Theoretical Practice

Welcome to Discuss Fastpitch

Your FREE Account is waiting to the Best Softball Community on the Web.

Oct 31, 2012
8
0
Hey! I am looking to try something new this winter. I want to have practices that are dedicated to theory. Teaching the game from a different angle. Have any of you done this before and what were some of your practice material?
 

Greenmonsters

Wannabe Duck Boat Owner
Feb 21, 2009
6,168
38
New England
Situational hitting.
Pitch calling/sequencing.
Positional responsibilities.
Bunt coverages.
First and thirds

Divide the players into offense and defense and discuss their options, strategies, moves, and counter moves.
 
May 4, 2014
200
28
So Cal
What age grup have you found these to be effective? Im not sure these would be effective for 10U and under and Im not even sure about 12U... how long have these "theoretical" practices lasted? I find anything above 5 minutes and you lose the 12U girls.. 1 minute and youve lost the 10U - how have you done these and kept the level of focus/interest there?
 
Dec 5, 2012
4,143
63
Mid West
Situational hitting.
Pitch calling/sequencing.
Positional responsibilities.
Bunt coverages.
First and thirds

Divide the players into offense and defense and discuss their options, strategies, moves, and counter moves.
I've done this a few times when the sky opens up in the middle of practice. We went into the dugout and simply discussed our positional responsibilities based on different scenarios...
 
Oct 30, 2014
292
18
Seattle
I actually think this can be effective at any age...in conjunction with physical practices of course. Obviously, the age, attention span, and softball IQ of the players should be taken into account while planning these practices.

Younger teams can learn basics of the sport through conversation, games, and small classroom style competition. EX: 2 teams have a whiteboard (or even a piece of paper) and teams race to see who can first/correctly draw defense positioning for different situations like "grounder to left field, runner on second." I like to make sure all players know the basic of keeping score with position numbers and all that. Classroom time is also a good time to explain the how/why of drills to start challenging young players to think of practice time as a time to really improve specific skills. Its easier to do that when they aren't distracted by the bats or gloves in their hands. This way they know what they're doing when they get on the field and physical practices become more productive. Change it up often with these guys and let girls each have a week where they can bring in a cheer to teach the team or something else exciting.

Older teams can benefit from some of those things as well but also its a good time to start mental toughness, situation hitting and pitch calling (its ok for non pitchers and catchers to learn this to think about it from a hitters perspective). Talk about being good leaders and teammates and how they can improve in those areas. Other ideas would be to bring in a nutritionist or spending time talking about the recruiting process.

Like I said, its not a good idea to have months of theoretical practices without physical ones as well but they can have a big impact on teams of all levels when done correctly.
 

ItsJustAGameCoach!

Softball Sponge
Dec 7, 2014
48
0
Surprise Arizona
I think it is an awesome idea. I would rather work with an athlete that knows the game they are playing and teach them to play, then have an athlete that can make the plays, but doesn't know what to do when they get the ball or when on the baseline. With the younger girls I have started teaching the game during fielding drills, even if it takes a few minutes away from "practice."
 

marriard

Not lost - just no idea where I am
Oct 2, 2011
4,312
113
Florida
So this has a tendency to be boring and frankly in team practices I have fundamentals to work on as a higher priority... that is not to say not to do it, just that it gets boring quickly if you do it on the field or dedicate a lot of practice time to it.

We do it as homework. We present scenarios and ask them to come to the next practice with how they would handle them. We then discuss at the beginning of practice. No more than 10 minutes of practice time.

We also ask them to watch a game or part of a game on tv/on the internet. It is surprising how little softball or baseball our players watch which is why we do need to cover the simple scenarios for many of them. We ask them to concentrate on a couple of things they should pick up in an inning or two of watching.

In the end, a lot of what they learn strategically they learn in games. Best way to learn situational tactics and play. Lots of scrimmages and intra-squad scrimmages which we can pause and go through what happened and the best way to handle it.

(e.g. last week we had all 9 players in the infield to have a play at home in a tied game, runner on third, 1 out and bottom of the last and then moved them back on 2 outs - we discussed afterwards why we did what we did)
 
Feb 21, 2012
117
16
If you have a white board, you can draw out scenarios and have the players come up and draw the play. I have not done it, but would love to.
 

ItsJustAGameCoach!

Softball Sponge
Dec 7, 2014
48
0
Surprise Arizona
So this has a tendency to be boring and frankly in team practices I have fundamentals to work on as a higher priority... that is not to say not to do it, just that it gets boring quickly if you do it on the field or dedicate a lot of practice time to it.

We do it as homework. We present scenarios and ask them to come to the next practice with how they would handle them. We then discuss at the beginning of practice. No more than 10 minutes of practice time.

We also ask them to watch a game or part of a game on tv/on the internet. It is surprising how little softball or baseball our players watch which is why we do need to cover the simple scenarios for many of them. We ask them to concentrate on a couple of things they should pick up in an inning or two of watching.

In the end, a lot of what they learn strategically they learn in games. Best way to learn situational tactics and play. Lots of scrimmages and intra-squad scrimmages which we can pause and go through what happened and the best way to handle it.

(e.g. last week we had all 9 players in the infield to have a play at home in a tied game, runner on third, 1 out and bottom of the last and then moved them back on 2 outs - we discussed afterwards why we did what we did)

I really like the idea of homework. I think that I might start trying to draw up fielding situations and see how simple I can make the explanations to get as many as on one page as possible. If I come up with a good set of situations, I might keep adding to them so that I can share them.
 

Staff online

Forum statistics

Threads
42,830
Messages
679,477
Members
21,445
Latest member
Bmac81802
Top