DH's and my weekends are pretty open right now. DD is out with a back injury and DS is out with a broken collar bone so suddenly DH and I have a lot of time on our hands. DH wanted to work on his own hitting, so he asked me to feed the pitching machine for a few hours. I complied, then, thinking that hitting looked like a lot more fun than feeding the machine, asked for a hitting lesson.
I learned that I can put the bat on the ball while swinging "my way" - which is really really bad - pretty much everything that you coaches can think of that is wrong with a swing - I did that. DH then taught me the "right way" - I won't go into the technicalities which I can't even begin to describe, but I'll just generally say "the right way" - as in, a swing that looks like the GIFs that are posted of actual, real baseball and softball players.
Hitting the ball "the right way" is really hard. I must have swung and missed 50 times. Truly. I wanted to go back to "my way", and said so. DH implored me to keep trying, and at about the 70th swing, I actually made contact. After about 20 more swings, I started to make REALLY GOOD contact - like hitting it to the fence! Woohoo! I can now hit 50 mph pitching like nobody's business. 55 - not so much. After hitting 5 in a row off the hands I cried uncle. We cleaned up the field and called it a day.
Here's the epiphany: it is tempting to let a strong, athletic youth player hit the ball "her way" if she can muscle it past the infield and make it to first base. You may try to teach her proper mechanics, but she'll get frustrated. She won't articulate this to you the way a 40 year old wife will to her husband. She'll just be frustrated and may quietly try to sneak back to doing it her own way. Don't let her - watch her like a hawk. Use tons of positive praise as she swings and misses hundreds of times. Eventually, if you MAKE her stick with it, she'll connect "the right way" - the feeling is wonderful. The first time I really got one on the barrel - it felt like nothing - like I was hitting a ball made out of air. I couldn't believe it as I watched the ball sail to the fence.
So that's my epiphany. I thought I'd post it here because a lot of coaches, who have been swinging "the right way" for 30 years or more, may not remember how hard it is to learn. I think it was a helpful exercise for DH to teach me how to hit. I learned how hard hitting is (parents: don't wonder why your kid struck out - wonder how she hit it at all) and DH learned how it can be really hard to teach hitting at first, but that they WILL get it eventually, if they are MADE to stick with the proper mechanics.
I learned that I can put the bat on the ball while swinging "my way" - which is really really bad - pretty much everything that you coaches can think of that is wrong with a swing - I did that. DH then taught me the "right way" - I won't go into the technicalities which I can't even begin to describe, but I'll just generally say "the right way" - as in, a swing that looks like the GIFs that are posted of actual, real baseball and softball players.
Hitting the ball "the right way" is really hard. I must have swung and missed 50 times. Truly. I wanted to go back to "my way", and said so. DH implored me to keep trying, and at about the 70th swing, I actually made contact. After about 20 more swings, I started to make REALLY GOOD contact - like hitting it to the fence! Woohoo! I can now hit 50 mph pitching like nobody's business. 55 - not so much. After hitting 5 in a row off the hands I cried uncle. We cleaned up the field and called it a day.
Here's the epiphany: it is tempting to let a strong, athletic youth player hit the ball "her way" if she can muscle it past the infield and make it to first base. You may try to teach her proper mechanics, but she'll get frustrated. She won't articulate this to you the way a 40 year old wife will to her husband. She'll just be frustrated and may quietly try to sneak back to doing it her own way. Don't let her - watch her like a hawk. Use tons of positive praise as she swings and misses hundreds of times. Eventually, if you MAKE her stick with it, she'll connect "the right way" - the feeling is wonderful. The first time I really got one on the barrel - it felt like nothing - like I was hitting a ball made out of air. I couldn't believe it as I watched the ball sail to the fence.
So that's my epiphany. I thought I'd post it here because a lot of coaches, who have been swinging "the right way" for 30 years or more, may not remember how hard it is to learn. I think it was a helpful exercise for DH to teach me how to hit. I learned how hard hitting is (parents: don't wonder why your kid struck out - wonder how she hit it at all) and DH learned how it can be really hard to teach hitting at first, but that they WILL get it eventually, if they are MADE to stick with the proper mechanics.
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I caught for DD once during an indoor lesson. All geared up I looked the same as any other 14 year old girl, except the coaches watching wondered why on earth DD's catcher was so terrible. When I took the gear off and glanced over I could feel their palpable relief as they realized that I was a mom. Yeah, I would have caught for you, too. Just one of those things we moms do.
