FiveFrameSwing
Banned
Notice his back knee driving down and forward in unison with his back elbow driving down and forward. This forces the front hip to move, but not the front shoulder because of the skeleton. The front and back shoulders are not one solid bone as the front and back hips are. If the hips were separate the front hip would act as the front shoulder does with less movement at initiation.
Also, notice how quiet his head is!
Jim, I like your description here. Personally I view the knee action as a ‘result’ of the rear leg uncoiling and the extraction of ground reaction forces. IMO the observation of the back elbow lowering, in conjunction with this action, is key.
I don’t believe Softballphreak believes that the hips open magically … and that he understands the use of the rear leg and backside. The video is pretty clear … in terms of rotational movement “towards” the pitcher, the hips lead both the shoulders & hands. That is, the hips will be seen rotating in the direction of the pitched ball prior to the shoulders rotating in the direction of the pitched ball … and also prior to the hands moving forward towards the pitched ball. I believe the concern Softballphreak had with your comments was a perceived notion that this was not happening in your viewpoint. The ‘coil’ and ‘uncoil’ leading to this has been discussed somewhat frequently … as has the concept of throwing, or powering the swing, from the backside.
As for the head movement … it is quiet. My earlier comment here was that a goal of being perfectly quiet is not necessarily a good goal and I posted some videos that reviewed when head movement should exist … which I thought you seemed to agree with. I believe where we disagreed was the approach … you preferred to see head movement worked on directly as a goal, whereas I preferred to see it treated as a ‘result’ and have the ‘cause’ worked on directly instead.