Critique / Help Series of Swings

[RayR]

This is what I keep trying to point out to you. You are looking at a pyramid but can't tell it's a pyramid because you don't have the correct view...so you call it something else...

This is not what I have claimed ever. The triangle or arm box stays fairly consitent. From angles you can't tell the shape. Try looking at a pyramid at Giza while standing offset 20 degrees. One side looks right, the other side looks narrow.

What I said is the tilt of the arm box and slant of the shoulders, determines the angle of the swing. You make a guess, adjust, and make a swing which can be adjusted to some degree. The front arm rising above parallel to the ground, would insinuate the batter is assuming a pitch low in the zone. That font arm and bat will then make a straight line down through the forearm, through the bat, to contact.

Exactly like Larsen's forearm bat do. The box determines the angle of the shoulders. You might say the front elbow is the determinant to some degree of that frame of the arms and shoulders.

 

[RayR]

Once again - you fail to understand that by starting the bat early you actually give yourself more time to read the pitch....

Bigger question for you Steve Huff is do you think the latest swings are an improvement from the first swings posted? What drills and technique has Knight been implementing?

God bless you for showing up! There is something else I did not discuss with these guys since they are coming from so many directions. When you start your bat head early, you are not seeing the ball as long. You are committing your bat head to an assumed location earlier than a good conventional swing. I have an illustration from my clinic materials to show this to some degree. Here is talks about a compact and efficient swing, but starting the bat head early, or launching, takes that observation time, and adjustment time away.

View attachment 3116

 

[Steve Huff]

Hand height is fine by me

I like the back leg - but I think the long stride and her upper body staying back is preventing better rear leg action

Launch the barrel away from the 2B - not behind her rearside - right now she needs to swing around her rear hip instead of behind

Learn to hit ball much deeper then she is in these swings - set up a tee even with her rear foot and let her figure it out using the video below as a guide

Rear leg swings also will help her to figure out how to hit the ball deeper - front toss to her as she balances on her rear leg and the goal is to "jump" out to the ball and swing - keeping balanced and not letting the front foot come down



Here is one of my hitters - in one swing she is launching the barrel behind her rearside and in the other more away from the second basemen - one is loose and goes around her hip - the other is tighter (arms/hands/bat connected) and more behind her rear hip.

Just stare at the barrel in the clip below and notice the difference in how it is launched

knightsb's daughter has an infinitely better basic swing, with 3 little issues, than does the second girl.

 

[RayR]

Here is a clip for you - bat is getting launched at same time but he is able to delay it just enough in one swing and speed it up in the other ....as he reads the pitch.

 

[Steve Huff]

Hey Steve, nice to see you back! Can't believe you haven't checked in on one of my post...??? I got spell check cranking, and a re-writer up and running..... He's done, I'm ready to start, with some World Wide Prescriptive...that is... How's my favorite pitcher in the world doing??? :{))

http://www.discussfastpitch.com/softball-hitting-technical/12557-practice-canceled-tonight.html

I am back because I got sick, walking pneumonia and the health-care sucked. I will go back in May. But I have too much to do so I am only around until I can get out of the habit of posting here! Hope you are doing well? Write to me in private message.

 

[Perfect Circle]

I am back because I got sick, walking pneumonia and the health-care sucked. I will go back in May. But I have too much to do so I am only around until I can get out of the habit of posting here! Hope you are doing well? Write to me in private message.

Will do :{))

 

[Steve Huff]

This is what I keep trying to point out to you. You are looking at a pyramid but can't tell it's a pyramid because you don't have the correct view...so you call it something else...

Lunacy! I call it a triangle. Why don't you describe what is in Larsen's back pocket? Does she have chew, one, or two gloves? Or nothing? You can't see it. When you look at a swing from an angle, or a changing angle, you can't see what the true shape is. As I said, if you have a pyramid in Giza. You look straight at the base of the pyramid. Now walk to the left, until you can see the left side base, barely. How long does it look? When you load, you are turning your front shoulder, your hands move back, the view changes. The triangle ideally is not supposed to change. Some hitters lift their back elbow to get a snap of that elbow to the hip. Some widen their triangle. Some keep it consistent. When you bring it to the hip, it returns to, or stays at, that original ideal 90 degrees. That is the ideal. When the arm box tilts, it stays at 90 degrees. When the back elbow comes to the hip, it can't keep that shape without tilting, front arm tilting up. The degree of that tilt assumes the perceived location of the pitch. Still ideally 90 degrees. This is very, very basic stuff!

 

[Steve Huff]

Once again - you fail to understand that by starting the bat early you actually give yourself more time to read the pitch....

Bigger question for you Steve Huff is do you think the latest swings are an improvement from the first swings posted? What drills and technique has Knight been implementing?

Your SNF drill. I have nothing against hitting deeper. But hitting deeper is for outside pitches just as Chris O'Leary shows. Hitting deeper is not for pitches middle - in. And yes knightsb's DD needs work on that. But her swing is light years ahead of that student you show in post #4 I think. Once you put the bat in motion, it tends to stay in motion. Once it starts to swing, "launch", you have created a bat path. You have lost your load, you are sweeping, and a sweeping swing does not play in college or international ball. I saw a DI player who was a big sweeper. She had the best batting average I ever saw for a sweeper. She was actually in that game I mentioned Nancy Evans pitched. Her team finished 3rd at Nationals, she got a scholarship, and hit .260 in college. Not bad, not good, and she was the best I saw in my career.

I don't tell Mike Candrea what to do. We coach hitting a little different. I am more of the Mike Epstein, Chris O'Leary, Howard Carrier, Cheryl Bustos camp. No redhotcoach, I do not know them personally except Carrier. I trust Candrea. He coaches from a philosophical position that is sensible and he can back it up. There are no fundamentals that he defies. You are defying basic fundamentals and principles of physics. It isn't a different approach, it is an anti-approach! The notion that they have more time to read the pitch set me off. No sweeping swing, as I have told you it is, as Chris O'Leary has suggested it is, works! The premise you made that upset me is like a myth. It defies physics. That makes it counter productive.

 

[Chris O'Leary]

Chris, do you mean the second snf drill, or the 2nd normal swing.
Do you she think should sweep or whip. What should she do?

Second SNF drill. Second swing on the clip.

Obviously, good hitters whip, not sweep.

 

[RayR]

Define sweeping swing. Break it down.

Your SNF drill. I have nothing against hitting deeper. But hitting deeper is for outside pitches just as Chris O'Leary shows. Hitting deeper is not for pitches middle - in. And yes knightsb's DD needs work on that. But her swing is light years ahead of that student you show in post #4 I think. Once you put the bat in motion, it tends to stay in motion. Once it starts to swing, "launch", you have created a bat path. You have lost your load, you are sweeping, and a sweeping swing does not play in college or international ball. I saw a DI player who was a big sweeper. She had the best batting average I ever saw for a sweeper. She was actually in that game I mentioned Nancy Evans pitched. Her team finished 3rd at Nationals, she got a scholarship, and hit .260 in college. Not bad, not good, and she was the best I saw in my career.

I don't tell Mike Candrea what to do. We coach hitting a little different. I am more of the Mike Epstein, Chris O'Leary, Howard Carrier, Cheryl Bustos camp. No redhotcoach, I do not know them personally except Carrier. I trust Candrea. He coaches from a philosophical position that is sensible and he can back it up. There are no fundamentals that he defies. You are defying basic fundamentals and principles of physics. It isn't a different approach, it is an anti-approach! The notion that they have more time to read the pitch set me off. No sweeping swing, as I have told you it is, as Chris O'Leary has suggested it is, works! The premise you made that upset me is like a myth. It defies physics. That makes it counter productive.