Last night I had to the opportunity to spend 5 hours with the 4 girls of "The Packaged Deal."
For those of you who don't know who they are, Google is your friend.
Before I start, I offer this disclaimer: for those of your who are insatiable when it comes to technical content and get aroused by terms like pronation, supination, adduction, external roation, internal rotation, the SCIP axis, scap loading, and barrel turning this is not the clinic for you to attend. In fact, if this description fits "you" read no further...That is not to say that they don't understand that aspect but if you have the opportunity to attend their clinics don't expect them to use the esoteric and\or bio mechanical terminology that is used regularly on these forums.
So I'll go through each of the sessions...each clinic had 30+ girls in it and it was run at a local indoor facility on a field that is roughly 100x100 so there was plenty of room.
Hitting:
Katie Schroeder is the lead in the segment and started the session out with a "matrix" type drill. Katie is loud and captivating. There were 2 great points she made: demonstrating how to load and stride at the same time. This was eye-opening for most of the girls. The other point was keeping the rear elbow tight or what you here would call a stacked "V." Would this be eye opening to those of you who relish in debate in the hitting forums? No. However there were plenty of girls who got benefit out of this.
They broke out into stations from there and low and behold there was no 90* or 45* SnF drills, stork drills or tip and rip drills...<sarcasm font on>OH THE TRAVESTY!!! <sarcasm font off> Pardon the sarcasm but these 4 ladies aren't glued to the hitting forums. The drills were fairly basic and focused on resistance (my words\interpretation, not theirs). There was 1 drill that I did like with regards to the lead arm function. This station was run by Morgan. Understand that I am not keen on 1 arm drills with a bat because the feel of these movements change when the second hand is applied. This drill had no bat involved...no I won't share...you want it, go to the clinic
(unless they want to share here - yes they observe here).
If I had one thing I would add if I were them - it would be a station that focused just on "attitude in the box" like Amanda's video below. Each of their segments started with a talk on the mental aspect and I think some time on this would have been worthwhile for the students IMO.
Fielding:
Morgan ran this segment and started out with a great speech on "playing catch." Did she talk about Wasserman's water bottle drill or creating resistance or Howard Kabota and momentum? NOPE. Was the content the same? Pretty darm close IMO. Her and Jen proceeded to play catch - CORRECTLY and stopped to communicate some of the points they are focusing on while JUST playing catch. Eye opening to the girls and even some of the coach observers too!
On to stations...good stuff! Nothing earth shattering here but fun, fast moving drills with the right amount of intensity. Many of the girls seemed to have never been exposed to these types of stations. This was my favorite clinic. I wish I had a chance to talk to Morgan to pick her brain a bit but she was busy working with the kids.
Pitching and catching were done simultaneously so I split time between the 2...
Pitching:
Amanda's speech to start the segmant centered around being a leader and leadership. It was concise and spot on. Frankly, if her speech was all you got out of the segment you got your money's worth.
2 parts of the pitch were of focus: drive mechanics and posture. For the pitching tech folks, no talk of I/R or brush interference or bio-mechanical movements or whatever...watching her demonstrate the drills was impressive...smooth as silk!
If you plan on attending this clinic, you need to understand that Rome was not built in a day. There was nothing I heard in relation to the arm circle or throwing the ball. I thought Amanda, Katie and the assistant coach from Mercyhurst did a good job of keeping everything on track and keeping the focus on posture and leg drive.
She had a great drill that encompassed lean, leg drive and overlap...
One little note...towards the end of the clinic, Amanda "barked" a bit at the one group about lack of effort and focus (they were totaly slacking LOL). She was all fired up! It's clear that she is passionate about what she does...loved how she referenced back to her leadship speech while making her point about effort and their lack of...
Catching:
I did not get to hear Jen's opening speech here...I'm hoping a friend of mine captured it on video...
Jen runs this and she is LOUD and MOTIVATING and KICK rear. She is very much the same instructor "live" as what you see in her YouTube videos. Hard hitting, intense, non-stop.
IIRC EricF was disappointed in form correction when he and DD attended but I didn't see that here. I thought given the quantity of girls and the time allotted this segment was great and form correction was made without completely disrupting the flow of the drill for the other participants.
Overall:
From the coaching perspective I thought it was worthwhile. I spoke mostly with Jen and Amanda and both are very engaging when I talked with them. I think they could add a "coaching segment" to this to show coaches how to organize and run a practice. They moved 30+ girls around with no problem while I'm sure many of you see coaches (or you are coaches) who struggle to direct 10-12 girls during a practice.
There wasn't one student or parent who I talked (before\during\after a given clinic) to who didn't think this was a great experience...Lastly, one of the questions asked at the end was "when are you coming back?" and honestly, at the end of the day that speaks volumes for the "product" they offer.
CP
For those of you who don't know who they are, Google is your friend.
Before I start, I offer this disclaimer: for those of your who are insatiable when it comes to technical content and get aroused by terms like pronation, supination, adduction, external roation, internal rotation, the SCIP axis, scap loading, and barrel turning this is not the clinic for you to attend. In fact, if this description fits "you" read no further...That is not to say that they don't understand that aspect but if you have the opportunity to attend their clinics don't expect them to use the esoteric and\or bio mechanical terminology that is used regularly on these forums.
So I'll go through each of the sessions...each clinic had 30+ girls in it and it was run at a local indoor facility on a field that is roughly 100x100 so there was plenty of room.
Hitting:
Katie Schroeder is the lead in the segment and started the session out with a "matrix" type drill. Katie is loud and captivating. There were 2 great points she made: demonstrating how to load and stride at the same time. This was eye-opening for most of the girls. The other point was keeping the rear elbow tight or what you here would call a stacked "V." Would this be eye opening to those of you who relish in debate in the hitting forums? No. However there were plenty of girls who got benefit out of this.
They broke out into stations from there and low and behold there was no 90* or 45* SnF drills, stork drills or tip and rip drills...<sarcasm font on>OH THE TRAVESTY!!! <sarcasm font off> Pardon the sarcasm but these 4 ladies aren't glued to the hitting forums. The drills were fairly basic and focused on resistance (my words\interpretation, not theirs). There was 1 drill that I did like with regards to the lead arm function. This station was run by Morgan. Understand that I am not keen on 1 arm drills with a bat because the feel of these movements change when the second hand is applied. This drill had no bat involved...no I won't share...you want it, go to the clinic
(unless they want to share here - yes they observe here). If I had one thing I would add if I were them - it would be a station that focused just on "attitude in the box" like Amanda's video below. Each of their segments started with a talk on the mental aspect and I think some time on this would have been worthwhile for the students IMO.
Fielding:
Morgan ran this segment and started out with a great speech on "playing catch." Did she talk about Wasserman's water bottle drill or creating resistance or Howard Kabota and momentum? NOPE. Was the content the same? Pretty darm close IMO. Her and Jen proceeded to play catch - CORRECTLY and stopped to communicate some of the points they are focusing on while JUST playing catch. Eye opening to the girls and even some of the coach observers too!
On to stations...good stuff! Nothing earth shattering here but fun, fast moving drills with the right amount of intensity. Many of the girls seemed to have never been exposed to these types of stations. This was my favorite clinic. I wish I had a chance to talk to Morgan to pick her brain a bit but she was busy working with the kids.
Pitching and catching were done simultaneously so I split time between the 2...
Pitching:
Amanda's speech to start the segmant centered around being a leader and leadership. It was concise and spot on. Frankly, if her speech was all you got out of the segment you got your money's worth.
2 parts of the pitch were of focus: drive mechanics and posture. For the pitching tech folks, no talk of I/R or brush interference or bio-mechanical movements or whatever...watching her demonstrate the drills was impressive...smooth as silk!
If you plan on attending this clinic, you need to understand that Rome was not built in a day. There was nothing I heard in relation to the arm circle or throwing the ball. I thought Amanda, Katie and the assistant coach from Mercyhurst did a good job of keeping everything on track and keeping the focus on posture and leg drive.
She had a great drill that encompassed lean, leg drive and overlap...
One little note...towards the end of the clinic, Amanda "barked" a bit at the one group about lack of effort and focus (they were totaly slacking LOL). She was all fired up! It's clear that she is passionate about what she does...loved how she referenced back to her leadship speech while making her point about effort and their lack of...
Catching:
I did not get to hear Jen's opening speech here...I'm hoping a friend of mine captured it on video...
Jen runs this and she is LOUD and MOTIVATING and KICK rear. She is very much the same instructor "live" as what you see in her YouTube videos. Hard hitting, intense, non-stop.
IIRC EricF was disappointed in form correction when he and DD attended but I didn't see that here. I thought given the quantity of girls and the time allotted this segment was great and form correction was made without completely disrupting the flow of the drill for the other participants.
Overall:
From the coaching perspective I thought it was worthwhile. I spoke mostly with Jen and Amanda and both are very engaging when I talked with them. I think they could add a "coaching segment" to this to show coaches how to organize and run a practice. They moved 30+ girls around with no problem while I'm sure many of you see coaches (or you are coaches) who struggle to direct 10-12 girls during a practice.
There wasn't one student or parent who I talked (before\during\after a given clinic) to who didn't think this was a great experience...Lastly, one of the questions asked at the end was "when are you coming back?" and honestly, at the end of the day that speaks volumes for the "product" they offer.
CP
