11 Year Old Video

[KevinC]

Could someone please clarify what you mean by "bat drag". I think you want the hands to lead the barrel toward the contact zone but want both to get there at the same time. Does bat drag mean not getting the barrel around quickly enough?

 

[DB1]

The bat drag here is the rear elbow leading her hands by quite a bit. Very obvious. I think Wellphyt has it right. The bat is a 28", 17 oz bat she has outgrown. Her younger sister likes swinging too, so it is inside to play around with. Will see what we can do this weekend.

Thanks for all of the info and hopefully we'll make some progress.

 

[Justanotherdad]

Bat Drag is a term used to describe the bottom elbow being in front of the hands and barrel through the act of swinging a bat. RVP also describes it as "Pinching Elbows" which is exactly what it looks like and they say it is mainly a fault of the Top Hand/Arm not getting to connection correctly.

A lot of the guys that are more in the know will talk about the move and how it creates the coil or uncoil and can even put the rest of the body on autopilot or whatever. I will let that up to them to explain.

My daughter has a sequence issue and doesn't understand the concept of coiling. I didn't understand the "move" as it pertains to coil/uncoil that everyone was talking about or how it was explained. However, Wellphypt put it very simply for me. Skipping a rock is essentially doing the move.

Teach her this, the act of skipping a rock, and see if it helps. Help her translate this act into swinging a bat. It amazed me how difficult my daughter finds it to do the simple act of skipping a rock whil my 11 year ol son looks like a pro doing it.

However, we're working at it hard and already she is getting much better at her whole swing sequence from bottom up.

I hope that helps. I am no guru or anything like that but I speak from experience working with my daughter and my son with what clicked for us and is starting to have a positive affect on their swings.

 

[theaddition]

I placed markers along your daughter's bottom hand to help you see her hand path.

This video speaks volumes regarding bat drag.
The hands don't drop, but notice how many dots are at the back shoulder as the back elbow drops to slot.
It would be interesting to see a sequence of different colored dots on the hands, back elbow and bat barrel and note their relationship to each other.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

This video speaks volumes regarding bat drag.
The hands don't drop, but notice how many dots are at the back shoulder as the back elbow drops to slot.
It would be interesting to see a sequence of different colored dots on the hands, back elbow and bat barrel and note their relationship to each other.

It's a bit busy, but here it is.

Green: Bottom hand path
Red: Barrel tip path
Blue: Rear elbow path

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

I'm sure she is not trying to drop her hands through the swing. We talked about keeping her hands up at the start of the swing and have also talked about keeping the hands tight to try and avoid casting. My guess is she's trying to keep her hands by her shoulder through the swing. I definitely see the difference, but am not sure where to go from here.

Glad you see the difference.

So much for some people's translation of "not" dropping the hands.

As an FYI ... the topic of "self talk", at least from my perspective, should be addressed more towards "what to do" as opposed to "what not to do". Sort of a pet peeve of mine is giving a hitter directions on "what not to do".

So it sounds like you are up for an experiment. Good! That's the right attitude.

As you can see ... the hand path is such that the hands do lower on their approach from 'launch' to 'contact'.

I rather your daughter had a translation of "don't drop the hands" to be more "maintain a Power-Vee" ..... that is, maintain a pinched rear forearm-to-bicep 'Vee' from "launch" through to the "RVP Connection Point" position ... the position where the hands, pass the rear shoulder and the "hands" + "rear shoulder" + "rear elbow" + "rear hip" are all aligned.

So ... with that in mind ... drop the goal of "not dropping the hands" and instead work on a goal of "maintaining a pinched rear forearm-to-bicep Vee". I'll post some videos below this. Practice swinging from 'launch' to where I've drawn the 'red Power-Vee'. See if you can duplicate that. And by the way ... please allow the rear hip to pull the rear arm in 'closer' to your daughter's body (what some might refer to as tucking the rear elbow in closer ... except I'd like to see her simply allowing that to occur as a result of the hip grabbing/pulling the rear arm at swing initiation.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

 

[Immortal1]

I think you or someone else posted the above video clip before - the wrinkles in the shirt speak volumes about how much the hip rotates before the shoulders.

I also really like the 3 colored dots! Busy maybe, but for us dads it really helps focus on key points (what ever those points might be for a given student).