help, hits like a stud off of tee and soft toss but no tlive pitching???

My 12u DD has beuitiful mechanics hitting off of a tee and softtoss but when she gets in the batters box she changes her mechanics and is not the same hitter, any advise is greatly appreciated...
T

This is a somewhat different issue than mentioned in the thread "Hitting form is excellent until game time" ... but it has some similarities.

You'll sometimes come across a kid that has no problem learning clean mechanics off of a tee or head-on soft-toss ... but once a ball is pitched at them at full speed, they completely switch over to "results" mode. They throw out the mechanics they were working on and completely switch over to raw instinct. As soon as the ball is in flight, raw instinct consumes them and the day's lesson is thrown to the wind.

This is where it pays to know what you are doing. Sometimes a hitter's raw instinct can have some embedded positive attributes in it ... and you want to be careful not to remove something that is correct by instinct .... then again, sometimes it's just plain ugly and ineffective.

With kids like this, that struggle to bring their practice into their swing, I'll do something a bit different for them.

I'll have them give me two slow motion dry swings in which I want them to repeat the days "point-of-emphasis". It may be simply a particular sequence ... such as loading the lower body prior to loading the upper body. Whatever it is they are working on that day, I want to see them replicate it in a slow motion dry swing. What I am looking for is to see that they have a mental understanding of what I'm asking them to do. If they can do it, then I reward them with allowing them to take a cut off of a game speed pitching machine ... while I watch to see that they used the mechanic I'm looking for. I care less about the result ... and care everything about the use of the mechanic. I do this, because I'm highly confident in the mechanics I'm promoting, and I know that once embedded in their swing that they will be better off. My praise (positive verbal feedback), or lack of praise (negative grunting sound), is based completely on whether or not they used the mechanic I was looking for ... and I seriously give the result of their swing zero attention .... and I'll make my feedback louder if they become more focused on the result. The process is repeated several times ... ... ... and I stress that during the dry swing they must replicate what that day's mechanic is, or they can't proceed to a game-speed pitch ... if they fail to replicate the mechanic in a slow motion dry swing, then they must repeat that until they get it right .... as IMO, there is little sense to proceeding, since we haven't established an understanding yet of what is being asked for. Again ... praise is not the result of the pitch, but whether or not they embedded the mechanic being focused on .... and the praise may need to be loud, and given with conviction ... so as to swamp out the hitter using the result of the swing.

If you know what you are doing ... it won't be long before the 'result' and your 'praise' match up .... at which point everyone is smiling and on the same page.

thanks

Thanks for the advice...I think I will focus on execution of mechanics first, not even worry about result of the at bat...I also liked your 3 step approach to each at bat...Thanks
TM

tmolina, do more front toss with dictation or progression. Dictation, is where you work on one location from front toss with appropriate speed to have your dd work on facets of her swing. Progression, take the dictation to the next level. My dd does both almost every night. She really likes progressions and so, we feed first ball at her hip and so, she has to really turn on the ball. Next down the middle. We have a target set. Third is outer half. She has to try to go opposite gap to close to middle. It is much more detailed than that but I really believe a lot in front toss. You can get the speed and location right and your daughter will be hitting a ball in flight as close to game conditions as you want.

From dictation and progression, you can advance as far as you want. We do progresions with bouncing a ball off of the floor once in a while which simulates a change. We also do some of these drills with an "Insider bat" and whiffle balls. Good luck and enjoy your time with your daughter.

DD is 11. DD's hitting coach taught a unique stance and swing that had her load at the start of the pitch putting her weight back and eliminated the front step or toe touch. She follows the same routine for each tee, soft toss, machine or live pitch which makes the sequence the same and builds muscle memory from what I can see.

During the lesson he would have her do tee, soft front toss, mixing it up between inside and out with wiffles and then a faster front toss with real balls. The last 15 minutes where in the 55mph cage. His style seemed unorthodox but she hit .560 last summer and is not intimidated by speed.

I throw to her in the batting cages from about 20 ft behind the screen @ about 25-30 mph. I'm not consistent so she gets a lot of location. This seems to simulate the live pitching and trains the eye for the bad pitch.

I would imagine that if your DD always has the same procedure put together by the same mechanics she would be less apt to alter it in the live scenario.

Thanks for the advice, I think I can get a grip on it now..TM

Tee work is employed by MLB players as well as the highest levels of Fastpitch players. Hitting is very complicated and there are many exercises and/or drills that can be incorporated to help players improve weak spots- but there is no one-size-fits -all solution.

It is about harnessing the power and movement of the pitch and transposing it into a hit.

Click to expand...

I sort of agree-I would say it's more of a maximizing of the energy developed by the swing and the appropriate transfer of that energy to the incoming ball. Your term sounds more defensive to me. but your points are all valid, they just skip over the fundamentals necessary to create the solid foundation from which the player can build.

If a girl has great timing and great pitch selection she's still going to have problems if she doesn't turn her hips or leads with her elbows.

I think everyone agrees that live pitching is the best practice. But it's not the only practice.

Now that I blabbered on, I re-read it and Scewball's post is just answering the question originally posed, and I agree. She has trouble with live pitching, she needs to practice live hitting in as close to game-conditions as you can get.