Pendulum Serve Tips

Sean Mr. Asked 11 years ago

I just started to adopt the pendulum serve as my primary serve, however, I had some questions regarding the grip you suggest and the ones you demonstrate in the videos. The grip I am using is the modified "handshake grip moving my fingers behind the bat and my pointer finger vertical. 

First question is where does the thumb go?

Second question is regarding the wrist. You say the wrist should snap, but I seem to be missing that in the video examples. it seems like the wrist action is a natural part of the pendulum motion, as opposed to actively making it snap. I ran into some trouble here faulting off a few points today, so I was curious on some best practices to how to think about this.

I definitely need more practice, but any help would be great!

Alois Rosario Answered 11 years ago

Hi Sean,

The thumb stay where it normally would for the shakehand grip.

As for the wrist, you can think about it as being totally relaxed and let it come through with the movement of your arm.

You can also think of it like a whipping action.  So take your forearm back and then quickly change the direction of the forearm to come down.  As long as your wrist is relaxed, this will cause the wrist to snap back like a whip.

Hope this gives you a good picture of what I am talking about.  If not let me know.