Can't find any brush instructors

Everyone here thinks that brushing the hip or thigh is an absolute, and necessary for all kinds of things, coming from RP teaching. It does not come from BHH teaching, as he says the belly. I have not had one brush pitcher come to my HS teams in 15 years.

Plus I can only find ONE video in about 12 I looked at today that mention the topic, including well respected coaches and former players such as the Candrea videos. This ONE video has a woman teaching the brush, but is also teaching stuff you can tell is from the 1980s or something, looks like step style.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zdmFgUHAZE

For example, here is a modern instructor getting the kids NOT to hit the hip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUGXyUAxSIM

So please explain why this technique is getting recycled.

See any brush here with Kirkpatrick?

Out in Left Field said:

Everyone here thinks that brushing the hip or thigh is an absolute, and necessary for all kinds of things, coming from RP teaching. It does not come from BHH teaching, as he says the belly. I have not had one brush pitcher come to my HS teams in 15 years.

Plus I can only find ONE video in about 12 I looked at today that mention the topic, including well respected coaches and former players such as the Candrea videos. This ONE video has a woman teaching the brush, but is also teaching stuff you can tell is from the 1980s or something, looks like step style.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8zdmFgUHAZE

For example, here is a modern instructor getting the kids NOT to hit the hip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUGXyUAxSIM

So please explain why this technique is getting recycled.

Click to expand...

Surprising comment from someone who regularly speaks in terms absolutes. Candrea on pitching? Seriously? It appears the brush concept either at the hip or belly is lost on you. You may wish to have it explained in detail.

Looks like Monica is committing an unpardonable sin--she's brushing her hip.

Ueno didn't get the "You're not suppose to brush your hip, girl!" memo.

Notice what happens at 0:36

Can someone please notify Scarborough that she shouldn't brush her hip?

The reason it I think it is an absolute is because ALL of the best pitchers I see do it and do it consistently. That is my definition of an absolute. The best 5 pitchers in the world today all do this. The best five IMO are Ueno, Abbot, Cat, Gascoigne and Ricketts. The list of brushers is much, much longer but I have reviewed extensive video of all of these 5 and they all brush and they all do it consistently, not just on one type of pitch.

Add to this the fact that when I try to pitch, I get extra speed and control from a brush and this is enough for me to call it an absolute for top level pitching. It is not an absolute to be a good pitcher but is to be a great pitcher. Girls can make it though HS and most college ball without it but why not just do what the best do? You are going to put in the same number of reps, might as well use the technique that is going to give you the best results.

I do not consider it as much of an absolute as IR because if you don't use IR you are going to be lucky to be a mediocre high school pitcher but IMO it is one of the most important basic mechanical considerations.

As for not having one brush pitcher, I would say that you probably have, your fastest, most accurate pitcher probably used a brush, you just never used slow motion video to detect it. Sometimes I think my DD has stopped doing it but when I look at the slow motion video it is there. As pitchers get faster it gets pretty hard to detect because it is probably only in contact for .01 of a second (since a good arm circle takes about .3 to .4 seconds I think this is a reasonable estimate).

If you have any clips of good past pitchers go ahead and post one and I can slow it down and we can see what is going on.

I think if you open your mind to this one you might be surprised what you find.

As a follow up I would like to know why you are so against it? Clearly your injury argument gets weaker by the day as I am watching a 31 year old Cat just destroying the Racers in a replay of the NPF champ game 1 as I type this and she has been really durable as are Abbot and Ueno. They brush so much I am surprised the ball doesn't come from behind their back.

Out in Left Field said:

I am looking at teaching videos. I don't know who that pitcher is or when he pitched. Clearly people did it back in the day. It looks like it hurts to do it. Actually quite shocking to me and I have been around softball a long time.

But if the topic was so critical to pitching success (velocity, spin, control as is said here), how come not one modern lesson out there brings it up (not counting RP posts here)? How come I can't find this concept in other sports?

Click to expand...

Ummm, I doesn't hurt!

If you've been around softball so long, how did you miss Abbott, Ueno, Scarborough, and even Hillhouse brushing their hip??? Maybe you weren't paying attention to that.

thanks for furnishing the clips Doug.

JJsqueeze said:

I think if you open your mind to this one you might be surprised what you find.

Click to expand...

That's a huge request, JJ.