How do you teach them to catch a ball? (Rec League)

When I teach beginning Rec Ballers to catch, I tell them to stand sideways and I call this position their, "Skinny Self". While the Rec player is in her skinny self position, I stand in front of her and put myself in my skinny self position and use my right hand to mirror her left glove hand and show her how her glove will move to catch any ball that comes in her direction.

I will tell her that by putting herself in the skinny self position that she is giving the thrower the smallest target to hit when throwing and that she is in the smallest position to get hit, if for some reason, she doesn't catch the ball.

I will then soft toss several balls to the right of person catching, having the girl perform a backhand catch. I will then soft toss several balls to the left of the girl so that she has to roll over her glove to catch the ball and then I will soft toss several balls at the girl, where if she maintains her skinny self position, she well backhand catch those balls, also.

I encourage the girls to catch the ball where they can both see their glove and the ball. I want the girls to watch the ball into the glove and discourage the girls from stabbing at the ball.

When the girls are warming up their arms at every practice, I put them in their skinny self positions to catch the ball because I want them to at least know how their gloves are supposed to work. From the skinny self position, I don't have to worry about beginning Rec Ballers turning their palms towards the sky when attempting to catch a ball that is throw directly at them. The glove just doesn't work that way out of the skinny self position.

My daughter learned to catch in group pitching lessons with 12" incrediballs. After a few classes of getting hit with the balls she learned to catch. Lol.

PC - What age is the girl in the videos? I guess I'm surprised by the disparity b/w her catching and throwing skills.

My suggestion would be to find some balls that do not hurt as much as softballs, try whiffle balls to start. When DD2 was learning to play softball we were throwing in the driveway and a ball got up over the top of her glove and hit her in the nose, causing both nostrils to bleed, effectively ending her softball career at 8U...

If you working with a team or a group of young girls don't have them throw to each other at first...have a coach or parent throw to them. Even one coach with a small group is better than girls throwing to girls when they are first learning.

Gags said:

PC - What age is the girl in the videos? I guess I'm surprised by the disparity b/w her catching and throwing skills.

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She was 8..tish... Spring of 2nd grade. I started with teaching her to catch @ 4... and mostly in the house.... She played T-Ball w/ the boyz 5-7. Went to rec... played up one year @ 2nd grade, in the 3rd - 5th grade Division... Started on throwing overhand / pitching day after Championship She could throw underhand.

Perfect Circle said:

It started with sock ball... Tennis, wiffle...ect 4yrs old -8yrs old. At 8yrs old I stated throwing only to one side same height... have her move out to get it... But when I started to teach her to throw, I found that it was better for me to learn to "throw underhand" & to her from then on. It took some time for me...I got good at it at the same pace she learn to throw overhand......Everything underhand ...Its batting Practice...

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Your DD has come a long way.....

She was the worst overhand student I have EVER seen.... before or since... I got so frustrated I had her take 19 2hr. lessons from a friend...

I got 100G HD video of her throwing like this... she could always get it back to pitcher though....

I'm going through this now with my DD.

We tossed a hacky sack around on the couch a lot as someone else mentioned earlier in this thread. She had a lot of trouble with balls bouncing off the hand in the beginning, so the hacky sack was perfect with how it collapsed into her hand without bouncing.

I was really surprised at the difficulty she had making the jump to catching with a glove on. She was getting good at catching tennis balls barehanded in the backyard, but seemed to forget everything when she put a glove on. It was almost like when she put a glove on, she expected it to automatically catch the ball and would stop moving her hand to the ball.

I've coached Rec for about 4 years and have had a girl off and on who historically tended to drop more balls in her glove/pocket than the average girls. Of course she is not real athletic and I just always chalked it up to lack of skill and interest (second year 12U).

This past weekend at a rec tournament, I had her sitting and my assistant wanted to warm up the pitcher between innings. AC grabs her glove to go out and can't get his hand in it. Turns out her thumb was actually collapsed shut and she had her thumb in the index finger, index out the hole, and the rest in the right spot. As a result, she wasn't closing the glove.

So make sure your kids all have real gloves and wear them correctly. This was one I did not see coming.

(Disclaimer - Girl in question is RH and I am LH so I have never had occasion to have her glove on!)