A New Year's Serve

[bottle]

Waiting

While waiting for my next tripod to arrive I need to take to heart the visual lessons revealed by film so far.

First, not only must my shoulder relax but my elbow too so that the old expression "spaghetti arm" will finally learn to suffice.

Second, I need to see a full squeeze together of the two halves of the arm. Right now I think it's happened when it hasn't. Well, can it be passive or will there then be too much that is passive in the serve?

Envisioned is a raising of my trick shoulder housing as front leg extends and a slight lowering of said shoulder as the rear leg compresses.

The pattern must imbue both the actual serve and the pre-serve waggle that illuminates it.

As racket lowers, torso twist and toss and slight lean backward from the hips chime in. The structured arm must get all loose right then.

Is there new heresy here or not? A tenet by which I have lived and died in all tennis matches is that bod must travel forward during the toss.

But actually, it's just some part of the bod that needs to take the forward trip, probably the hips. If upper body is moving backward lower bod is moving forward and hence is something else not to think about.

The rear leg fires to reverse the vertical arrangement of hips. Because the front leg is firing too, rear hip rises up over front hip.

Which sends a nice message up the rest of the bod.

[bottle]

New Tripod to Arrive on Wednesday

Why do I bore you, reader, with that announcement?

Because I might soon have available for you film-derived information that will transform your service into a murderous weapon.

I'm on the track!

I'm holding serve against the same people who were beating up on it just a week ago.

The next logical step will be to learn by the time I'm eighty a left-handed serve since my left shoulder and elbow are perfectly normal according to the standard for any human being.

And if I can hold serve from the left side, using the motion I am just in the process of inventing for my trick shoulder on the right side, everything and I mean everything will have extreme relevance for the wide public.

This will be like an ad for "My Pillow."

In the meantime there is a tennis social at our club tonight.

I plan to arrive early and work on my serve.

Every tweak right now makes it better as my frail kyak glides onto an upper Congo full of crocodiles.

(POPULAR ZIMBAWEAN GUIDE WITH WIDE KNOWLEDGE OF ZAMBESI CROCS SWALLOWED HEAD DOWN BY HUGE ONE IN UPPER CONGO)

Address to be higher. As Pancho Gonzalez pointed out a long time ago, a good toss can come from higher up although that isn't exactly what he himself did.

The fact is, if both hands are on the racket, you won't have as far to go to get your normal ha shoulder and elbow up high for early placement.

This will be like an ad for little pills that will put an utter perk on the enzymes in your bell. (I'd use the word "belly" instead of "bell" if I liked it any more than "body" over "bod.")

Well, when we have all our terms straightened, we can proceed to checkout.

The form begins with a reversal of sequence used in the forward or better upward part of the active serve.

If one somersaults from leg push behind center of gravity and slight bow from the hips on the foreskin, then one does exactly the same only with everything reversed on the backskin.

With torso twist coming close behind to help with the toss.

We will be able at last to answer the age-old question of how, in a momentum-dominant serve, the racket head should go down.

From passive squeezing of "the two halves of the arm together?" From passive ESR? From both?

Both? Not really.

One starts with an inspired body-guided waggle-- a grocery bag with three balls in it swung in a pendulum from fingers only back and forth.

One strives then to duplicate the utter passiveness of this with over-shoulder movement of the arm.

I thought at first the elbow should independently go up first then down then up and held serve with that.

Now I think elbow should just slant gradually up as backswinging bod sways down into torso twist.

Will see since I've never done that. Arm can be close to needled early so as to maximize loose range of ESR.

[bottle]

"Effortless Effortless Effort" Sounds like a Chant Describing the Whole Serve but is Nothing of the Sort

It is instead about as far as I could think last night, with a larger question behind it of why I do what I do. Why do I write about a serve that is idiosyncratic? One should only write about serves that are generic, right? So that everyone can relate to them? But I thought all serves were idiosyncratic.

"Start with an individual and you end up with a type. Start with a type and you end up with nothing at all."-- F. Scott Fitzgerald. (It's amazing when you can't find an idea that important in Google, when Google shows itself to be intellectually bereft.)

"Schematic schematic" could be a guide to the whole serve again but only while one learns the rudiments.

The time will soon come for organic departure: something feels better than something else so you do it.

Waggle waggle is entirely schematic. One waggle is backswing, the other foreswing, with both mirroring the other.

Okay only if you introduce some distortion into the mirror.

No waggle anyway. Before a John Newcombe serve, yes, but not just before my serve where the waggle is in the backswing.

In the ever emerging form of my new serve the first word "effortless" refers to squishing grapes with my left foot and is effortless as dance.

How much of a correspondence should one want between this little dance step and top register elbow ascent on a straight slant?

Not much, the correspondence is only for a short while. The body sways backward. The elbow without effort sways backward and upward. That's it but identifies overall action as a momentum based serve.

The next "effortless" is coiling on the back foot combined with torso twist and the considerable effort of the toss as ha elbow continues muscle-driven now on its continued straight slant path upward while deliberately coiling into a cruel needle.

As I already tried to suggest, this is as far as I can think when I am out there. But I am on my back writing with a number 2 so will go on.

++++++++++++++++++++++

The legs fire (effort) thus forming a natural loop (no effort). The body bends at the hips, which image I can in no way reconcile with a rustic cart's wheel.

And torso twist somewhere between effort and effortless chimes in to passively take racket tip to right yet at almost the same time adds equal positive force to elbow lift which has to be lightning fast, i.e., one of the most active elements in the whole serve.

Time to re-think. What are the most muscular elements in the serve? 1) the leg drive, 2) sudden elbow lift, 3) what happens after passive extension of the arm (ISR and ulnar deviation and straightening of the wrist).

Does any revelation immediately emerge from this run-through? Yes. The muscular effort of the toss is matched by the muscular effort of the ha elbow continuing on its upward straight slant path while one's bod is headed down.

Also, one needs to throw balls using the same motion as much as possible. The purpose of the throws will be to make the late elbow lift succinct and abrupt.

Want to re-think the whole serve one more time? You don't, and neither do I but so what, the whole action is a syrupy arabesque punctuated by the sudden throw of one's elbow.

[bottle]

Re-cue ISR in Ongoing New Serve

High address.

No lowering.

Fiddle fiddle until ISR feels strong again.

Pull the string on the toss, i.e., clench the two halves of the arm and open the two clavicles both.

It was said that Pete Sampras could touch his chicken wings together.

It was said by Mark Phillippoussis that he Mark could arch his back through his whole serve.

Easy with the left leg to get the sway agoing while creating a bit of independent momentum in the arm.

This initial move can include a slight pulling in of the hands.

Employ next the multitudinous muscle of the toss.

Rules were made to be broken by those who know them.

First rule is never to bend the knees during the toss.

I won't. I'll just bend one, the rear one.

Second jailbreak: bod re-configures but doesn't move forward during the toss.

Front leg to stiffen more than drive.

PASSIVE, ACTIVE, SMOOTH, JERK (snap the wet towel), ACT.

[bottle]

#4654: Straight from Imagination or Semi-conscious and Almost Dream

And yet it pretty much works. At 30-15 I might throw in something old style with down and up motion and lousy spin simply because I served that way for so long. The surprise in most cases is good for a point.

What I discovered today in brief service solitaire is another opportunity "to bend the stick the other way."

I have had in mind that the best way to interpret one of Brian's spoken points is to get forward vertical rotation going with a back foot push but then to add to it with forward bending from the hips. Where did I get that last part? It's what I thought I saw a red stick figure do from side view in one of the article animations.

Well today I let myself rely on rear foot solely for the slight somersault while pushing the front hip out toward the net, something most servers do in preparation for a serve, not in execution of the serve.

I felt in other words that I was kicking bend into the bod, always a good feeling and the result seemed good too.

[bottle]

Passive Hands, Active Hands: the Continuing Story of my New Serve

One won't have to entirely invent a new toss. ta can drop a bit from the high start position while straightening. ha meanwhile eases back and up while squeezing together a small bit. All this is driven by the squishing grapes dance step down below.

Now the hands get active, plenty active.

ta in fact performs its quick weird parabola to place the ball and point skyward, about as assertive as one can get in this life.

As ha balances this off with equally vigorous movements that include a needling together of the arm.

What was a distinguishing feature of John Isner's serve? The way John's arm clung together through drop and pro drop, making the behind-the-back portion of the serve more succinct than that of other servers.

One can steal this feature if one wants without doing anything else like John.

Note: All thoughts of a body break at the hips have been eliminated except for one. Now there is a sway back and a sway forward coming from legs and feet.

The exception, still remaining, is traditional thrust of leading hip toward the net, only it's small and happens now as part of active leg thrust.

[bottle]

Ever Learning and Inventing

People my age who switch to pickleball are supposed to have more fun but I don't believe it for a second.

Two examples, both from the backhand side, reveal the likelihood of sudden pleasure arriving on the scene if one sticks to the "eternal growth" route.

From seeing a film of Ken Rosewall backhand slice taken when he was 19, I decided to skunk tail the racket like him.

But in other films made ten or twenty years later Ken takes his racket tip back lower although a loop remains out toward the rear fence-- just a smaller and quicker one.

From nothing but curiosity I explored both options, then discovered distinct advantages to both and ultimately kept both.

This makes me wonder if the steeply descending one hand drives of Becker and Edberg shouldn't also be balanced by occasional reversion to more conventional looping that changes racket plane in transition.

[bottle]

A Baseball Windup after All?

The trick shoulder I was born with dictates that, for effective serving, I need to get the elbow up early.

I've tried countless ways of doing this but why not just do it with both hands way high and joined like a big league pitcher?

Now passive ha travel can go level instead of ascending while forearm falls bent.

And while passive ta falls straight.

Next, toss starts from higher up than normal, in no way a bad thing as Pancho Gonzalez noted long ago although he himself didn't make that radical change.

After the passive stuff is finished some active stuff, simultaneous, takes over. That would be the toss and the backward slanted torso twist as closing halves of the arm now clench in a muscular way and rear leg bends.

The wildest thing about this serve will be its use of backward torso twist to reinforce the toss.

One description of this serve, incomplete of course: sway and torso twist backward, sway and torso twist forward.

The last time I tried such a baseball-looking configuration in actual play, I quit it after the first attempted serve. And I have four scheduled matches in the next four days. Wouldn't it be fine if the new serve worked from first point and just continued to work?

Additionally, my new tripod arrived early but I can't see using it until the weekend.

As I read this over, the most questionable thing in my mind is whether downward travel of the racket will match upward drive from the legs. That seems universal to all serves-- I almost surely will need to fiddle more with arm function behind the back to achieve the wanted coordination.

[bottle]

The Maiden Voyage of this New Serve should be Quite Spectacular

There Bottle will be with his hands way over his head, swaying back and forth while imagining that he is squishing grapes.

The guys will either stare or not notice any difference from other days. I will not be surprised by their comments.

The higher the hands the farther the bod will cause them to sway.

But the ha may not bend much until the legs fired. (It started with bend in it after all.) I have always wondered whether squeezing of the arm together figures as racket lowers to counter the legs drive or does ESR only count. How about a hybrid? Valuable or worthless?

Verbal description of a serve tends to be slower than real time. The serve will likely have to be more compact than conceived. The sway will flow directly into the toss. The legs will fire to cause all the rest.

[bottle]

A Baseball Windup after All?

The wildest thing about this serve will be its use of backward torso twist to reinforce the toss.

No the wildest thing about this serve will be elbow at address-- so high that one can glom into the universe-wide phenomenon called gravity.

G will cause one arm to straighten, the other to bend, with both things to happen at the same time. Think about that! Wild. But, bend a lot or a little?

Tried a few of these serves so bizarre for me at the outset this morning. All of which were severely beat up on. Fortunately, I had an alternative I had actually practiced. I think I need to believe in my newest of all new serves if it is to become good, i.e., get to the court with my new tripod and filming capacity and work on the motion until it refuses to fight back.

[bottle]

Another Way of Getting the Elbow up High Early without Having to Re-invent the Whole Serve

The new tripod blew over, but no damage was done except to my ego. More important, I now want to return to down together up together form. The difference from the past shall be that I start with ha and ta stacked instead of conjoined. The elbow of ha shall start quite high in other words, which ought to solve a lot of problems.

I see this as related to somebody starting his serve with his racket on his shoulder but probably better. One can copy everything one does when both hands are connected through the racket, from a rhythmic viewpoint. Maybe up together, down together and up together. And if losing control of this, put both hands back on the racket for a serve or two which in my case wasn't THAT bad of a serve.

This experiment is for a good purpose-- to get elbow high early. The idea, as explained to me by teaching pro Sebastien Foka here in Detroit eight years ago, is that if you don't get it up early you won't get it up at all.

That's probably true of a cross-section of tennis players (a large cross-section?). Unfortunately, I'm in that group.

[bottle]

Went Early. The Wind still was Blowing. Didn't Film.

What emerged: Don't over-conceive. The upward motion of ha that starts the serve doesn't have to be reversed. And ta can straighten on the fly horizontally-- enough of a ta backswing or downswing or whatever you want to call it and up she goes. I've been here before, just forgot. This is what I did the day when my serve was letting me and my partner down and then I got on top of it. ha starts and ta chimes in. Very direct. And very high trajectory serves.

I simply didn't value that earlier experience enough to learn from it. Why were the serves better? Because the shoulder housing was up there. No need therefore to have tried to correct a hundred other details.

The word "toss" implies relaxation. If toss is relaxed enough it can be in one motion rather than two as for everybody else. The toss does need to be vigorous as well.

[bottle]

Ice Cream Cones

Ice cream cone toss.

Inverted ice cream cone is form of the serve.

The inverted cone is wide at the base. (Rock all the way forward with hands conjoined and raised. Rock all the way backward with hands conjoined and lowered.)

Start gently forward for midway toss (halfway between the legs) as hips coil backward.

The toss for a short upward runway syndrome server can start with bent right arm (abbreviated) to get shoulder housing opened early.

The body now segments further. The ingredients for this are hips bulging farther toward net and backward torso twist as shoulders divide from the hips toward the rear fence. All of this involves further bending of rear leg.

[bottle]

If you Produce Short Runways up to the Ball, Give yourself a Racket Lowering Test

Just strike a pose as if you are sculpture, with your racket as low behind you as you can get it.

For me this happens with hips and shoulders turned back as far as they will go.

[bottle]

Why not combine backward hips turn and backward torso twist, doing both at once, but first adjust stance for best racket path going the other way.

This move is simultaneous with one half forward travel on the toss. I say "one half" hoping to convey the idea of getting to halfway between the legs.

Rear leg can bend an extra amount after that.

One could think of this last move as transition from horizontal to vertical rotation.