The Serve: The Rotations in the Upward Swing

[stotty]

Sounds great, Brian. I will reread your Tennisplayer articles in the meantime...to make sure I am completely up to speed in my understanding. Ultimately my goal is to translate this kind of stuff into making it happen with my students, and while I understand in most cases there are no silver bullets, it would be great to see how you and others on the forum go about making good technique happen.

[BrianGordon]

As usual I appreciate the support from TP network - thanks. The theme of many good observations seems to be this video is rich in "what is" and short on "how to".

Quite true but it is one of a few videos to come. As I try to understand a stroke, and as important, devise methods to teach what I have learned my approach has been to reverse engineer the process.

This comes out in my work and coaching. In this case it is hard to develop teaching methods if one does not understand the ultimate goal. The rotations in the upward swing are the goal. My point was to describe the goals and admit that it is impossible in most cases to work on this sequencing directly.

I've found though that most of the upward swing rotations can be developed by focussing on other more controllable factors leading up to the upward swing. So... now that the complexity of the goal is (hopefully) understood I will explain how I attempt to impact upward swing rotations indirectly through these other factors - I believe 3 more videos will cover this attempt.

If at the end of that questions still linger or I did not adequately explain something I'll try to fill in the gaps. Thanks, BG

[gzhpcu]

Brian, could you also please cover how to get to the position at 2:00 of your video? The start of the backswing leading to the racket drop. Questions like palm down, degree if grip tightness, etc. whether abbreviated or full swing less, just the biomechanical commonalities leading to a good racket drop.Thank you.

[10splayer]

The video walk thru is great. I think it's what most coaches need and my understanding of the serve has certainly been increased because of it.

However, as a coach - and I speak for many of us not educated too deeply in physics - one of the biggest requirements is being able to set things up so that the sequences happen correctly, and also having the skills and intuition to identify and correct a flaw in the chain if there is one. Coaches need to know how to fix things, and having a good understanding of the underlying mechanics of a serve significantly helps but by no means guarantees that.

I'm glad Brian thinks the serve is complex because I get tired of people saying it's easy. I think the serve is extremely complex. It looks simple when you watch a good serve but fault-finding and putting things right when faced with a defective serve can be a riddle. I lot of coaches must struggle because there are plenty of performance juniors out there with not too good service motions.

What we need here are workshops. I have often toyed with the idea of starting work-in-progress threads and uploading videos of emerging performance juniors I teach. The only thing that stops me is a few rogue posters in the past have been abusive. I do think workshops are the way to go, though, with assistance/guidance here and there from expert people like Brian, John, Chris Lewit, etc....and not to mention the expert forum posters, of which there are quite a few.

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

[stotty]

The video walk thru is great. I think it's what most coaches need and my understanding of the serve has certainly been increased because of it.

However, as a coach - and I speak for many of us not educated too deeply in physics - one of the biggest requirements is being able to set things up so that the sequences happen correctly, and also having the skills and intuition to identify and correct a flaw in the chain if there is one. Coaches need to know how to fix things, and having a good understanding of the underlying mechanics of a serve significantly helps but by no means guarantees that.

I'm glad Brian thinks the serve is complex because I get tired of people saying it's easy. I think the serve is extremely complex. It looks simple when you watch a good serve but fault-finding and putting things right when faced with a defective serve can be a riddle. I lot of coaches must struggle because there are plenty of performance juniors out there with not too good service motions.

What we need here are workshops. I have often toyed with the idea of starting work-in-progress threads and uploading videos of emerging performance juniors I teach. The only thing that stops me is a few rogue posters in the past have been abusive when I've posted clips. I do think workshops are the way to go, though, with assistance/guidance here and there from expert people like Brian, John, Chris Lewit, etc....and not to mention the expert forum posters, of which there are quite a few.

[bottle]

Seven Rotations in One Tenth of a Second-- I've Heard that Seven is a Lucky Number

For one tenth of a second this video is comic too. But quickly morphs into something to be watched a number of times and is very serious to somebody like me.

I won't say "dead serious" since I don't want to skew the future results of my work.

But I don't see some of this as anyhing but educational and intellectual information-- no wonder so many magnificent jocks do not and cannot master it.

Did anyone besides me ever read the New Yorker article where Roger Clemens, Don Sutton and Mike Mussina (if I remember all three correctly) discussed their pitching mechanics? Or consider some of what Ted Williams wrote about batting? Much more heavy mind work than any "which way to the beach?" type jock could ever admit.

I hope I'm not coming across as irritably argumentative-- not how I feel. The one example I'll cite here is the part where Brian endorses passive over active arm extension at the elbow.

How can anybody do anything significant with his or her serve if she hasn't put this basic question to rest? For decades I've heard equally passionate argument on both sides. There simply, however, cannot be any doubt!

[gzhpcu]

Explaining it makes it seem very difficult. Great servers are naturals and get it right without much coaching. Some of the events in the chain automatically lead to the next step, I would think. Probably setting yourself up correctly in the racket drop position would help you through the correct motion along with the image of the impact point uowards. When you add legs, torso, etc. it really is complex. Wouldn’t John’s visual tennis approach help here?

[lrdavis]

enjoy Dr. Gordons great explanation of this critical aspect of the serve. but where to begin on improving? As John Yandell probably would suggest slo-mo video and see where the major rotations occur in the sequence and go from there! LDavis 4.0 Iowa

[seano]

Agree 100% Kyle

[klacr]

This is good! So good. Brian Gordon delivers this with such confidence, expertise and innate knowledge of the material. Great to see the visuals. Tennis geek heaven right here.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[johnyandell]

Let's discuss Brian Gordon's article on "The Serve: The Rotations in the Upward Swing"