Help with my 10yr old

[FiveFrameSwing]

she is also rolling her wrist over at contact.

Take note of what is happening with the lead arm at/after impact.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

With mine it was mostly psychological. Power hitter in 8U, stunk it up when we started 10U. Drove the coach crazy watching strikes go by, just seemed very nervous in the batter's box. My husband took her to the batting cage and rented the pitching machine. Started her out in the 40s, eventually had it up to 70mph. She was crushing it at 60/65 mph. We told her that was 10-15 mph faster than anything she'd see in 10U and she hit them really well, so obviously she can hit fast pitches. The next tournament, she batted 700 for the day (In 8U coach pitch she was never under about 750 and often batted 1000 but until that point in 10U she was lucky to break 300). We'll see if it holds once we start back up after a long break from live pitching but it really seemed to be almost 100% confidence with her, and just a little bit of timing thrown in for good measure.

You'll come across hitters that have a diet of seeing pitches so slow that they don't truly buy into "timing the pitcher" to "time the ball". They instead watch the ball travel and only then make a decision to swing. What you have done is put your daughter in an environment in which she needs to be thinking "swing" the entire time.

 

[grcsftbll]

You'll come across hitters that have a diet of seeing pitches so slow that they don't truly buy into "timing the pitcher" to "time the ball". They instead watch the ball travel and only then make a decision to swing. What you have done is put your daughter in an environment in which she needs to be thinking "swing" the entire time.

I think this is exactly what happened. She was used to having time to decide whether to swing or not. We tried to reframe it for her that she WAS going to swing so she only had to decide NOT to swing if the pitch was bad. I got that idea somewhere, probably here. It also helped that her coach was very insistent that he is totally OK with striking out swinging, but striking out looking drives him nuts. He gave her (the whole team - we have several who struggle with hitting) permission to swing and miss. By the last tournament they were all doing a lot better.

 

[redbirdone]

Can crush the ball with slow pitching but can't square it up with fast pitching. Desperately seeking help.http://youtu.be/2J_dj9MkRRQ

Is this the camera you used?

 

[Eric F]

You'll come across hitters that have a diet of seeing pitches so slow that they don't truly buy into "timing the pitcher" to "time the ball". They instead watch the ball travel and only then make a decision to swing. What you have done is put your daughter in an environment in which she needs to be thinking "swing" the entire time.

Agreed. Thinking "swing" the entire time is a good thing, and was the point of my previous post. I have seen lots of players who think "swing" when facing machines, or front toss with the coach, because they trust that the pitch will be in a good spot to hit. Particularly at the rec level, when they get in the box against another player, the mentality often changes. It's not uncommon for the fear of HBP to ruin their process completely. They first judge whether or not it's going to hit them, and then judge whether or not it's a pitch to swing at. Even mediocre velocity pitching will ruin their ability to make a good swing.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

Agreed. Thinking "swing" the entire time is a good thing, and was the point of my previous post. I have seen lots of players who think "swing" when facing machines, or front toss with the coach, because they trust that the pitch will be in a good spot to hit. Particularly at the rec level, when they get in the box against another player, the mentality often changes. It's not uncommon for the fear of HBP to ruin their process completely. They first judge whether or not it's going to hit them, and then judge whether or not it's a pitch to swing at. Even mediocre velocity pitching will ruin their ability to make a good swing.

If a hitter is judging a pitched ball with the initial thought of moving out of the way if it is miss-pitched and coming at them, then they are out of sequence.

Getting hit by the ball is part of the game. The initial move out needs to be fearless with a mindset of swinging.

 

[grcsftbll]

Mine got hit during her very first 10u at bat, in a scrimmage. Pretty sure that didn't help! She seems mostly past it now. Guess it's good we got it out of the way early. I definitely think it impacted her approach for awhile. Good thing about playing A tournaments is that the pitchers seem way less likely to hit the batters. I saw more girls HBP in one rec game than I think I saw all 3 fall A tournaments we played. But when they do hit a batter it's usually at higher speed and hurts more.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

I had two hitters beaned this weekend during BP.

Both were in tears. One appeared hurt. The other seemed more shaken up by the experience than hurt.

I praised them for taking care of business first.

Wear it with pride.

 

[Eric F]

If a hitter is judging a pitched ball with the initial thought of moving out of the way if it is miss-pitched and coming at them, then they are out of sequence.

Getting hit by the ball is part of the game. The initial move out needs to be fearless with a mindset of swinging.

Agreed on both.

One of my DD's teammates (10u all-stars, at the time) was a strong girl with the ability to hit the ball hard, but the lengthy pitch-judgement process in her head ruined her ability to do anything more than a panicked arm-powered swipe a the ball, leading to a lot of weak grounders and Ks. During the pitcher's delivery, this girl's feet were dancing all over the place. We finally resorted to requiring her to pre-load and hold, which helped her hitting production, but you could see her eyes wide with fear on every pitch.

 

[teamM]

Thanks for all the feedback. http://youtu.be/JyxjSqlUeKg Here is another video that is of better quality. Thanks again!