Your strokes ball toss

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My Serve 7

A writer aspires to a situation where whole sentences effortlessly pare themselves away. An architect might be glad to get rid of the albatross of a flying buttress, I should think. As a tennis stroke designer, I'm pleased to say I just eliminated the three to six inches of independent arm travel I've been rhapsodizing about.

Yes, the Gonzalez to Kramer, Mark Papas-inspired downward spiraling racket
fall from the center of the back is so smooth I had to ask, "Why ever do anything else?"

The first reason would be that the racket, in next rising up from the elbow hinge into trophy position may finally be less than edge on to the ball depending on stance and amount and kinds of body rotation.

This supposition can be remedied later by a conscious, muscular, outward turning of the forearm precisely at the moment one pre-loads the rotor muscles in his shoulder.

This decision offers a sensor by association for Brian Gordon's "pre-load"
(see "The Serve Back swing: The Upper Body" for pre-load animation). One can't feel muscles twisting forward when upper arm is still twisting backward unless one is REALLY SENSITIVE, but one can definitely know that the forearm is turning out, even in the midst of high-speed, athletic flap. So one simply teaches oneself: "Forearm counter-pronating or cocking means the shoulder rotors are pre-loading and vice-versa." You use something you can feel to make sure a zenlike thing you can't really does happen.

Additionally, in the Murphy system depended upon here, the elbow is rising naturally as it twists back. So you will consciously "scratch the back of the person next to you" (Braden) while the elbow is still going up independent of
gross body which is also going up.

I think a video sequence from an old VHS tape is germane here. It is of a Braden instructor looking unbelievably relaxed and smooth, throwing up a ball and hitting it with his open hand.

The hand goes edge on and then at the last instant palms into the ball. The arm straightens centrifugally from nothing but rotor muscles in the shoulder.

I could spend an hour digging out the dusty cassette, rearrange wires, maybe get the thing to play. If I did, it would be to see if that instructor first started during the toss with palm somewhat toward the ball, then gets his hand edge on while still going backward.

Anyway, that's what I was doing yesterday, hitting a ball with my hand into the chainlink fence, when an advanced player, Asian, came up on the other side, walking into my line of site, surprising me, a total stranger.

He seemed impressed.

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8 and 9

He or she who has limited backward shoulder rotor range definitely wants to be a server who arches the back. Every inch you arch lowers the racket head a corresponding amount.

This means, in my case, loosening up on my recent pronouncements ("rules") about wind-down.

The reason Mark Papas of the website "Revolutionary Tennis" wants us only to arch half of the body (the right "wing") is his conceptual rejection of the Vic Braden idea of baseballing back during the toss.

Papas' is a neat idea for keeping front shoulder stabilized at this crucial point; but, if one keeps the baseballing slow and gradual, one can compensate for it precisely by arching both wings at the same time.

One can be dropping right arm a bit, also at the same time. Since much is happening at once each different element can move more slowly.

This principle extends, in my mind, to the "baseballing" itself. Instead of worrying, "Should I rotate hips or upper body more now?" wind each but together, slowly, and continue this even during the slight forward motion off of the back foot that occurs just before lift-off.

In my narrow, flat-footed version, I believe I can get a more symmetrical and comfortable knee-bend this way, and I have suspected for years that late wind-back also lowers racket tip in addition to that offered by total body bend occurring at the same time.

But an almost philosophical problem announces itself. As one introduces more backward body rotation into the serve, along comes a temptation to stand less tall at the address and to wind directly down on the knees.

This more gradual knee-bend, starting earlier, won't lead to premature leg-driving if it is identified by the backward spiral.

The serve then may have no neutral body position in it. The backward rotation may flow seamlessly into double-legged thrust, which rolls the body more like a vertical than horizontal wheel.

This is a different serve by now, with a different rhythm to be worked out--
probably one for down-and-up of toss, two for continued spiral down, three and four for assumption of trophy position coincident with body bend and small forward motion that loads the back foot, which fires (FIVE!) into the serve.

Both legs may fire at once but the back one goes farther before the front
foot rearranges itself in the air. Back leg is predominant but front leg carries more weight.

A persisting myth which I have sometimes subscribed to is that great athletes are never good at understanding the intricacies of what they do.
Exceptions include the Ted Williams' batting book and Roger Clemmons and
Don Sutton on pitching in a New Yorker article appearing a decade ago.