ball?

It's just an idea. I tried it in the rain but don't have a definitive answer yet as to if it is any good.

What if, after release, Ta rotated toward the net instead of roughly parallel to the net. The change of direction would relate to body somersault.

If nothing else, this makes shooting right hand near to left hand much easier.

[bottle]

Elephant Serve

Much is still but something is always moving. But if nothing is moving you're angry and about to charge and stomp on a human head. As Tom Rinaldi would say "What does it mean? What does this mean to you?" It means that nothing is moving and you can't serve at all.

[bottle]

Make a Horrible Face as Part One of Tripartite Initial Serve

Part two is tossing arm (TA) straightening as it flies across your body on a horizontal beeline toward the right rear fence post. If Ta has a voice, and it does, it can tell you that it doesn't feel much difference, rhythmically speaking, from the down together in a conventional serve. And that it has the best of intentions which is to help turn your body-- immediately-- into a dynamic position.

Part three is the rise of your bent arm (Ha) so hand and elbow and racket are behind you and high over your head.

This whole beginning is somewhere between a Karate or Tai Chi move and a pitcher's wind-up in baseball.

If you don't think a pitcher should make a horrible face at the top of his wind-up, then replace it with the birdie look of Caroline Wozniacki receiving a worm or don't use any special expression at all.

Question: How high should the toss be in this serve? I've worked a lot recently on heightening my toss. On the other hand, the way this current serve is cracking up, we've eliminated much garbage thus making scads of time so that maybe a low toss will be adequate.

Will record this serve for the first time this morning so that later I can pull out my phone in my car and see if I like it (the serve).

[bottle]

Rate the Tripod

I ignore all the repeated requests from Amazon to rate my $20 delivered Chinese tripod, but I'll tell you here, reader, since you seem respectful today: I rate it highly. Just don't want to step on it or catch it in a door. It's frail.

[bottle]

I Don't Like the Serve. The Elbow Still is Low. I Can't Believe This.

When Serena's elbow is low, Patrick Mouratoglou (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Mouratoglou) gets close and pushes it back up.

I haven't yet hired anyone to do that for me.

But I can stand by a mirror and push my elbow to where I think it belongs. So why not the instant I record myself hitting serves?

A camera lies, but not as much as people fooling themselves.

Determination shall solve the problem by placing an imaginary steel band around the top of my ears to hold my elbow sufficiently in.

But that reduces the amount of forearm fall I want, so arm up there is apt to be half straight.

When these changes have been instituted, I shall record again.

[stotty]

I Don't Like the Serve. The Elbow Still is Low. I Can't Believe This.

When Serena's elbow is low, Patrick Mouratoglou (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Mouratoglou) gets close and pushes it back up.

I haven't yet hired anyone to do that for me.

It might be a good investment. It's tough to raise the elbow to the right degree on your own as you are relying on your own imagination to do the trick.

It's a quick fix if you have an assistant on hand to stop the elbow dropping. After 100 serves with an assistant, you will get the feeling for it and be good to go.

[bottle]

It might be a good investment. It's tough to raise the elbow to the right degree on your own as you are relying on your own imagination to do the trick.

It's a quick fix if you have an assistant on hand to stop the elbow dropping. After 100 serves with an assistant, you will get the feeling for it and be good to go.

I'm sure you're right. But it's gotten to the point of being an intellectual challenge. I want to see, if, working with the camera (an almost unlimited reality, really, when you have a cheap tripod and the camera is just your phone). Filming is so easy, and I've never had the chance to film anything before, yet have been curious, just as I am about script-writing (see the book STORY by Robert McKee). But, if after the 30th filming, I'm still dropping it, I will go to Aziz, a young teaching pro who says he wants to be just like me when he gets old. He sees me working on my strokes alone and likes that, I guess. I got to play with him once and when we got to 5-0 and I was serving for it, I got behind (because I was dropping my elbow) and Aziz said, "Don't falter now, John." No one had said that since my classics professor in college. He (Professor Workman) used to play a game called DOOM, and after months of everybody trying to solve the same problem, which concerned authorial bias in the great book by Thucydides, I was close to the answer. Only one or two of the 20 handpicked persons would be lead speaker for the two hours, and I was up, and Professor Workman said, "Don't falter, Mr. Escher." Well, in both cases I managed to prevail but if I told this story before I apologize. I sure do think about it a lot as I myself teach now three days a week. A beautiful girl in the same class, Penny Ritscher, married an Italian guy and they started a private school in Florence. She recently came out with a book called SLOW SCHOOL. I don't read Italian but am sure it's about going slow when you teach or are trying to learn.

[bottle]

Weird Serves from the U.S. Open

Francis Tiafoe has a different way of taking Ha up. Another fellow started with Ha all the way up. He only lasted one or two rounds, but he made it to the U.S. Open, yes he did, and that is all I need to know. Ha all the way up before Ta goes down and up is what I'll do in self-feed this morning, and I will play in excellent competition-- next level from this summer-- at 6 p.m. tonight. That is if I have the stamina to do both things. My resumption of guest teaching MWF has led immediately to a cold or virus, and I need to be very careful when the subject is respiratory stuff.

But, Stotty has let me know the importance of slight variation in elbow level. And Tennischiro long ago expressed displeasure at a toss which comes from too far back. Both pieces of advice will figure today. Anything that anybody says ever can make a huge difference to someone like me.

If anyone asks me (doubtful) why I start my serve with Ha already up, I will answer, "Because I have a trick shoulder."

[bottle]

Forehand Maintenance

excavation spring
outside inside straight
outside inside lag
upward downward lag
knees breeze
lag to straight
lag to elbow
compress ball and roll
roll and flair
racket head stick
in air

[bottle]

The TED is Almost 360 Degrees of Racket Travel

"Constructing the Kick" (https://www.tennisplayer.net/members..._the_kick.html).

[bottle]

Don't Film your Serve

Wait for five days.

But my second graders were tired of being read to. So we made a film in selfie mode so they could see themselves as they mugged into my phone. This led to a follow-up film. The girls gnashed their teeth in preparation for eating the boys. The teacher interviewed the boys to see how they felt about it. Think I'll watch these two films again right now.