A New Year's Serve

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More than just "Interesting."

There is a chance that this is an example of one of the best tennis lessons ever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zm9RJk15ljQ

On the other hand, Mencinger is arguing, "Do exactly as I say." I can remember Vic Braden saying the same thing. And then changing all of his ideas on the subject, whatever it was, ten years later.

But you can sense Mencinger improvising here, not sticking too closely with the lesson plan when he comes up with the comment about his student's head. And even the first thing, where the student straightens his arm unbidden, might lead some teachers to forget the lesson plan, to take everything in a new direction.

Every teacher makes this kind of decision a hundred times a day, and I certainly admire the way Mencinger insists on his focus for both teacher and pupil. But I could understand another teacher going in a different direction, too-- abandoning everything.

Most lesson plans, though not Mencinger's, are carried out with Gallwey's "10-cent computer" as opposed to the billion dollar computer we all have under the other one and behind it. One can get into the good computer unexpectedly sometime if one is willing to improvise.

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Throwing the Dice on Centrifugated Drives

Forehand: Upper body turn becomes what remains of my old unit turn which wound my hips backward too soon. Arm takes about six inches of independent motion at the same time.

Backhand: One starts from forehand grip. Flying grip change then is fairly low, creating racket head momentum toward outside height before that height is attained. Upper body turn has again replaced old unit turn or become the new unit turn.

Foot motion was worked out before. Thinking about that right now would be a mistake.

This however can be stated: Open one-hand backhands along with the more common neutral and closed variations now become easier to achieve. The outgoing shot path from these one-handers tends to be naturally high with ball likely to plunge and bounce high again. The shot is beautiful enough so that if one only hits it once in a match, somebody might comment, thus reminding you that you hit it, and if you hit it once you can hit it twice.

Note; My thumb is neither wrapped nor extended up big flat section of the handle. It is extended but on a diagonal, with its tip bracing the lower pointy ridge.

The subject of how a fast forehand is braced should be similarly discussed. Extended forefinger looks vulnerable, but central force is absorbed longitudinally by rod of arm (the forearm), which is pointed ahead and shoving toward the net and beyond.

If centrifugal force is like a Christmas gift to an old player it should be a gift of effortless added power for any player. One simply needs to synch reversing and continuous hip rotations with arm work happening then.

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The Best Tip on Serving Ever: "Record yourself." Combine it with "Know thyself?"

If I had trouble learning to press the red button on my phone, you can imagine that some time still could pass before I succeed in posting one of my videos in this thread.

I have a Moto z2 Play phone. Some of the commentary I've read on that phone suggests that moving a video to YouTube could be tough. I shall persevere. It's just that I'm devoting any spare time I have right now to upgrading my serve by myself and doing it my way.

Which means getting my elbow as high as the elbows in the Tennis Player TED or Triceps Extension Drill in this Chris Lewit article:

(https://www.tennisplayer.net/members..._the_kick.html)

The racket is positioned in buttscratch position, the arm and racket held all the way down. The elbow points at the sky.

This is where I fail in my serve no matter what motion I adopt or invent (and I have tried many).

The videos I'm making are clear demonstration that when I think I'm raising the elbow, I'm leaving it where it was or even lowering it.

Regardless, my available length of runway is short, and the speed of whatever upwardness of spin I achieve is nothing to write home about.

To put myself in a posture line right now, my shoulders are not square. My right shoulder slopes lower than my left. The shoulder housing is lapsed. I was born that way. The housing is more flexible than most but weaker, too, more loosey-goosey, but I am not at 78 years of age about to start serving with my left arm.

What have I learned, or if not learned, theorized?

That when elbow does get up to where it ought to be, it gets there slowly and with backward motion that in no way will contribute by itself to racket head speed.

So I set up my tripod and record my serves. Then I take a selfie of myself reflecting on how the serves came out.

They were low elbow serves once again.

Result: Frustration with a capital "F." Well, can I use it? Andy Roddick, the kid, used his frustration to come up with the serve he did.

What I tried after two separate filming and immediate film watching sessions right on the court today: Hands fall together. There is the hint of a pause, of dead stick from billiards down there.

Middle finger now takes crumpling arm straight up with elbow rotating up and over all the way.

The serves seemed better. But I only tried this after the filming was done. Will compete with the crumpled pattern tomorrow. And record again.

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My New Serve, which I Haven't Tried yet, will be like the Cog Railway on the southern side of Ootycamund.

The train goes this way, then that way, in rhythmic traverses to take its passengers down a huge cliff into the seething humanity of India.

I almost did hit this serve yesterday, out of frustration with my trick shoulder, which for eight decades has condemned my serving to be a low elbow circular affair.

But these few attempts yesterday had not yet busted loose from down together syndrome.

The two hands did go down together. But they won't stop together any more. The toss arm will stop while the hit arm passes it by, only to reverse and come back at it then continue up using big joints to the full as toss arm goes up too.

Then, to top all, I will have saved backward bod rotation. Performing it now will keep the toss arm up. I expect the zing of a good topspin serve.

4414-- a special number.

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My New Serve, which I Haven't Tried yet, will be like the Cog Railway on the southern side of Ootycamund.

The train goes this way, then that way, in rhythmic traverses to take its passengers down a huge cliff into the seething humanity of India.

I almost did hit this serve yesterday, out of frustration with my trick shoulder, which for eight decades has condemned my serving to be a low elbow circular affair.

But these few attempts yesterday had not yet busted loose from down together syndrome.

The two hands did go down together. But they won't stop together any more. The toss arm will stop while the hit arm passes it by, only to reverse and come back at it then continue up using big joints to the full as toss arm goes up too.

Then, to top all, I will have saved backward bod rotation. Performing it now will keep the toss arm up. I expect the zing of a good topspin serve.

4414-- a special number.

Nope, didn't know myself. Coyote and the road-runner once again. Result: low elbow serves. Next experiment. Hands go down together and slightly split to designated spots. The speed at which they go down is irrelevant so long as it's plenty slow.

Now the hit arm slowly rises while pointing all the while at the net. The elbow MUST get high this way-- no? One tosses with full vigor as elbow is near its apogee.

Relaxed, the hit arm bends slowly as toss arm finally heaves the ball up to a level twice as high as usual. Relaxation and full vigor, simultaneous-- quite the challenge. Now the toss shoulder is high, which means the elbow came down, but still is high relative to the hitting shoulder, i.e., didn't give up an inch of its high position.

From slightly bent arm you start the fast part of the serve. That means more bending along with twisting of that arm and all of it fast. The exhalation or shriek you make is simultaneous with the triceptic extension, which again is as fast as you can make it. But slant of the shoulders meanwhile has reversed. In a classical serve rather than a bunny hop, this reversal of slant, I would submit, comes from right leg screwing up on its toes as front leg and whole left side stiffens while staying in contact with the ground.

Note: Designated spot for hit hand when both arms have dropped is out toward the net thus giving it a head start on its upward travel. But, of course, and we're trying to be truthful here, when you factor in bod rotation, the rising racket ends up pointing to the right, say, in rough direction of the netpost.

Note 2, appended later: If "the speed at which they (the hands) go down is irrelevant," why drop them very much at all? One can use the same rocking (if one rocks) but just reduce the hand motion to a small waggle, vertical. In fact, I think (although everything as always will have to be worked out), the two hands can remain linked through first part of backward bod rotation before the hand with the racket in it takes off. The two hands falling together could equal the two hands rotating together-- the two distances could be the same.

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To the Court

Djokovic is playing his first round match. Is watching that what I really want to do? No, better to go to the court. Don't want to find myself serving tomorrow with a motion I haven't even tried.

But don't think I'll take my tripod with me. I'll save any filming for a couple of days.

Lessons or tennis tips emerging from this session:

1) Toss twice as high

2) Stick with everything. You'll succeed at last.

3) Film later.

And had plenty of time to watch the match thanks to the Hungarian winning the second set.

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I need Hedy Lamarr to tell me how to upload a serving video to my computer from my phone via Bluetooth (which she apparently invented), but she is dead. (https://www.google.com/search?q=hedy...hrome&ie=UTF-8)

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Heights of Elbow, Water and Literature

From the announcers at the U.S. Open 2018 one hears a lot about height of elbow when serving.

Me, I wanted to describe my new serve as a count of three. No, it has to be four, at least for the time being. For the elbow is still low at the end of count one. Rising but still low. On two it can travel an equal distance to an apogee behind the bod. Overlap of count three (the toss) and count two (up to apogee behind you) seems likely, but toss is a count of its own (count three). Someday one and two may become a single count, but only after the low elbow habit is forever broken.

Toss on count two, not count one, please. The service motion will be slower. But with the same basic design.

Which is, right arm first, left arm second, and a big swish of racket behind one's neck as part of the big conclusion. In evaluating all this, we can ask, what's the use of starting out with a low elbow if you won't get it up? What's the use of bending the arm when it can already be bent and produce at least as good a serve? What's the use of complicating a motion if the complication doesn't add anything positive? What's the use of bending knees when they can already be bent?

Notes on literature and Fyodor Dostoyevsky: NOTES FROM THE HOUSE OF THE DEAD reveals that all prison life is the same always. The most important idea in THE IDIOT is that you can can tell children anything and they will understand. DEMONS is deeply revealing of Dostoyevsky's reversal of social viewpoint and the seething reformist ideas that characterized Russia for a full hundred years before the "Ravolution."

Brief description of the action of A GLASTONBURY ROMANCE by John Cowper Powys: A lot of water comes up the Bristol Channel and floods England.

Powys' running lecture on Dostoyevsky, which convinced his wife to marry him, is, in book form such a collector's item that it costs hundreds of dollars.

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Finger Pressure on Last Day with the Geezers

They move inside. Me, I stay outside for another month. So this will be the last day for me of playing in the Grosse Pointe Senior Men's Tennis Association until next summer. And I want to do something special. What it will be: From first stroke of the day a more conscious use of finger pressure per Dennis Ralston volleys but applied to McEnruefuls (which are stay down imitation of the John McEnroe forehand stroke).

From the end of September I will play with another seniors group in another indoor club-- was just invited by the former City Manager of Grosse Pointe.

Review: The summer was very good. The best forehands I've hit have been strong eastern bowl balls with centrifugation learned on line from Tomaz Mencinger at "Feel Tennis." And I'll hit more today but not at the beginning of the two hours. As I say, it's return to McEnrueful time.

Always strive to be more unconscious, right? Wrong! Go with more awareness of finger pressure to determine direction of the McEnrueful finesse shot.

This shot is opposite philosophy from the Mencinger-King bowl balls. There, the forehands are hit with early coin edge slot drop so that contact is extreme looseness of grip so that all firmness comes from natural biomechanical position of wrist which is fully laid back with additional springboard of forearm muscles built in. Very different. With "abandon" or letting go very possible.

When wrist is straight, the firmness must be supplied by you, not by biomechanical design. With more conscious awareness of what the fingers do.

Note: From Chris Evert's coverage of U.S. Open 2018 one can deduce that she has very fine estimation of Dennis Ralston, her old coach. And here or there or both is Dennis Ralston speaking about finger pressure as a key component of a great volley. This, it seems to me, is not a usual matter of discussion by other coaches anywhere.

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Addendum

The way I try to develop this feel or talent is simply to hit a few dinks off one bounce at a bangboard.

Finger pressure can be left as sole determinant of direction of the outgoing shot.

Ironically, if each shot is combined with a little peanut butter jar (lid) opening of the racket face, one's power volleys soon become more powered and one's finesse volleys more finessed.

Report: Applying the finger pressure principle to McEnrueful forehands did not prove particularly successful (but might at a later date). I wanted to win so went with bowl ball topspin forehands with fingers flared at the end...like Mencinger's nephew compressing a tennis ball and rolling it along a bench.

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Addendum

The way I try to develop this feel or talent is simply to hit a few dinks off one bounce at a bangboard.

Finger pressure can be left as sole determinant of direction of the outgoing shot.

Ironically, if each shot is combined with a little peanut butter jar (lid) opening of the racket face, one's power volleys soon become more powered and one's finesse volleys more finessed.

Report: Applying the finger pressure principle to McEnrueful forehands did not prove particularly successful (but might at a later date). I wanted to win so went with bowl ball topspin forehands with fingers flared at the end...like Mencinger's nephew compressing a tennis ball and rolling it along a bench.

Avoiding too much Categorical Thought

As in, "All YouTube tennis instruction sucks." While this generality holds some water, if there are 80 billion instructors out there, 8 or 10 of them are apt to be pretty good.

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Ha & Ta Went up a Hill

All tennis players want a good serve. We should be interested therefore in what other people try. But we frequently are not. The following service concept is for the minority of tennis players who have a trick shoulder.

Ha = hitting arm.

Ta = tossing arm.

Ha and Ta went up a hill. But Ha went first. Once Ha was at the top, both Ha and Ta became very quiet. Ha, at the top, and Ta, at the bottom, kept their silence in common.

They waited for the hill to shift to its right.

When the hill shifted, Ha came down a little. No surprise there. But Ta came up a little. Amazing. Ta must have been stuck on a lower slope. When the lower slope came up, so did Ta. Put another way, Ta was no longer at the bottom despite being low.

Now Ta continued its acceleration upward as Ha's utter relaxation allowed the racket she carried to fall from gravity alone.

Nice story but time to play tennis. The serve from then on was ordinary except that the racket fell back toward the bod simply because of the original placement and setting of Ha's elbow: Very high, above the shoulder, with arm almost straight so as to increase the length of the downward slanting Fall path.

If there was a person involved in this story, a person with any humanity, he or she felt very weird, as if about to vomit a rabbit.

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Centrifugated Ground Strokes

The present version, which works, consists of three core elements turning within the arm and racket unit, which, although free-wheeling and independent, always is made to lag: 1) backward shoulders, 2) backward hips, 3) forward hips.

Can same effect be produced with two elements instead? Backward rotation of shoulders, after all, is bound to pull the hips with it.

Outside inside straight is a mantra to enable the arm to whip.

Pictorial form is a racket laid on the court with its stalk or handle pointed at the net.

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Using the Denseness of Computer Technology to Improve one's Serve

There is one word to say when one wishes to place a video on YouTube as one has done before, along with thousands or millions of other persons.

One word to say when one's particular phone seems to make this transfer overly difficult.

"Good!"

Now one will view the before and after videos in solitude.

Now one will concentrate on service mechanics rather than computer mechanics and human animosity and bias. ("Guilty till proven innocent," I always say.)

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The main building block is that racket fall (all of it) is matched by staggered leg extension and cartwheel (all of it). Both "alls" are of the same duration.

So there is a generality meant to apply to all serves no matter who performs them.

When we come to bypass of a trick shoulder however it seems that the two hands should not start together.

Otherwise, the trickiness will never allow the elbow to get high enough for an effective serve to occur.

I propose therefore to start with hitting arm in fully straight and yardarmed position.

The down of glass holding toss hand then is performed alone.

The up of down and up serve initiation however is performed again by both arms. The left arm, assisted by muscles between shoulder and hip, is so pro-active and vigorous (unless one wants to say "violent") that ball rises a mile high and upper arm touches left ear, there to stay for the seemingly next ten minutes.

The right arm, kept straight, goes from horizontal to vertical in the same period. This puts the racket way up there.

Although using the muscles between left hip and left shoulder started the arch, more arch is administered by hip thrusting toward net now and both legs bending as if readying themselves for a high leap record (although highness is something this server does not want).

Was toss high enough to accommodate this? If so, the left upper arm is still touching the left ear. As ball slowly starts to arc and fall. As hitting arm slowly and delicately bends a small amount.

Now the serve begins.