HOW do you Teach TILT!

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Jun 17, 2009
15,019
0
Portland, OR
Personally, I see the rear knee moving ....

120p5rd.gif
 
Jun 17, 2009
15,019
0
Portland, OR
Wellphyt ..... I have more to say ... a bit rushed ... but my experience is that if you don't teach or promote a weight shift then the odds increase of a hitter remaining on their backside ... or of a timing/synchronization issue. More later ....
 
Jan 14, 2009
1,589
0
Atlanta, Georgia
Personally, I see the rear knee moving ....

120p5rd.gif

I see the rear knee moving also. Every coach, parent and instructor that I know sees the rear knee moving. Which is why kids are commonly taught to turn the back knee down-and-in. That's the movement that everyone sees so that's the movement that gets taught.

Here is the movement that few see:
Hami_CCP_49-51_zoom.gif


You have pressure being created by the muscles in the pelvis. You have the back foot holding onto or catching that pressure. The back knee is simply caught in the middle of these two pressure points. The back knee action is a result of what is going on between the pelvis and back foot.

It's important to understand that the muscles of the body create force. The force creates movement. The forces are reacting between the ground and pelvis. IMO, the above clip is a good example that proves that pro hitters are not trying to internally rotate the back leg. When you just internally rotate the leg, the heel pops up immediately and the pressure at the back foot is gone. The result is spin. The reason the back foot stays down so long is because the pressure created by the external rotator muscles in the pelvis (your butt muscles) is being retained at the back foot.
 
Jan 14, 2009
1,589
0
Atlanta, Georgia
Everybody - please compare my daughter in this image to Pujols. Both are frozen at heel plant. Look at her back foot position compared to Pujols. This is exactly what you get when you tell a kid to internally rotate their back leg to weight shift or tell a kid to turn their back knee down-and-in. IMO she does not compare well to Pujols in this clip. My daughter is prematurely giving up the pressure at the back foot. Pujols is retaining the pressure as described by Sevam1.

Giving up the pressure.jpg
 
Jun 17, 2009
15,019
0
Portland, OR
I see the rear knee moving also. Every coach, parent and instructor that I know sees the rear knee moving. Which is why kids are commonly taught to turn the back knee down-and-in. That's the movement that everyone sees so that's the movement that gets taught.

Here is the movement that few see:
Hami_CCP_49-51_zoom.gif


You have pressure being created by the muscles in the pelvis. You have the back foot holding onto or catching that pressure. The back knee is simply caught in the middle of these two pressure points. The back knee action is a result of what is going on between the pelvis and back foot.

It's important to understand that the muscles of the body create force. The force creates movement. The forces are reacting between the ground and pelvis. IMO, the above clip is a good example that proves that pro hitters are not trying to internally rotate the back leg. When you just internally rotate the leg, the heel pops up immediately and the pressure at the back foot is gone. The result is spin. The reason the back foot stays down so long is because the pressure created by the external rotator muscles in the pelvis (your butt muscles) is being retained at the back foot.

Bold above ... the rear knee action at this point is simply a 'result' of the uncoil action in the rear leg ... IMO anyway.
 
Jun 17, 2009
15,019
0
Portland, OR
Wellphyt … what CY is trying to convey, and rightfully so IMO, is that the timing of the rear-side push is important (for now think of it occurring between what some might refer to as toe-touch & heel-plant … or the portion immediately following Fwd-by-Coiling and terminating into heel-plant).

If the rear leg is given an alternative roll of spinning at that critical time, which is what many people do when they reverse the pressure about their rear foot to perform a ‘bug squish’ type operation, then the result will be less force production. IMO, one of CY's messages can be interpreted to be that anyone attempting to obtain rotation, by turning the rear leg counter-clockwise (RH hitter) by turning their rear foot counter-clockwise (RH hitter), is circumventing the mechanics of a good swing …. He is basically saying that they have the wrong objective … that they are thinking more in terms of rotation/spinning than in shifting … they simply have the wrong goal … they are confused … they see rotation occurring in good swings and attempt to duplicate that rotation … and unfortunately they don’t comprehend that they have focused their attention on the wrong goal, have realized a different form of rotation, and in the process have created spin at the expensive of a well timed weight shift.

The use of the hips as you advocate needs to occur while the ‘directional’ pressure in the rear foot is maintained, with an objective of shifting/transferring into the front-side. Pressure about the rear foot will build and the direction of that pressure will be maintained. It is important not to reverse the direction of pressure on the rear foot at the time of the weight shift (no bug squish). The pressure ‘direction’ at the rear foot should be maintained … and a push should be felt between the rear foot and the ground … and this push is completely different than a push that people obtain when they push in a spin-like manner … the push is more in support of the rear hip usage that I believe you are attempting to describe, and hence the direction of that push, felt at the rear foot, is virtually the opposite of the pressure that we see applied by those that ‘bug squish’.
 
Sep 17, 2009
1,635
83
Well, I have followed the way you've told your story about teaching your daughter to hit with great interest. I coach and love studying and coaching hitting and follow the rest of the board discussions here and elsewhere closely as well.

Here's where I've come down, for what it's worth:

Well, you talk a lot about natural movements and not coaching them out of our kids (girls especially, who start at a disadvantage typically). I like how you talk about the overhand throw and how it comes naturally to many men/boys, we just do the sequence right, born out of free-play.

In all the years you've thrown, have you ever really worried about what your foot does? (Maybe, if you had to push off a rubber, but otherwise I'd argue no).

In all the years you've hit, have you ever really worried about what your knee does?

I haven't.

To me The Move feels a lot like the Elvis Move. It is something you can see in video but you don't actively cause it. It's an effect. Both will happen when other parts of particularly the lower body are done right. You WILL externally press your foot. Your front heel WILL plant and your back heel will rise like Elvis. But you don't actively do either. At least I don't when I swing or stand up and emulate these various movements myself. Further, actively trying to make them happen causes problems elsehwere, as you talk about with the Elvis move very well above. I've seen the same problems caused when I tried to "cure" squish the bug on my players by focusing on the foot. To me, the same sort of thing happens when I actively try to press my foot as in The Move...I lose the coil in my hip.

If I get in a stance like Pujols in Tom's link above, I can feel very powerfully emulate what he is doing if I internally rotate my leg and coil my hip over that. You can preset some of that internal rotation of the leg, which is what I think Pujols wide stance does (and actually I think that what I preset screw of the foot does, which some advocate in learning The Move, is help you feel the preset internal rotation of the upper leg) or you can create the action more dynamically. But in none of these cases do I feel or try to cause anything to actively happen with my foot or knee, or between my foot and knee. Things do happen in both places of course, but they are after-effects, it seems to me.

I am certainly not in any political/hitting camp. And I can't follow every deep anatomical discussion very well, quite frankly. I can, however, feel and understand many of the concepts I've described above when I try to emulate them in my own swing.

For me, it's a learning journey (that has had a few wrong or dead-end paths and likely more) that hopefully will help the girls I work with.

Again, I appreciate you logging your own journey with your DD, it has been interesting to watch.
 
Apr 27, 2011
11
0
I see the rear knee moving also. Every coach, parent and instructor that I know sees the rear knee moving. Which is why kids are commonly taught to turn the back knee down-and-in. That's the movement that everyone sees so that's the movement that gets taught.

Here is the movement that few see:
Hami_CCP_49-51_zoom.gif


You have pressure being created by the muscles in the pelvis. You have the back foot holding onto or catching that pressure. The back knee is simply caught in the middle of these two pressure points. The back knee action is a result of what is going on between the pelvis and back foot.

It's important to understand that the muscles of the body create force. The force creates movement. The forces are reacting between the ground and pelvis. IMO, the above clip is a good example that proves that pro hitters are not trying to internally rotate the back leg. When you just internally rotate the leg, the heel pops up immediately and the pressure at the back foot is gone. The result is spin. The reason the back foot stays down so long is because the pressure created by the external rotator muscles in the pelvis (your butt muscles) is being retained at the back foot.

Now let's see if a debate can be started about the knee leading the hip.
 

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