Thoughts on instructor advice re: 12 yo serve

[gdeangel]

I was watching my 12 yo in lesson practicing her serve, and it was apparent to me that she was planted dead in the ground with her feet. Her toss starts out fine, with feet spaced and back foot braced more or less parallel to the baseline. However two things I noticed:

1) Rather than drive off that planted back leg to uncoil the upper body, at the top of her toss, she is merely pivoting the back foot so both front and back feet are parallel and facing the net. To me it looks wrong.

2) Both feet are still the same distance apart at the contact. I usually think of bringing the feet together and moving the center of mass forward to create forward inertia and a dynamic position that prevents you from "holding" and swinging with the arm, and compels you to release the legs / lower body earlier to initiate the jump.

Her coach said he was happy with what she was doing, and that transferring weight to the front leg by bringing the feet together would make it harder for her by over-stressing the front knee.

Does her coach's approach sound right? Am I within the norm for solid technique development to tell her to stop pivoting her back foot at least, and instead uncoil from the hips and torso?

 

[ChaelAZ]

It is worth discussing with the coach to understand their plan. I had my son with a few different coaches over the years aside from his main coach, just for other eyes on things and advice for me.

 

[SinjinCooper]

This is Pat Dougherty, of Bollettieri/IMG fame. Has worked the serve with many of the best juniors in the world. This is him instructing a talented junior in what he calls, "The Cylinder Drill."

Platform position...

Finish...

Why? Because by taking the legs out of the equation, he can work on upper body mechanics until they're solid, at which point adding in the lower body actually accomplishes something. Adding stuff like leg drive and hip extension before upper body service mechanics are rock solid is a waste of time. 99% of people get nothing out of their legs when they serve. That's conservative. Probably needs a few more decimal places. Point is, learn upper body first, lower body after, so you can learn how to connect the two in a way that accentuates the upper body's motion, rather than hampering it.

Does that mean this is what your coach is teaching? No. Might be, might not. Ask him.

Does this mean he knows what he's doing? No. Might, might not.

But there are good reasons for teaching the serve in a way that sounds suspiciously like what you're asking. Pat's got a number of videos up on youtube that'll explain the concepts in detail. If you can spare sixty seconds to look them up, and ten minutes to watch them (strongly recommend: "Serve Doctor's Cylinder Drill," and, "Top's Serve Arsenal"), you'll be well-positioned to ask your pro questions.

 

[ChaelAZ]

"Serve Doctor's Cylinder Drill,"

The simplified version is much better than his long versions.

 

[SinjinCooper]

The simplified version is much better than his long versions.

It's also very different, however. That's a step after the cylinder drill proper, so not necessarily a way for the OP to understand what the coach is having his daughter do. The "spring" is a way of beginning to understand how to integrate lower body mechanics in a way that accentuate the upper body's motions. That won't come up on Pat's curriculum until after he's satisfied with the student's progress in the cylinder.

It is, however, a great stepping stone to a high-level pinpoint serve. OR, an excellent stopping point if it's working well enough.

Huge Pat fan, in case it's not clear.

 

[Limpinhitter]

The simplified version is much better than his long versions.

Upper body rotation and kinetic chain. When women knew how to serve:

 

[CJ Tennis]

Content not available.

 

[Ash_Smith]

^^^ That's a bold statement given that you only have one line to go on, one which may or may not have been a direct quote or taken out of context.

@gdeangel I agree with @ChaelAZ - have a chat with the coach and get a sense of why they are doing what they are currently and how they see the serve developing - what are the future steps? Only then will you be able to make an informed judgement.

 

[coupergear]

This is Pat Dougherty, of Bollettieri/IMG fame. Has worked the serve with many of the best juniors in the world. This is him instructing a talented junior in what he calls, "The Cylinder Drill."

Platform position...

Finish...

Why? Because by taking the legs out of the equation, he can work on upper body mechanics until they're solid, at which point adding in the lower body actually accomplishes something. Adding stuff like leg drive and hip extension before upper body service mechanics are rock solid is a waste of time. 99% of people get nothing out of their legs when they serve. That's conservative. Probably needs a few more decimal places. Point is, learn upper body first, lower body after, so you can learn how to connect the two in a way that accentuates the upper body's motion, rather than hampering it.

Does that mean this is what your coach is teaching? No. Might be, might not. Ask him.

Does this mean he knows what he's doing? No. Might, might not.

But there are good reasons for teaching the serve in a way that sounds suspiciously like what you're asking. Pat's got a number of videos up on youtube that'll explain the concepts in detail. If you can spare sixty seconds to look them up, and ten minutes to watch them (strongly recommend: "Serve Doctor's Cylinder Drill," and, "Top's Serve Arsenal"), you'll be well-positioned to ask your pro questions.

Great discussion. Yeah speaking from personal experience I messed around with leg drive and knee bend for a long time basically wasting my time because my fundamentals and my upper body and torso rotation pronation and contact point sucked. I was arming the ball, still do--work in progress.

OP so the idea of holding off on incorporating the lower body is certainly sound as per the cylinder drill and Dougherty progressions suggested above. Not clear your coach is arriving at this for the right reasons--I agree that the front leg pressure comment seems suspect.

So I guess keep watching and listening at some point yes leg drive will need to be incorporated.

Definitely look through those Dougherty progressions I think he mentions some of the key touchpoints he likes to see in cylinder before incorporating lower body. He goes through in detail with several students if I recall.

Put your daughter on video and put it out here. Getting different sets of eyes on a stroke can help identify issues. You may have to sort through some of the chaff but I believe there is expertise on here that is golden.