The Serve: The Rotations in the Upward Swing

[gzhpcu]

What particularly interests me is the start of the swing leading to the racket drop.
PS. How avoid the waiter’s serve

[doctorhl]

Clear and concise explanation by Dr. Gordon. The complexity reinforces two things for me:

1. The importance of the student’s willingness to learn the sequencing correctly as a beginner, even if some ball speed is initially sacrificed. Joint vibration is a good indicator of improper sequencing that students ignore. Adding the lower body sequencing obviously adds to the complexity. After Dr. Gordon discusses lower body mechanics, it will be interesting to note forum members’ thoughts on how and when to integrate lower and upper body mechanics with ball toss timing thrown in to complicate things!
2.Those of us adults with years of improper service mechanics and who want to learn the modern serve, will have to pay specific attention to shoulder flexibility/ strength, particularly with the external/ internal arm rotation motions required as new patterns are learned.

[bottle]

Third choice: Square it.

https://www.tennisplayer.net/members/strokearchive/golden_legends/panchogonzales/panchogonzales.html?PGServeFront1.mov

[gzhpcu]

Let me put it another way....

[seano]

Things I don't like about gzhpcu's video -
1)Never mentions the lower body involvement, at all. Doesn't load the back leg and no leg, hip involvement or weight shift.
2) Don't like where the strings are pointing in trophy position or racquet drop. Would prefer strings pointing at us in trophy and at a 90 degree angle to the torso (too much forearm supination?)
3) Would like tossing arm higher after ball release with elbow in line the the shoulders.
4) Racquet goes to far over left shoulder blade in racquet drop. Should stay over right shoulder blade. When this occurs with a student. I'll stand behind student and align my racquet with the left shoulder blade and tell student to serve without touching my racquet.
My 2 cents.

[bottle]

Can Somebody Else Jump In?

Probably not. But I had already written the following post when I discovered this. I put it here now rather than at A New Year's Serve. And think the elbow in the video is too high. How can grizzly bear swipe or forearm sickle bar or adduction combined with abduction happen if upper arm is so far up at end of the racket drop?

Brian, a question for the racket drop. On the backswing should one think of keeping the palm down and external shoulder rotation to get a good racket drop?

Brian: "gzhpcu - external rotation yes, palm down no (implies too much supination)."

Great Exchange

This topic fascinates me. I call it palm down, palm up or palm square. I know I'm not supposed to think about stroke technique so much but do anyway. Because it fascinates and inspires me, sometime even during a match.

As this morning when I was determined to raise my ha a few more inches. I had been playing better than usual and was feeling just a little pleased with myself (dangerous!) and so, almost by impulse, decided to take my ha up more than a few inches, yea, all the way to the clavicles.

My ta, meanwhile, drunk on newly authorized speed, was vigorously straightening to the side and swirl-hooking all the way to high point in the sky, all the way to a vertical having released the ball upward somewhere along the curved path.

To summarize, both arms went out, straightening (but ha opened to square at the same time), then rose extremely much, the ta by four feet, the ha by two feet or two-and-one-half feet if measured at racket tip.

What happened next, I'm pretty sure, is that ha and whole rest of bod finally bent as ta swirled a bit more from 12 to 11:30 o'clock.

Where in the world would somebody get an idea like that? Perhaps from watching high speed video of Roger Federer. He starts with palm down, then high over his head pushes both hands sideways, which manages finally to open ha to palm-and-strings-square (or even beyond!?). (https://www.tennisplayer.net/members...1%20500fps.mp4)

That's not for me. My palm squares on the down of downtogether uptogether. Still, once the hands are up high, they also perform in tandem.

ha bends while ta moves from 12 to 11:30 . The hands have drawn closer together.

[gzhpcu]

Brian, so you do not agee with this?

[BrianGordon]

gzhpcu - external rotation yes, palm down no (implies too much supination).

stotty - workshops sound interesting and informative.

ferli001 - glad to hear the explanation helped your serve - thanks for the shout out.

[ferli001]

I just want to thank Dr. Gordon for this fantastic explanation and demo with his student. I am an average player and have been working on teaching myself a higher level serve. This video with its repeated demonstrations of the position of the hitting arm and elbow --is so clear. The "bend at the elbow" has been my quest, the ever-mysterious holy grail -- and for once, without using that specific terminology, I can understand what to do. Thank you and I can't wait to hear more about the coordination. I have to say that with only a few days of shadow swings at home (and with a clear mental picture of what I want --now) I served with such an increased power today just by trying to imitate the video. Best wishes, from a nerdy amateur.

[bottle]

I hope he wouldn't disparage it. But can he play tennis like us? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYmiffPMUho)

[gzhpcu]

I wonder what Roger Fereder would make of our conversation....

[stotty]

Posting students progress has always been one of favorites aspects, and you have been a leader in this regard. Do it.

I will. I have a perfect candidate with who I am struggling to resolve a serving issue.

It might be a week or so before I do it. I am doing my Level 5 at the moment, which is the highest qualification in the land and takes a fair bit of work and focus. Between doing this and my usual coaching work, I will give some thought to uploading my first formal workshop on Tennisplayer.

[bottle]

Catnip

I can't see why any sentient player exposed to Brian's upward rotations sequence would not start miming it immediately,

I mean, you want to get it out of your brain and into your arm as soon as possible, right?

Very likely, you already performed some of the rotations but not all of them, so make yourself (myself) a camera-less movie of the whole string looking up from your back? (Old country western song: "I've got tears in my ears from lying on my back in my bed crying over you.")

The direction of things will be disturbingly different once you stand up, but a person has to start somewhere and one's bed is more comfortable than the floor.

My preppie yearbook entry as opposed to that of Brett Kavanaugh: "Life is one long journey to bed."

If you can't perform the Macro sequence in 12 seconds, 9 seconds, 5 seconds, 3 seconds, 2 seconds (you have a stopwatch in your phone which is with you at all times in your bed, right?) how are you ever going to get to .1 second?

But one wouldn't want to arrive at .1 second too soon? Without proper discussion or at least contemplation of each one of the seven deadly sins all by itself?

False premise: This course of action will lead to paralysis by analysis-- the centipede will slowly list to the side and expire from not being able to move to a glass of water.

Won't happen if you keep the .1 second throw in mind at all times?

Well, the single brain impulse for this might have to build from three mph to 275 mph, and, as the experts have told us, this will take ten years or 10,000 reps.

SUPPOSEDLY!

What if you already conditioned five of the seven rotations, omitting two? Now the 275 mph neuronal passage will take sixty years and six trillion reps to achieve.

Better to go ahead and do your best, starting right now?

An item you are very likely to have neglected is the shoulder (banking) and free elbow lift. Concerning item number six, "ulnar deviation," a term Brian successfully avoided this time, it seems to me that if free elbow has new prominence and utility, it's going to fly somewhat to the inside.

This is going to add to other turn.

So that ulnar deviation now becomes an unimpeded chop. (Sorry but I have to think this way.) And the wrist is still extended but won't stay that way long.

A possibility for humility here is Buddha-like acceptance of two scientific terms for wrist movement. They are "extension" and "flexion," reversed from common sense.

[bottle]

Brian, a question for the racket drop. On the backswing should one think of keeping the palm down and external shoulder rotation to get a good racket drop?

Brian's answer will be more interesting than mine. And anybody's answer will be more interesting than mine since I have thought about this too much-- to the point that I am bored with my own thought.

There's the whole school that everything should be palm down. I won't call it the Braden school since lots of other people have thought that too. You get more of a natural inside outside loop, right? But I remember being blown away the first time I read John M. Barnaby's RACKET WORK; THE KEY TO TENNIS, and there's Barnaby suggesting some opening out of the racket by the right shin since the loop, though it works for many, is unnecessarily complicated and the racket could go more directly down. Then Paul Metzler suggests doing it both ways. Then people like Raonic and Isner come along with racket face already way open at address.

In examining the TP videos of Kramer, I've come to the conclusion that he opens out a little but not much.

But has there been sufficient discussion for ordinary players like us by the tennis world of this subject-- palm down, palm square, palm up and where or when? Hardly.

[gzhpcu]

Brian, a question for the racket drop. On the backswing should one think of keeping the palm down and external shoulder rotation to get a good racket drop?