A New Teaching System: The Serve: Body Rotation

[johnyandell]

Would love to hear what you thought of my latest article, "A New Teaching System: The Serve: Body Rotation"

[stotty]

Really useful article...

Would love to hear what you thought of my latest article, "A New Teaching System: The Serve: Body Rotation"

Well, I was really impressed with this month's video article and just had to set about putting things in to practice as quick as possible with a squad of boys I see daily. When Federer's involved, kids are easily sold by the idea.

Here is a clip of one of the boys. He is always the most receptive and the quickest to take things onboard. In no time at all we have altered his stance and "lined him up" shoulders and feet as per the video.

Rear view...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN-4fAwesN0&feature=youtu.be

Side view...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HaBlUfAcEo&feature=youtu.be

As always when coaching technique, things morph fast and never fall into place as fully intended. As he practiced throughout the week, his back foot started facing away from the baseline more than intended. He has also started over rotating on his ball toss. I think I need to tweak these things back because he is suffering minor timing issues. He's okay getting to this significantly rotated point but finds it slightly disorientating to rotate back again. He doesn't exactly mistime the ball but some strikes are cleaner than others. I may wait a little longer before I start tweaking just to see if things if things don't bed down nicely without intervention.

Comments are welcome from anyone but remember we've only been at this a week, and the boy had a significantly different set up before. So go easy on me! We've hit 250 serves per day to get to this point.

[johnyandell]

Wow! Looks good. Almost Samprasesque. How does he feel about it??

[stotty]

Wow! Looks good. Almost Samprasesque. How does he feel about it??

He feels great about it. It's very achievable for any kid with ability, a bit of dedication and patience. Video analysis at different stages of progression has worked a treat and helped him feel like he is getting somewhere.

I really like the video articles you are doing and find the step by step approach you use in them is very useful....thanks. I am using them a lot in my work.

[johnyandell]

Superb to hear Stotty.

[ralph]

My small college team

I do not have one player who coils enough when serving. I will show them the video to encourage them to do so.

Ralph

[don_budge]

Go easy on you...fat chance.

Rear view...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iN-4fAwesN0&feature=youtu.be

Side view...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HaBlUfAcEo&feature=youtu.be

As he practiced throughout the week, his back foot started facing away from the baseline more than intended.

He has also started over rotating on his ball toss. I think I need to tweak these things back because he is suffering minor timing issues.

He's okay getting to this significantly rotated point but finds it slightly disorientating to rotate back again.

He doesn't exactly mistime the ball but some strikes are cleaner than others.

I may wait a little longer before I start tweaking just to see if things if things don't bed down nicely without intervention.

So go easy on me! We've hit 250 serves per day to get to this point.

Go easy Old Boy? Not a chance. Going easy is for the feint of heart...to which we do not qualify, subscribe or aspire too. This is just the facts as we see them. Nothing more...nothing less. Whether we agree or disagree is immaterial. It is just to state one's view...as clearly as possible. Without incrimination...without fear of reprisal.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...DeuceSide1.mov

Sampras? More like McEnroe. Look at the back foot. He needs to be realigned...the sooner the better. At the rate of 250 serves a day it won't take long before he is finding himself a little disoriented. Particularly on second serves.

On second thought it could be a bit like Sampras...I could have been wrong. Oh well...nobodies perfect. Except you know who.

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...LevelRear1.mov

http://www.tennisplayer.net/members/...evelFront1.mov

Look at where the Swiss Maestro's back foot is aligned from a almost full on front view. The back foot toes are in line with his heel...or my name is not don_budge. Your boy is almost twisting himself into McEnroe territory going side saddle.

By lining up so far around that his back foot is almost pointing toward the back fence of course he is going to over rotate and then you have a bigger problem...how is he going to find his way back to the ball. Not only that but I feel that you have really reconfigured his backswing with his alignment. It will naturally be way too far to the inside at this point. See how Federer's racquet tip sort of traces a line down the end of his toes towards the back fence and he never pulls to the inside. His racquet never gets behind his body until after it has peaked at the top of his backswing.

Get him to come to some kind of static or almost static position when he starts his backswing. The two shots look way to lackadaisical and careless. To serve like a pro...you have to look like a pro. His approach is way too sloppy looking. Practice a diligent set up and a proper backswing 250 times a day and this kid will be looking top rate in no time.

Don't wait. He won't find his way without some firm guidance. Two weeks will give him upwards of 2000 swings. Give him credit for his work ethic. Get him lined up correctly. He's a beginner...in the big picture. Less is better. Less can go wrong.

[alechorton]

Great Stuff John!

John, I like the use of simplicity with Fed, he is a good model to use for this segment and many other of course! The critical part to me is how everything lines up in the coiling process. I think most right-handed players do this better on the ad side.
the duece side however, most players are over rotated to start so the coil is artificial, meaning the foot stance is to over-rotated, so in order for everything to line-up in the coiling process, they look like an over-rotated Johnny Mac.. or Luis Tiant... which is fine if they can over rotate coming out of the windup right... your explanation is far simpler to try and do... great stuff.

AH

[bottle]

I wanna serve like Luis Tiant. That would be good enough.

[jimlosaltos]

Murray's comment

Would love to hear what you thought of my latest article, "A New Teaching System: The Serve: Body Rotation"

Good vid. Just as a data point, I remember about 2-3 years ago an announcer (Koenig?) quoted Andy Murray as saying he studied Fed's serve on DVD repeatedly and attributed how well Fed disguised his serve to his shoulder rotation, which Murray reportedly copied to some degree.

On the flip side of the coin, we're now leaning that Fed's apparently had back problems his entire career, not just since 2008 -- and this week Andy goes in for back surgery. Coincidence? Hmmmm

[johnyandell]

Yet Sampras and Mac rotate more and neither has back problems...injuries and technique are a tricky corelation. And if Andy was trying to copy Roger he did not succeed.

[tennis_chiro]

Yet Sampras and Mac rotate more and neither has back problems...injuries and technique are a tricky corelation. And if Andy was trying to copy Roger he did not succeed.

Sampras most definitely had back problems late in his career. The chiropractor I work with now met Mac at Huggy Bears in 1988 and treated him for an extended period of time after that. I worked for another chiropractor in Santa Monica that treated Mac for a while as well; I believe that was before 1988 when he was living in Malibu. But I'm not sure what Mac was getting treated for. You don't have to have specific back problems to benefit from chiropractic care, especially as a tournament player. McEnroe has certainly maintained a high level of fitness well into his 50's and continued to compete with much younger players. He turned well away from the net, but I don't think he had the same degree of torque in his back that Sampras demonstrates in those strings of photos that Geoff Williams occasionally posts in this forum.

don

[don_budge]

The Transcript...for those of us with short term memory problems

Here is the transcript...my thoughts to follow. Thank you once again John. This gets more and more interesting. When you speak of a teaching system...you are biting off a very big chunk. The serve is one complex system and breaking it down into parts is well worth the effort. This system truly deserved the introduction that it was given in the first place.

This is word for word. Sometimes I felt that I was writing from my own model. There were moments that I felt that I had something to add. But at no time did I ever feel the need to make a value judgement of being right or wrong...to point out a discrepancy. This is simply the huge effort of one who has gone to painstaking detail to best express his impressions of a very complicated subject.

It's the kind of repetitive exercise that is required of any tennis student that is attempting to learn this very complicated motion and very complicated and sophisticated game. It is the kind of repetitive exercise that tennis coaches should participate in instead of just parroting the latest infomercial and being way to acceptive of explanations that are sometimes inconclusive or rather too exclusive to be taken altogether parcel and post. Going back and forth from the visuals and the audio of the video to typing back and forth. Listening and relistening. Watching and rewatching. Typing and retyping. It's repetitive stuff.

There is a very good reason that this activity was for such a long time for the elite and not for the masses. The information and coaching was restricted to those that could afford it.

But as Mr. Yandell asserts...this is a system. Is it new? To a degree. Is it innovative? Absolutely. Is it artistic? Is it fundamentally correct? Most importantly of all...YES! Of course. So here are the words once again...for those of you like me retain only of a fraction of what we hear. Even when we read we lose focus...we lose the total picture. Only by going over it repeatedly can one begin to decipher all of the little innuendos and in's and out's of the subject. Much like our new friend...meakinrobert is doing trying to decipher my cryptic message and illustration of the service personally tailored to him. Such are the things that tennis lessons are made of.

The effort that it took me to transcribe them was well worth my time. I did it for my benefit...and yours. Nobody will pay me for my efforts...but I learned some things. I further educated myself. Such is the fate of one...who is not so ambitious as they are desirous of the art of true expression. That is...describing motion with words. The beautiful motion of the various tennis strokes. Et tu...bottle? Nice job...John.


A New Teaching System...The Serve-Body Rotation

This is John Yandell and the last article on our new teaching series on the serve we looked at the role of the legs and the advantages of using a platform stance. Now let’s turn to a related topic which is body or torso rotation in the service motion.

By body rotation I mean how far the hips and shoulders rotate back away from the ball in the windup and then how much they rotate forward to the contact point. The platform stance makes creating rotation simpler and this is true at any level. The right stance allows this rotation to develop naturally and automatically...it also lets players experiment with the simplest to the more advanced variations. There are a wide variety of options depending upon your level and your preference. So let’s look at how the torso moves and suggest a range for you to experiment with and incorporate.

As with so many technical issues in tennis when we look at the top players we see a huge range of options when it comes to the amount of body rotation, the timing of the body rotation and also the stances that the players use to generate this rotation.

John Isner starts with a very wide stance but with his shoulders actually open, he drags his back foot up in an extreme pinpoint stance but he has very little torso rotation away from the ball and is virtually open with his shoulders at contact. Rafael Nadal starts with a much narrower stance but also with the shoulders open, he also drags his foot up but as his foot moves he actually turns his hips and shoulders away from the ball and back in the opposite direction from the way the foot is moving. From this position when he rotates forwards his shoulders are still partially closed at contact.

Once again if we look at Roger Federer his serve provides a much simpler model. A model which actually generates more rotation than either Isner or Nadal and better yet creates this naturally and automatically in a way that can be copied by players at all levels.

How? The magic key is in the stance by this I mean the precise and positioning of the feet at the start of the motion. This is best understood by first focusing on the ad court. Notice that Federer’s front foot is almost parallel to the baseline, his feet are spaced about shoulder width apart or possibly a little more. Note two critical points...the toes of the back foot are offset to Federer’s left so that the tip of the toes are basically in line with the heel of the front foot. The back foot is also turned slightly away from the baseline with the toes angled back towards the rear of the court at a slight angle.

Why are these checkpoints critical? Because as he winds up, Federer’s torso will naturally turn onto to a line defined by the spacing and angles in the stance. Imagine a diagonal drawn across Federer’s toes...now imagine another diagonal drawn across his chest. As Federer winds up watch how his body naturally turns away from the ball until the line across the chest is essentially parallel with the line drawn across the toes. This body turn coincides closely with the maximum point in the knee bend. From here the explosion is automatic and tremendously powerful. As the legs uncoil the hips and shoulders naturally rotate forward maximizing the energy from the lower body and all of this is simply a consequence of the loading that occurs with the turn and the knee bend ready to be unleashed by the motion of the swing.

Notice at contact the angle of the shoulders. They are roughly in the middle of the rotation and still contributing to the generation of racquet head speed. This rotation pattern also naturally increases disguise...watch how much harder it is to read the position and direction of Federer’s racquet than a player with much less body rotation like Juan Martin Del Potro in the critical instance before contact.

To experiment for yourself, start with the simplest possible starting alignment. This is with your front foot parallel to the baseline in the ad court and your rear foot spaced about shoulder width. Initially the toes of the rear foot should also be parallel to the baseline and not turned off at an angle. Now, make sure that you are starting with your shoulders perpendicular to the net...this simple stance will give you the feeling for what it is like to rotate ninety degrees through the motion with the contact point somewhere in the middle of the range of torso rotation. This adjustment alone should add significant power to your serve while reducing the amount of effort with your arm and hand. As you become comfortable you can experiment with a somewhat offset stance. Align the tip of your rear toes with roughly the arch of the front foot as a first step. Now turn your rear toes back towards the rear fence opening them slightly to the baseline. Practice your windup without the ball...notice that when you begin the windup and and drop your weight your shoulders will naturally turn onto the line parallel with the line drawn across your toes. This is a less extreme version of the Federer stance but something many club players can easily master and with amazing results.

If this becomes comfortable the next experiment would be to push the stance further to the Federer model with the rear foot offset further lining up with the heel of the front foot rather than the arch. These stance adjustments increase body rotation proportionately on a sliding scale. Peter Sampras for example turned his rear foot more towards the baseline at about a 45 degree angle...with this he rotated away from and back into the ball significantly more than even Federer. If you are a high level player you can experiment with more extreme stances but be realistic as they require more flexibility, strength and are difficult to time.

A final note...although the same principles of rotation apply in the deuce court most players adjust the stance by opening the front foot more to the baseline and sometimes decreasing the offset angle of the rear foot as well. This aligns the body turn with the actual line of the shot.

So that’s it for developing body rotation in a platform stance serve. Next second serve...let’s see how to use all of the components we’ve looked at in the series so far to develop an amazing, reliable and highly effective second serve no matter what your level.