Not to diminish DFP's influence and these young athlete's hard work and accomplishments,
but...
I'm not sure how useful any comparison videos that span more than 6 months or so can be,
if the "before" vids are of 8-12 year olds? I say, because no matter how good the instruction,
at least some (any many might say "a lot") of the improvements we see can be attributed to general maturity and "body awareness".
The knowledge gained from participating in this forum certainly doesn't hurt!
But there is also a long history of great pitchers that somehow "figured it out on their own", (despite sometimes hurtful teachings!)
without the benefit of the knowledge and analysis tools that we have at our disposal today.
So my point is: comparing the improvements of a 14 yr old pitcher with 3 years of "DFP training" to when she started at age 11,
may not be as attributable to learning from this forum as you think?
Sure, "doing it the wrong way - only better" is somewhat of an oxymoron; but historically, some gifted athletes do evolve from poor mechanics on their own - somehow. What DFP really does, IMO, is guide a greater number of pitchers toward potential greatness; and hopefully cut their learning curve by 1/100th.
but...
I'm not sure how useful any comparison videos that span more than 6 months or so can be,
if the "before" vids are of 8-12 year olds? I say, because no matter how good the instruction,
at least some (any many might say "a lot") of the improvements we see can be attributed to general maturity and "body awareness".
The knowledge gained from participating in this forum certainly doesn't hurt!
But there is also a long history of great pitchers that somehow "figured it out on their own", (despite sometimes hurtful teachings!)
without the benefit of the knowledge and analysis tools that we have at our disposal today.
So my point is: comparing the improvements of a 14 yr old pitcher with 3 years of "DFP training" to when she started at age 11,
may not be as attributable to learning from this forum as you think?
Sure, "doing it the wrong way - only better" is somewhat of an oxymoron; but historically, some gifted athletes do evolve from poor mechanics on their own - somehow. What DFP really does, IMO, is guide a greater number of pitchers toward potential greatness; and hopefully cut their learning curve by 1/100th.
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