Brooke vs my DD

crankermo said:

The biggest thing we've always focused on was coiling into the backside and maintaining that coil until she was ready to unload by resisting with her hands against it i.e. turning the barrel with the hands. IMO the hands control the barrel and the upper half. It makes it less complicated for them instead of focusing on EVERY single aspect of the swing and turning them into robots.

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This is really excellent, and you can see it in Brooke's swing.

Lhowser, my two cents only, but focusing on this idea and working with your DD on barrel turn and snap would get her out of her shoulders and clean up her upper half and her entire swing.

You/she are at an interesting point. She is very athletic and you both have a lot of knowledge AND an open mind. Can you change a deeply-embedded pattern at this point in her development? Can she figure it out on a tee AND when under pressure of college pitching without reverting?

I wish you both the best of luck and a ton of fun on your journey I for one would welcome the chance to follow her continued development here at DFP -- it takes guts for both of you to put yourself out here like this.

One thing I always make sure I'm doing before making changes is make sure you are comparing apples to apples. You DD swing looks long versus compact but is any of this impacted by the fact she might be swinging at a low and away off speed pitch versus it looks like Brooke is swinging at a fast higher inside pitch? See if you can find a clip of your DD hitting a fast high inside pitch and see if her swing looks the same my guess is probably not because she would have trouble making contact with that exact swing from the video.

I think as others have said though in general you can see she probably does need to tighten things up to say she has a long looping swing seems true by comparison but overall like others have said at some point you need to be careful of not fixing what is not broken.

Howser - Coil into rear hip and dont give it up. Learn to turn barrel. Can't do one without the other, or you will never establish a "corner". Right now she is pushing with her back leg out of the bit of coil she establishes. Hands are pushing fwd with out front whip. She is so athletic, you two will get there - no doubt.

Buttermaker said:

I have covered a lot of canvas over the years, but teaching in the last couple has been especially fulfilling since I dumbed it down to this:
1. Turn the barrel
2. Learn to turn the rear leg with the barrel turn
3. Then learn to stress the crap out of those to pivot points so you can snap the crap out of them

The style of the hitter (tipping, neck slot. leg kick, etc) develops out of that.

I like Lhowser's kids swing - I had a chance to work with all I would say to her is keep her head back and keep doing everything she is doing and her swing would smooth out nicely.

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Many very good posts on this thread. Very helpful. intrigued by Buttermaker's comments.

We both (me and dd) see a "pull" vs a "turn" with the upper half and wonder how this relates to the lower half and staying more in the rear hip longer vs pivoting around the front hip?

crankermo said:

The biggest thing we've always focused on was coiling into the backside and maintaining that coil until she was ready to unload by resisting with her hands against it i.e. turning the barrel with the hands. IMO the hands control the barrel and the upper half. It makes it less complicated for them instead of focusing on EVERY single aspect of the swing and turning them into robots.

People on these sites have a tendency to over complicate things by spitting out the new and hot lingo when it's just letting your body do what it wants. I could waste time and break down every single movement in the swing but to me it's waste of time and energy. The kids I work with I tend to let their bodies figure things out after you give them a good fundamental base to build off of.

That's just how I've approached it with Brooke and others and I've had good success that way but everyone is different

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Well said!!! Young girls also take things very literal, you need to be careful of that.

lhowser said:

Many very good posts on this thread. Very helpful. intrigued by Buttermaker's comments.

We both (me and dd) see a "pull" vs a "turn" with the upper half and wonder how this relates to the lower half and staying more in the rear hip longer vs pivoting around the front hip?

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I think a pull is a good way to describe what she is doing as well.

Pull or drag all the same to me.

rdbass said:

Pull or drag all the same to me.

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The way I see it is she drops her hands and pulls the barrel through the zone. She must be a strong hitter. Brooke's hands go directly to the ball.

Eric F said:

Nice comparison.

One thing I have always been always been impressed with in Brooke's swing is her use of her core (upper-lower separation).

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Yes. Separation is sort of an old-fashioned word these days but the way Brooke does this, per Crankermo:

coiling into the backside and maintaining that coil until she was ready to unload by resisting with her hands against it i.e. turning the barrel with the hands

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is really the difference....

If you go back to lhowser's original video and toggle back and forth looking at Brooke's separation at launch and Ape's momentum/forward launch you can see the difference. The barrel *should* get pulled through, by the body not the arms. And how you get to launch determines how you execute launch.