comment on form please

started IR 4 months ago. besides the obvious leap, what should we work on. has worked hard on the leap seems to come and go game to game. any comments welcomed. tried to make it in slow motion hope you can see.





YouTube - slowmo1.wmv

Obviously, your DD is pitching illegally because she isn't dragging her right foot. That has to be fixed.

I made Cat Osterman a rightie and put your DD side by side with her.

The place to start is with your DD at 12. You'll notice that she is up in the air (again, an illegal pitch). But, aside from that, she has her weight distributed forward, slightly over her left foot.. If you look at Osterman, you see that at 12, her weight is over her back foot. So, this problem in your DD's motion gets amplified through her pitching motion.

In the pictures at 9, your DD's weight is starting to move forward, and is now over her front foot. Osterman's weight at 9 is still not as far forward as your DD's weight is at 12.

At 6, your DD's upper body is over her front foot. Osterman's is still centered. Your DD has closed her upper body. Osterman is still mostly open, probably at around 30 degrees closed, as opposed to about 60 for your DD.

Also, note that your DD is "swimming"--she is throwing her glove way out to the left and bringing it down on the OUTSIDE of her leg. The swimming motion makes your DD open up her upper body too early. Osterman slaps the inside of her leg.

You need to also look carefully at the video after your DD releases the ball. She is bringing her right foot all the way around and stepping in front of her left foot.

Pitching is about the transfer of the pitcher's momentum to the ball. The more the pitcher is moving after the ball is released, the less momentum is transferred to the ball, resulting in a slower pitch. So, you want your DD's body to be very, very "quiet" after release. Take a look at the Sarah Pauly video--her body is so quiet after she releases the ball. She has put all of her momentum into the ball--which results in more speed.

<embed src="http://share.ovi.com/flash/player.aspx?media=ratwod.11508&albumname=ratwod.softball" width="512" height="420" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed>

Also, check out Sarah's follow through. That is the correct follow through for "internal rotation".

thank you for the comments. watching sarah pitch she doesn't seem to have a very long stride. can shorting the stride a little help with the forward lean. i know her balance is worse when
trying to explode as far as she can. we do the two hillhouse drills as warm up prior to pitching. does well. when taking the mound and putting it all together and exploding off the mound is when it all breaks down. thanks for the advice, got a lot of work to do.

Check how your DD is landing on her stride foot. It is at 90 degrees. She is letting her ankle take the force of that leap. Check where Sarah's foot lands.

Your DD needs to work on her form, just in the house, in front of a mirror.

I would also do the knee drills, on a power line, so that she can feel herself stay back and she can see how the front foot is supposed to be.

And do you use the stork drill?

Your DD has all the tools of a pitcher, she just needs some fine tuning.

does anybody have video clip of the "stork drill" i have read about it on a older thread. want to make sure i have her doing right. thanks

I have it, but YouTube seems to be down or something.

<embed width="600" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullscreen="true" allowNetworking="all" wmode="transparent" src="http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid129.photobucket.com/albums/p233/SHS1972/Movieon2010-05-11at0846.flv">

thanks for the clip.

Amy is right on the money. Fix the angle of the stride foot on landing and that in itself will correct other things. Focus on that first.

Hal

have been working on stride foot landing. still a work in progress. any advice on keeping weight back and stopping forward lean at release. in the middle of travel season, trying not to complicate things to bad.