GoPro is very revealing . . .
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JJsqueeze
Dad, Husband....legend
this is the chicken and egg thing I was referring to- is the body lean, lack of firm front side the root cause or is the lack of arm whip leading to her feeling the NEED to body the pitch.
Now you get to experiment a little to see what she is feeling and doing. You just have to find a way to effectively decouple the two to see how best to address it. it very well may be that if you firm up the front side and concentrate on the body, then you will get a better arm motion, it will probably be stiff armed still, but she could reduce that long linear shoulder move and feel the energy transfer better, then you could tackle the arm motion better.
Then again, for her, she could have a hard time firming up the front side if she feels she needs that motion to get power into the pitch, in this case, getting the arm looser first could lead to better luck firming up the front side.
The key is going to be what she feels and what she thinks. I've had good results showing video of my daughter to her along side video of elite pitchers and describing what the issue is and letting her try to make adjustments.
In this case I would describe how the stiff arm and the weight transfer that continues through and over the front foot are not effective, show her the Ueno clip and tell her that she needs to do her best to feel her way to better positions by trying to emulate Ueno. See how far she can take it and what she feels and maybe that will give you a clue as to what to do next. Maybe she improves and maybe she doesn't, then you can try to break it down more with drills if needed, but I think it is really important to get them to own the process as much as possible.
the more and more I do this, the more I find myself asking questions vs. giving instruction when I work with both my daughters.
Now you get to experiment a little to see what she is feeling and doing. You just have to find a way to effectively decouple the two to see how best to address it. it very well may be that if you firm up the front side and concentrate on the body, then you will get a better arm motion, it will probably be stiff armed still, but she could reduce that long linear shoulder move and feel the energy transfer better, then you could tackle the arm motion better.
Then again, for her, she could have a hard time firming up the front side if she feels she needs that motion to get power into the pitch, in this case, getting the arm looser first could lead to better luck firming up the front side.
The key is going to be what she feels and what she thinks. I've had good results showing video of my daughter to her along side video of elite pitchers and describing what the issue is and letting her try to make adjustments.
In this case I would describe how the stiff arm and the weight transfer that continues through and over the front foot are not effective, show her the Ueno clip and tell her that she needs to do her best to feel her way to better positions by trying to emulate Ueno. See how far she can take it and what she feels and maybe that will give you a clue as to what to do next. Maybe she improves and maybe she doesn't, then you can try to break it down more with drills if needed, but I think it is really important to get them to own the process as much as possible.
the more and more I do this, the more I find myself asking questions vs. giving instruction when I work with both my daughters.
I believe this is exactly what she is doing and is using familiar mechanics from the bowling to get there.
We started tonight with lock it in drills from BM's thread, I/R in the Classroom. We going to focus on not bowling for a bit. Ball outside the elbow, elbow brushing, upper arm locking in and transferring the energy. I don't think we are going to progress past the lock it in drill for a while. Gotta retrain some muscles, reinforce some others.
And utilizing the drive mechanics post, we've started wall marching.
Just going back to basics, also gonna really work on firming up that front side. We discussed . . . I showed her Uneo video above . .. before I asked her what was different about the shoulders, she was pointing that out. I showed her your lines on her .gif and how her shoulder kept moving, then she picked up the difference between hers and Uneo's right away.
Right after, we went out and worked on the lock it in drills . . . she kept catching herself rotating her shoulders/trunk vs just letting the whip happen. It'll be a process, but she's up for it.
Thanks again for the helpful info and analysis. More updates as she progresses!
It seems like all of us who do this end up at the same trouble spots trying to figure out what our students/daughters are doing wrong and what we, as their PCs, are doing wrong as well. Jasonacer, it looks like you've got an athlete on your hands so congratulations are in order. Early on I posted video of my first student working towards IR with a whip. The best advice I got was from BM and a few others, stop trying to pitch and learn how to throw underhand with a slight whip and IR. So we started that journey because who am I to argue with BM? I've drank the Kool-Aid, I believe. So I have three students I'm teaching how to pitch, two can now IR and we're on to tuning up and one is just beginning. A trick I learned on my own as I've worked with them is to feel the effort we put into overhand throwing, the rhythm so to speak. So I might throw one or two with them overhand effortlessly and then throw two or three underhand with the same amount of effort....both relaxed overhand and underhand throws. We just do this back and forth. Keep in mind I've shown them all how to whip with a three quarter throw overhand as well. At our short distance we just whip the shoulders to lead the elbow and cause an overhand whip with nice follow-through. There is a correlation between proper overhand and underhand throwing....build that connection. I'm constantly telling my girls....relax...loose...rubber band...limp noodle arm...smile.
Great point . . . we warm up nice and slow with a mix of overhand and underhand. That's exactly what she does . . . a nice easy whip and some I/R. I enjoy that time, too. No real structure, just fun, chit chatting, telling jokes, whatever. No pressure, just nice easy tossing the ball back and forth getting warmed up.
