How Critical is Brush

[JJsqueeze]

I think the sleeve is a good idea. I bought one a while back and DD stopped using it at some point but after pitching games 4 days out of five since Saturday she was bruised last night. She pitched with one today and she said it felt a lot better. She also said she understands now why Balls with bullet spin mightbe a bad idea. She noticed a direct correlation to balls that came off with bullet spon "ouch that hurt" and balls that came off with nice slightly off axis 12-6 spin "ahh that fleshy part of the forearm is much more comfy that the point off elbow".

She hadn't had any bruising for a while but now that she is throwing a lot more riseballs, her natural FB has become more bullety so she is releasing more inside the ball more often than she used to when all she threw were drops.

On that note....To all you future Fathers of riseball throwers, the year of work to get it to begin to work is well worth it. Standing in the stands watching with an 0-2 count and muttering "throw the rise, throw the rise" and then seeing it work for a K is sooooo much fun. DD is falling in love with that pitch this week. and for the two seam fastball doubters, DD said it was working so well at getting misses and late foul offs that she just abandoned the regular fastball on anything but a 3 ball count.

did I just turn this into a shameless brag post? Oh well, then I guess I should add that in addition to the 12 Ks in two games she is also 3-7 with two rbis batting 4th and the three outs were on well hit balls. This is at the 14u TCS World Series here in San Diego. She's an 02 BTW. Hehehehe.

 

[sbcowboy]

Five, all I am sayng is that good posture creates BI. If your posture bad... it's kinda goofy to fix it by trying to get brush. That is not a quote about ADduction.

SB, the elbow shouldn't slam into the hip... if so, the whip is less than optimal. The distal end of the whip is the hand... an elbow slamming the hip means that the hand is not accelerating... to, as BM once stated, suck the energy out of the upper arm. I haven't seen C in awhile... would you mind emailing a regular speed clip or two (not highspeed) of her pitching? Is it her froearm or fingers that swell... or both?

Java, sent u a video. It almost seems as if the hand is coming across her thigh. Could it b that she is not extending her arm? Can u short arm BI? Her elbow is not slamming into the hip. The swelling is in the mid forearm. No problem with the hands or fingers. She has alway had good BI. Very accurate pitcher. It just started happening lately. I think it is something minor that needs to b tweaked. I am just not sure what to fix. I am afraid to mess with the BI. As soon as I get some video, I will post on a new thread.

See pic here: http://www.discussfastpitch.com/softball-pitching/24727-forearm-pain-help.html#post337771

Thanks for all the help!

 

[FastPitchCat]

interesting to re-read this old but important thread.
DD has been working on brush since july. DD's had a lot of progress getting brush during full-speed pitching indoors to a tarp. But, on the mound, all that goes away and DD's back to her old self.
It must be unwillingness to 'trust' her new mechanics of 2 months and the need to 'survive' on the mound and as what coach Pauly says, it could take quite a while to get the BI to 'stick' when on the mound.

Last tuesday, DD practiced on the mound (not in a game) and NOTHING worked! Butt out, shoulders not level. aarrggh!
Last night, into the tarp, everything worked.

One very positive note. It is almost becoming 100% consistent BI throwing full speed into the tarp. Now to translate that onto the mound.

So we'll try again on the mound tonight... if it's dry. we got a soaking last night.

 

[riseball]

interesting to re-read this old but important thread.
DD has been working on brush since july. DD's had a lot of progress getting brush during full-speed pitching indoors to a tarp. But, on the mound, all that goes away and DD's back to her old self.
It must be unwillingness to 'trust' her new mechanics of 2 months and the need to 'survive' on the mound and as what coach Pauly says, it could take quite a while to get the BI to 'stick' when on the mound.

Last tuesday, DD practiced on the mound (not in a game) and NOTHING worked! Butt out, shoulders not level. aarrggh!
Last night, into the tarp, everything worked.

One very positive note. It is almost becoming 100% consistent BI throwing full speed into the tarp. Now to translate that onto the mound.

So we'll try again on the mound tonight... if it's dry. we got a soaking last night.

What you are experiencing is one of the biggest challenges a PC will face. Snap into a glove, throw into a tarp and everything looks great. Then it falls apart a soon as they throw to a target. Getting them to take that into the circle is difficult at best. If someone has a magical method to make this happen I would love to hear it.

 

[dmaeganx2]

I believe your DD's problem might be more pronation then brush, remember brush is there to get your forearm to pronate naturally on its own with no actual effort from the the pitcher so they can remain as muscle free as possible. that is of course my opinion and through my own dd have the same exact struggle but more with pronation then brush. Try having her warm up like Rick does in the drill Wrist flips its like t work for batting it will eventually start to bleed into the pitching mechanics

http://www.discussfastpitch.com/softball-pitching/25557-whip-flip-rick-pauly.html

 

[xygent1]

my DD is the same age as your DD Jan 29th she will be 14, we worked hard on just making sure her mechanics were correct and she developed brush naturally, (lucky for me and pc). that being said I believe if your DD's mechanics are developing and are good she will develop it on her own but still working practice of it into her routine.

 

[FastPitchCat]

What you are experiencing is one of the biggest challenges a PC will face. Snap into a glove, throw into a tarp and everything looks great. Then it falls apart a soon as they throw to a target. Getting them to take that into the circle is difficult at best. If someone has a magical method to make this happen I would love to hear it.

maybe it's a mental thing. maybe pitching in a meaningless pool game will help. but first, DD will have do do it on the mound during practice. tarp-->mound-->game. we're in step 1.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

maybe it's a mental thing. maybe pitching in a meaningless pool game will help. but first, DD will have do do it on the mound during practice. tarp-->mound-->game. we're in step 1.

When throwing into a tarp, is your daughter simply releasing the ball, or is she using her fingers and wrist to ‘throw’ at a particular target (i.e., spot on the tarp)?

Not uncommon for someone to get in a habit of simply releasing when accuracy is not part of the objective.

 

[Classof2020]

interesting to re-read this old but important thread.
DD has been working on brush since july. DD's had a lot of progress getting brush during full-speed pitching indoors to a tarp. But, on the mound, all that goes away and DD's back to her old self.
It must be unwillingness to 'trust' her new mechanics of 2 months and the need to 'survive' on the mound and as what coach Pauly says, it could take quite a while to get the BI to 'stick' when on the mound.

Last tuesday, DD practiced on the mound (not in a game) and NOTHING worked! Butt out, shoulders not level. aarrggh!
Last night, into the tarp, everything worked.

One very positive note. It is almost becoming 100% consistent BI throwing full speed into the tarp. Now to translate that onto the mound.

So we'll try again on the mound tonight... if it's dry. we got a soaking last night.

We've been working with Ken since last November right after fall ball ended with her doing 9:00 and Show it and Throw it drills to a person, into a net, into a blanket hung up in the house, and into her own glove, etc. In fact I think she might be throwing almost as fast in those drills as in full motion at this point. But as I said in the original post she can't maintain it in the circle. The drill that I thinking might be helpful here could be doing a full arm circle. We never really spent much time with that as we were also trying to work on drive and arm positioning during the off season.

So last lesson with Ken he had her do a complete arm circle in her warm ups and have her maintain the brush and I could immediately see the struggle that her mind and body were having to maintain the brush that she had just demonstrated over and over in the other drills. Now that tryouts are done and we are heading back into fall lessons and workouts I have been wanting to spend some time videoing and seeing if she can maintain brush with a complete arm circle and if that will help find the disconnect that happens when we add drive.

I will keep you posted.

 

[Ken B]

Looking forward to working with A on a little more regular basis. Also glad she'll be coming to the session with Anna Miller. Hopefully Anna can stay after and we can chat about brush and other details.