- May 13, 2021
- 656
- 93
So what you are saying is not to be concerned so much about how har the front foot drives out, but how fast it gets there.The issue isn't that she's not driving out far enough. It's that's not really driving out at all. Right now she steps high, her momentum tips her far forward, then she does a bit of push that primarily comes from the foot because she's gone so far forward. She doesn't even need to be as far out as she's currently going. An advanced pitcher usually doesn't land much father than their own height. At 8 years old, she doesn't even need to be that far. She just needs to get where she's going, quickly. You see plenty of competent young pitchers doing little more than a step, but they do it with a burst of speed. It's about the momentum.
The fact that she's not driving out is going to put her into a situation where she either doesn't open at all (which she really isn't) or she will develop or be instructed to do a forced opening, which you also don't want because she'll lose power with the drive leg bring out of position. If she gets to driving off the rubber correctly, she'll open up naturally and with all the speed and momentum her body is capable of producing.
I don't like glove swim. It's fighting against correct position of the upper body. In my daughter's case, she's got a posture issue that I don't think she can even truly correct until the swim is gone. I did see a fairly advanced pitcher with a swim on a facebook post last week, but she was forcing the shoulder into the correct position while the arm just flailed out. Most of the time that's not what's happening, as is the case here.
I'll add also...I obviously don't know what exactly her pitching coach teaches, but if she or he is doing the catching or isn't taking slo-mo video, they can't see everything. There's just too little time between the start of the pitch and when you have to look for the ball to catch it. I think my daughter could be a lot farther along if I had done the catching at her lessons, but he never really took me up on my offer.