Needing some help (10u Swing)

[coachmup]

Sorry, thought this was the technical hitting forum where things get looked at under the microscope. Maybe I got lucky using ancillary in a hitting sentence or maybe spell check reworded my sentence expressing that your primary upper body swing focus on the elbows is asinine and I wanted to spell asinine with two s's.

Please feel free to have the last word, but just do it after you've learned that it's a waste of time to teach anything other than a high-level swing from the very start.

A high level swing looks a whole lot better in gifs on a messageboard than it does on a new-to-travel 10-year old.

. . . and, to the previous posta: I'm not a scientist, I'm just an astute observationalist!

 

[Greenmonsters]

A high level swing looks a whole lot better in gifs on a messageboard than it does on a new-to-travel 10-year old....

Of course it does, but that's no excuse to not be teaching it to her now!

I'm DFP old, so my memory and patience sometimes fail me, but maybe EricF or some other young buck can provide the name of/ link to the thread that should be required reading to teach 10u hitters.

 

[Eric F]

A high level swing looks a whole lot better in gifs on a messageboard than it does on a new-to-travel 10-year old.

Yes, it does. However, high-level swing mechanics should still be the goal. Building a swing that is successful now, but will have to be torn down and rebuilt later because it no longer works against the pitching she's facing, is a lot of wasted effort. There aren't many 10yos who can swing a bat with anything resembling a high-level pattern, and that's okay. As long as the teaching process is continuously taking the hitter in that direction (although mis-steps tend to happen along the way), it's pretty likely that they will be successful now and in the future.

 

[Eric F]

Of course it does, but that's no excuse to not be teaching it to her now!

I'm DFP old, so my memory and patience sometimes fail me, but maybe EricF or some other young buck can provide the name of/ link to the thread that should be required reading to teach 10u hitters.

Read everything you can - absorb, understand, filter, repeat. I've been documenting the progress of my DD during our journey, but there's a lot I'm still learning. If someone can learn something from my DD's development - either from her successes, or my mistakes - that's great. There are many that came before me that have helped to pave our path, and we have had lots of helpful input along the way. If you're going to be your DD's guide, however, you must take a path that makes sense to you. In other words, if you're teaching your DD something, do your very best to understand the how and why of that particular component. Know how it feels in your body, and how it fits into the context of the complete swing you are trying to build.

 

[FP26]

Love your passion and enthusiasm, but please understand that you are not the first one to venture down the fastpitch hitting path and that the philosophy of "Trust, but verify" will allow you to learn from the experiences, both good and bad, of the others that have traveled the path before you.

FWIW, relative to usage in the context of current DFP hitting discussions, two words - "stretch" and "sequence" - more effectively describe what you attempted to in your Post #15 dissertation, which IMO displayed confusion between cause and effect and misplaced focus on ancillary body parts.

"Stretch" and "Sequence" are two absolutes that all hitters should be striving for no matter age or skill level. Other methods can be successful, but are limited.

 

[ornelas85]

Our Journey so far.
All feedback is highly appreciated.I really need the help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUTUAI0P0tU

 

[SB45]

Our Journey so far.
All feedback is highly appreciated.I really need the help.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YUTUAI0P0tU

Hitting by candlelight...

This is nit-picky and a little off topic...slow down the soft toss a little, she is right on the verge of rushing to get the next swing in, which will make the swings inconsistent and maybe create bad habits. But I get that you're trying to create a little more rhythm to get her to feel it. The separation of the hands is better, two related things I would look at next. Be careful not to be rotating the hands/shoulders around the body to create this separation. Think more of stretching the hands away from the front toe or front hip...she is kind of turning away...not stretching the hands away. Second related thing...look at the videos of lauren chamberlain posted in this thread...specifically how the hands and the front hip move in relation to each other. This is a really good video for your daughter as she does not appear to stride...there is no stride in the video and it really helps visualize the stretching between the hands and the front hip

 

[rdbass]

I see it as an all front side dominated swing. Shoulder rotation causing the bat to be drag. Learn to hit off a tee using the hands to 'turn the barrel forward' to the ball.
I would start with this 'hands only' drill:

 

[rdbass]

Here I turned the 'lights on':

This is when your DD should(give or take a frame) 'turned the barrel forward to the ball' now:

 

[Cannonball]

I am talking about an ideal swing for a 10 year old fastpitch softball player, not a pro baseball player, or Lauren Chamberlain.

If my kid were a little older and stronger, of course I would love for her to have a dynamic swing more like this:

. . . but without the strength and heavier bat, I simply see coming up on the back toe at that age as throwing away power.

That explains why my hitters can't drive a ball.

Coach, imo, when your swing is efficient for any age group, they are going to let that back hip straighten that front leg/knee and the result will be a dragging of that back foot on the toe. At times, that back toe will even come off of the ground.

I agree with the resistance on the back leg and pressure on the inner thigh. It is critical to a good swing. Still, that foot doesn't just drag behind.