Training catchers with the Roman Empire drill

Ken Krause · Dec 11, 2017

Anyone who has seen a gladiator movie, or a movie with gladiators in it, is familiar with this scenario: Two warriors do battle until one bests the other. The victor stands over the fallen loser, weapon at the ready, and looks to the Emperor (or highest-ranking official in attendance). The Emperor holds out his hand […]

More...

Hube111 · Dec 12, 2017

Thanks for this training idea Ken. We are always looking for new drills. My DD a 2nd year catcher just turned 13 and she is struggling to convert the blocking skills learned/used in practice/lessons to an actual game. Once the game starts she reverts back to trying to take everything that bounces on one hop in the glove, which goes pretty well for her on turf but not so well on dirt. She's very athletic and fully capable of it but I think it's more of a mental issue than physical. I don't think she believes she has the time to recognize a 55-60 mph pitch is going to be in the dirt. She does fine on changeups as those are always called low in the zone and she just assumes the pitch will be in the dirt, plus she has more time to react. I'm wondering if she should just mentally assume every pitch called low in the zone will be in the dirt, and then adjust when it's not, because her assuming the pitcher will hit her spot and then adjusting to balls in the dirt is not working.

Ken Krause · Dec 12, 2017

Hube111 said:
Thanks for this training idea Ken. We are always looking for new drills. My DD a 2nd year catcher just turned 13 and she is struggling to convert the blocking skills learned/used in practice/lessons to an actual game. Once the game starts she reverts back to trying to take everything that bounces on one hop in the glove, which goes pretty well for her on turf but not so well on dirt. She's very athletic and fully capable of it but I think it's more of a mental issue than physical. I don't think she believes she has the time to recognize a 55-60 mph pitch is going to be in the dirt. She does fine on changeups as those are always called low in the zone and she just assumes the pitch will be in the dirt, plus she has more time to react. I'm wondering if she should just mentally assume every pitch called low in the zone will be in the dirt, and then adjust when it's not, because her assuming the pitcher will hit her spot and then adjusting to balls in the dirt is not working.

I think you hit it on the head. One of the reasons catchers are able to to block in drills is they know they're supposed to, and they're expecting the ball to go that way. Even if you do combos (some blocking, some framing) they are still mentally ready for a block. But they don't necessarily carry that out onto the field.

Adopting a mentality of being ready to block every pitch, and then reading what the pitch is actually doing, should help. Another piece that will help is learning to see where the ball is headed rather than where it is. By that I mean paying attention to the ball's path in the first 10-15 feet and learning to judge where it will end up from there. Basically, a ball that's heading downward will always head downward - it will never flatten out or go up. So then it's a question of where it will hit - in front of you or behind you (if left to keep going).

inde53546 · Dec 12, 2017

[/QUOTE] By that I mean paying attention to the ball's path in the first 10-15 feet and learning to judge where it will end up from there. Basically, a ball that's heading downward will always head downward - it will never flatten out or go up. So then it's a question of where it will hit - in front of you or behind you (if left to keep going).[/QUOTE]

This is also very useful for base running/stealing

Ken Krause · Dec 12, 2017

By that I mean paying attention to the ball's path in the first 10-15 feet and learning to judge where it will end up from there. Basically, a ball that's heading downward will always head downward - it will never flatten out or go up. So then it's a question of where it will hit - in front of you or behind you (if left to keep going).[/QUOTE]

This is also very useful for base running/stealing[/QUOTE]

Definitely!

Training catchers with the Roman Empire drill

Welcome to Discuss Fastpitch

Your FREE Account is waiting to the Best Softball Community on the Web.

Ken Krause

Administrator

Hube111

Ken Krause

Administrator

inde53546

Ken Krause

Administrator

Similar threads

Latest posts

Members online

Forum statistics

Share this page

Online statistics

Forum statistics