Educational Listening

[1fingeredknuckler]

If i heard the discussion right

tonight between games CWS ,

Cheri Kempf, said tonight if i am right, correct me if i miss heard,, first you get your fundamentals right,/// then YOUR SPEED,/// control comes next

 

[Ken B]

I more or less agree. With good form, you get speed. You get control practicing good form. To get even more speed, you fine tune form and practice more. That's probably over simplifying it, but I think that covers it.

 

[sluggers]

I agree with Ken.

As to first speed then control...You have to understand the context.

Good pitchers throw 11 or 12 months out of the year. So, in the off season, she works on speed and breaking pitches. A pitcher might go 3 or 4 months without really working on control.

But, as the season rolls around, a pitcher has to develop control or she won't pitch during games. So, the emphasis shifts to control. Of course, she is always working her form.

It is now June with softball season underway. The pitchers are expected to "throw strikes". If she doesn't, she will be pulled and wont' get to pitch. So, this is not the right time to say, "Forget about control. Let's focus on speed!"

 

[Carly]

In addition to what Ken and sluggers said, if Cheri Kempf was talking about learning pitching from scratch, lots of young pitchers who are learning end up doing weird things—stiff arm, bad posture, deceleration, etc.—when trying to throw strikes before they fully understand and are comfortable with their form. These things can develop into habits that can be hard to break, whereas I've found that if you can get a kid throwing at a decent speed with decent form but no control, it's easier as an instructor to help her make adjustments to get the ball in the strike zone.

 

[starsnuffer]

It's much easier to teach a kid that always throws hard how to locate their pitches. It's much more difficult to teach a kid that aims how to throw hard. With the later, you basically have to start from scratch and teach them all over again because their mechanics change when they throw hard.

That's the point really, consistent mechanics are what leads to accuracy. Mechanics cannot be consistent if the energy put into the pitch varies. Always throwing hard = consistency.


-W

 

[JDBerry]

I agree.

Form is foundation. Speed is required. Control then wins the battles

 

[1fingeredknuckler]

If someone has access to those comments, they were made between games last night, before the last game, i shut the dvd off, had i known this was going to be a topic i would have left it on.

 

[1fingeredknuckler]

Speed gun

Some where i assume some one has put a gun on some HS or younger pitchers on the going from the glove style and the bypass motions? Without going to compare NCAA pitchers , has there been a significant difference in the speed if you have the same pitcher do it both ways? Not to compare one person vs the other. These particular girls were not high on velocity.

Watching a local St HS TOURNAMENT, i notice one girl bringing the glove to the hip and separating there, but as the game went on, the glove started to drift to the front both hands and then separation, it appeared it may have been wearing on her to keep bringing the glove and ball way across the body, where the bypass seems to stay consistent, on others.

Gets back to "motion"?