The Serve: The Rotations in the Upward Swing

[johnyandell]

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

[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

[seano]

Agree 100% Kyle

[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

[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?

[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!

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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?

[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.

[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.

[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.