House of Pitching: We have lift off!

BRAND NEW SITE FOR BILL HILLHOUSE - HOUSEOFPITCHING.COM

After weeks of testing and tweaking, I'm happy to announce that my brand new House of Pitching is finally up!

Join the housewarming here: Softball Pitching Tips | Pitching Lessons | House of Pitching.

You'll notice the difference right away. I've switched the old red, blue, and gray color scheme with something simpler--just plain black text over a white background.

All pages are mobile-friendly too so you can view the site easily whatever device you're on, whether it's your desktop, phone, or tablet.

I've also cut down the navigation links to the essentials, so you'll find your way around more easily. You'll see that there's just the homepage, schedule, store, videos, news, my bio, and links to booking me as well as free stuff.

Overall, the design is easier on the eye and simpler to navigate.

Site redesign aside, one thing remains the same: you'll still get a wealth of practical lessons, advice, and videos--basically everything that keeps you and countless others coming back for more at the House of Pitching.

I'd like to thank every one of you for your patience in waiting for the launch of the new site. I hope that you like the result of the hard work (and sleepless nights!) my team and I put into this.

After popping the proverbial champagne, I'm going to go back with what I do best, that is, travelling all over doing private lessons / pitching clinics and teaching what I believe to be optimal pitching mechanics to take your pitching up a notch.

Also, check out the site regularly for the new stuff I'm going to share with you. And be sure to drop by the shop for other training tools that will help your training further.

New to the House of Pitching?

If you're new here, let me introduce myself very quickly. I've spent most of my life traveling around the world competing in fastpitch softball. I've since dedicated my life giving pitching lessons to teaching kids, club teams, and national teams in countries like Denmark, Taiwan, Australia, Canada, and Japan.

Now I'd like to welcome you to my brand spanking new house, the House of Pitching. Click on the link to enter: Softball Pitching Tips | Pitching Lessons | House of Pitching.

Bill Hillhouse

This is still my favorite newsletter he ever did:

PCM AGAIN

Welcome to the House of Pitching Newsletter.

In my normal way, I am going to probably ruffle some feathers with this newsletter because I’m going to make reference to my favorite topic: Pitching coach mafia. For those who are new, the Pitching Coach Mafia (PCM) is the name I’ve given to the pitching ‘coaches’ in the world who are teaching all the wrong things. I’ll repeat my rhetoric here that I believe these people are part of a criminal enterprise and should be locked up under federal RICO laws. Listening to what many in the PCM teach as pitching mechanics is about as correct as your daughter’s history teacher telling her that Kennedy was killed with a bow and arrow.

The world is different today vs. when I grew up. And I’m sure when I grew up is different from when you grew up. This generation today is growing up in the “Post Modern Era” and that’s not such a good thing. There are a number of ways to define the post modern era but, one that sticks out to me is the lack of “Truth” in society today. Our society has gone from things being black and white, right and wrong to.. different shades of grey. There is no “right and wrong” anymore, just matters of opinion. Whether you’re talking about Politics, Religion, softball pitching, or almost any topic… it’s become harder and harder to find someone who believes as I do that there IS right and wrong in the world. That’s because people who’ve adapted to the post modern era believe there is no truth anymore, accept what you make for yourself.

It’s because I’m uncompromising about pitching, believing in right and wrong, it’s been said that I’m so intolerant. Even when I question what is being taught to young pitchers today by the more “renowned” pitching coaches and explain (and demonstrate) that NO WORLD CLASS pitchers actually pitch that way, I’m told that I’m an elitist or arrogant by those who aren’t there to see it. We live in a day where there is NO truth. People want to decide for themselves what is true and make their own truth. Let me tell a story:

A man goes to visit his friend, who is a music teacher. He says “What’s the good news for today?” The old teacher is silent as he gets up, walks across the room and grabs 2 items: a tuning fork and a hammer. He struck that tuning fork with the hammer and as the note sounded out across the room, he said to his friend: “That is the musical note ‘A’. It was ‘A’ 5000 years ago, and it will be ‘A’ 10,000 years from now. The soprano upstairs sings off key, the tenor down the hall flats on his high notes, and the piano downstairs is out of tune”. He then struck the fork again and repeated “That is ‘A’ and that’s the good news for today”.

There is a lot of truth in that story. A is A, whether the soprano is off, the tenor is flat or the piano is out of tune. And there is pitching TRUTH whether anyone chooses to believe it. Truth is not up for grabs. But let me give another analogy filled with symbolism:

Say you’re driving along down a country road and you see a sign reading “Dangerous curve ahead”. You’ve got 3 options at that point: #1. Listen to the sign and slow down, #2. maintain your current speed and basically ignore the sign or #3. You can speed up and defy the sign. Those are your 3 options. Either way, it’s not going to affect the DANGEROUS curve. It’s still dangerous, whether you choose to believe it or not. You can floor it and say “I don’t believe that sign” but, the curve isn’t going to change because you didn’t want to believe it.

And this is the same way it is with truth. I don’t make pitching truths or create truths, I simply try to help pitchers discover them. And when people are exposed to the truth, they can either choose to believe it or not. So, when the accusation is made that I am arrogant… understand something. What is true is not my opinion regarding pitching mechanics. Great pitchers all do the same things, with varying styles. So, I’m either an ego maniac for believing in pitching truths or my word should be taken seriously. You decide.

This usually leads to people who ask me: Well what about other pitching coaches? Are they not just as sincere as you are? Do they not sincerely believe what they are teaching is right? How do you answer that? Well, first of all… nobody is denying there are many people devoted to their pitching coach and that person is sincere in what they teach. But, be careful. Sincerely believing something does not make it true! There are people all over the world who SINCERELY believe they are right about something but that doesn’t equal truth. Zacarias Moussaoui who is waiting for his death penalty for his role in 9/11 SINCERELY believes he’s right in his beliefs.

I remember reading a story about a New York hospital a few years ago. The anesthesiologist was using a controlled mixture of Oxygen and anesthesia. He gave this mixture to a patient and soon the tank ran out of oxygen. So, he replaced it with another tank marked “OXYGEN” in bold paint. Immediately, the man immediately died. The coroner’s autopsy revealed that it wasn’t oxygen in that tank, it was carbon dioxide. In all the investigations that followed, the manufacturer denied any wrong doing and nobody could understand how carbon dioxide got into that tank and got past the company inspectors. But, the doctor who administered that gas SINCERELY believed he was giving the patient oxygen. It made no difference what he sincerely believed, the patient died.

Would you trust yourself to a surgeon who had no special training or education but, instead was a very good, sincere person and had interesting ideas about health? Of course not. Why? Because truth is very narrow and whether you live or die under that man’s knife depends on hard facts not someone’s sincere beliefs.

During space flights, we’re reminded how narrow truth is. Whenever there’s a problem, NASA calls in the most brilliant math experts to help with the calculations. Because if they make a mistake, the people in that space craft are catapulted to their death in outer space.

You see, truth is not broad. It’s not a matter of personal opinion. But it is in fact VERY narrow in almost all areas of life. And yet when people talk about pitching softball and what is right/wrong, all of the sudden they say ” The way is broad and there are many ways to it.” But watching any elite pitcher, you’d know that’s not so. The same way that people only want to incorporate certain parts of the Bible into their lives and disregard the other parts because it doesn’t fit their lifestyle, people want to believe some things are true about pitching but not others. It’s amazing.

Whether you’re religious or not, the Bible teaches: The way is very narrow to the kingdom and few are those who will find it. But, the way to destruction is broad and many will go that way. The same lesson could be applied to pitching. Sincerity does not equal truth. Sometimes the 2 are confused.

That’s it for now. Thanks to those who send me updates from games/tournaments, I enjoy reading how everyone is doing and if I can help.

UPDATE: As the owner of the forum, I took the liberty to rename the pitching section to celebrate the launch of Bill's new website for a short amount of time. However, in front of people's reaction to it and discussing with Bill, I have elected to go back to the regular name. I have also deleted any specific post related to this issue.

I'm inviting you to visit Bill's website at HouseofPitching.com

Coach Marc

Perfect Mark. Bill is respected enough here at "Discuss Fastpitch" to have an announcement made in his honor to publicize his new website. I have no problem with that. But renaming this forum as "Hillhouses Forum" because he has a website was an over-step to that end IMO.

If I or Mike for example ever create a website didicated to our own pitching instruction and philosophy I'd hope to have the same honorable announcement, but I wouldn't expect you to rename the forum "Boardmembers Alley"....

Congrats on the new website Bill!

I'd totally subscribe to "Boardmember's Alley"... might even fund it...

I hemmed and hawwed on whether I should reply to this but, I think I should clear a few things up. First, as it was discussed, I did NOT sponsor this site or page so Marc put my site name on there as a promotion for the launching of the new HoP site that he constructed. I am in business with Marc on several ventures and I don't think he expected the backlash.

Boardmember, if you want to have Marc create a site for you and split profits of things 50-50 with him, then I"m sure your site would get the same fanfare that mine did here. So before you criticize Marc for not offering others the same publicity for their sites, you should know this deal with Marc is the first of it's kind where we share profits and his company rebuilt my site from start to finish. If ANYONE, maybe even Hello Elbow coaches, were to make that same deal with him I'm sure he would promote their sites the same way. Marc is a business man, and a very smart one. But, again, I had nothing to do with the name change, I didn't sponsor it, and I asked him to change it back when the backlash hit. But as I said, Marc's company and mine are joined at the hip now with profit splitting on some things so if you wanted to go that route, I'm sure he'd welcome it.

So, come on BM... lets not be Cruz and Trump. Can I have your endorsement?? ha ha

Bill

Which one's Trump and which one's Cruz?

We probably shouldn't go there...

I went onto Bill's website and filled in the feedback/contact form and also sent an email, but never got a response. Is the website operational and is it being managed? I'd like to purchase a DVD, but looks like they are quite similar. My DD is first year 14U and stalled at 55mph because she is not opening fully and closing too soon among a swim glove and rotation of pivot foot at time of drive. We have a coach but need a second opinion with core mechanics working and hoping to get this from Bill's DVD's.. but which one..?

to Findlay, I have sent 4 of my pitchers to Bill when he was in town..."I" paid for those lessons myself...he "is" in "my" opinion, the best coach out there...as for the DVD's I have them all, would recommend them all, but you could start with Pitching 101...it's very good, and, it's sound, from a physical, anatomical perspective...Good luck...