What I'm learning with my daughter is to only let her move the body as quickly as she can perform the movement correctly and to apply some Alexander Technique. Remove the goal of pitching or the result of speed, distance or accuracy and focus on the feel of brush. I also learned that I need slow motion video to truly know if she's doing the drills correctly.
Remove the goal of pitching or the result of speed, distance or accuracy and focus on the feel of brush. I also learned that I need slow motion video to truly know if she's doing the drills correctly.
Yes. Agreed. Her pitching coach does this with her and I've learned to ask at intervals, what she felt, if she knows what was correct, or incorrect, etcThe only thing I'd add is to teach her to self-assess and correct. This is really the goal of coaching anything. So many folks take the path of drilling mechanics into a kid. Many kids transcend the drilling and learn to pitch on their own, but usually without understanding their mechanics. What's fun is hearing a 9 year old kid dissect the mechanics of an older pitcher and be able to offer suggestions. In my opinion, there's not much better than that as a coach...
Sounds like your on the right path. Too many are in a hurry to see strikes, speed, accuracy. Sometimes just whipping it into a net, without worrying where the ball is going, so the FOCUS is BRUSH. Video is a great tool, take from front and back to check out the amount of brush she is getting.
This with the net is what we have been doing lately. I can stand beside her, like her coach and encourage or correct, etc. I learned without video she can be deceptive. For example, she can look correct to the eye at 9:00 but on video I can see when she stops the upper arm short of connection and turn the palm and push. As for brush, we talk about if she feels it, if we hear it and we look for the arm wiggle/wobble at these slower speeds.