fielding ground ball

Kobata bypasses the "glove to the belly or chest". As someone mentioned, he teaches (in his DVD, I haven't seen him in person) to field the ball with both hands with your glove foot forward, bring your glove to your throwing shoulder, taking the ball out as you step with your throwing foot in an open position (to open the hips/body), and then quickly release with the next step (with your glove foot) towards the target. Never should the momentum slow down. Once they get comfortable with it, a girl can get rid of the ball pretty quickly. My DD has a ways to go, but it's speeded her up quite a bit.

That's also very similar to the way Mickey Dean (University of Radford coach, and also one of the pro teams, iirc) taught in his camp. He also really emphasized the girls staying low (kinda in a crouch) throughout the whole process. I think he got a bat and told my DD he was gonna hit her in the head if she didn't stay low enough

They did that for a half hour straight, with about 10 or 12 girls in the line. My DD had a small complaint about her legs being sore the next day

After watchiing Kobata, I've paid more attention, and most girls have lots of wasted movements, such as the glove to the belly first, extra steps (sometimes 5 steps after they catch the grounder????), etc.

I really like the Kobata DVD's, they are definitely worth the money IMHO (get both, the first is on catching and throwing, the second is on specific situations (backhand, covering second, etc.) and has lots of good drills.

Mark H said:

I think he meant the glove stops the ball and the throwing hand covers and picks it off the leather without the glove closing up around the ball in the pocket. A bit like those flat board training gloves they use on infielders.

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Actually, I don't believe there is anything new here. Players, particularly at the college level, have been taking throws of the back of their gloves on relay throws for a while now. Same theory, just taking the ball off the other side.

That's true. Nothing new. Around here I see 9's taught to NOT catch a ground ball but rather stop it with the glove and pick it with the covering other hand. Just good basic fielding. My comment was just to remark this was how I would interpret Candrea's reported words.

I teach a method that allows a player to move/push through the ball. All it requires is a quiet glove. Every drill we do I harp on keeping the pocket open to the ball and the glove low at all times. The open/low glove leads them to the ball as opposed to "flipping" the glove up. The flipping action straightens the player up and creates a situation that forces more balls to fielded between their legs and then cradled into the belly (too much time for the ball to get to them and to get the ball to the throwing position). The flipiing also creates a stabbing technique where they are usually moving the glove down as the last hop approaches. And if the last hop is bad they get eaten up. If their glove is low and open and the last hop is bad they can adjust up with the ball, if the ball skips their glove is already down. We teach back hands using the same methods.

The low open glove also helps catch the short hop before it becomes a short hop becase they learn to be a little quicker to the ball.

I will caution that for some it takes a while to keep the glove quiet, but once they get it and see that ground balls are easy they love it.