Your Strokes: Alan 1st and 2nd Serves

[johnyandell]

Would love to discuss "Your Strokes: Alan 1st and 2nd Serves"

[ferli001]

Hi John, thank you so much for this article! I find it very helpful to read your analysis side by side with the images of Alan's motion and to think about ways I can improve my own serve. I wonder if you could explain a bit further whether you see a difference between an abbreviated motion and starting the serve from Brian Gordon's probation position? I have been practicing the latter, but if"probation" is what you call an abbreviated motion then I also would be limiting my racket drop also and would be better off with a full motion? But perhaps you don't mean the same thing when you say "abbreviated"? Susanna

[johnyandell]

No Brian's probation position is great and doesn't impinge the drop! As Brian himself says a full motion might add racket speed but only if the timing between the upper body and lower body remains synched. So if it's working I would stay with it. But you might want to check your drop on video.

[klacr]

This article is John at his best. What a wonderful problem solving tutorial. Great job to Alan for his willingness to make this evolution and improvement in his game.

Kyle LaCroix USPTA
Boca Raton

[ferli001]

Thanks John, will do!

[andersonjc]

Hey John, One other thing that is limiting Alan's kick is that he is squaring his hips and shoulders too early before contact, something which counteracts his ability to continue with the upwards and outwards swing path required for maximising the kick. He has to rotate his left hip more to the right on the bend (see BG's videos), and use the uncoiling of the body 'whip' to project the racket upwards through the drop, rather than dissipating some of the coiled energy in an early rotation, i.e. up more than around, and up first before around. So explode up first with the legs through the drop and release, make contact when the shoulders are at just less than a 90 degrees angle to the baseline (see Roger), and then complete the rotation of the shoulders and hips only after the racket contact. This will kick the ball a meter more to to the right, give it another 3 feet of height and cure his right leg problem, which is needed to counterbalance his over-leaning to the left because he over-rotates.

[johnyandell]

Good input!

[stotty]

One of the things I like most when working with players is when they themselves flash on an image that turns out to be an active key.

A great article. And I agree with John. It's good practice to encourage students to find their own 'learning cues' because they will be invariably better than that of the coach. Some coaches have a hard time getting their head around this concept but it's true.

Another useful thing when working on a student with something like this is to only work on it for so long. Once the student starts to 'get it', let them practice it for a while...then stop. Don't work too long past that eureka moment because most students will become over enthusiastic about achieving more...too soon. Let them practice it for a while then work on something else...then go back to it 20 minutes later.

There's an art to working on technical things like this with students. It involves coach intuition and skill. It's what separates good coaches from those not so good.