First Lesson Tonight...

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Nov 2, 2015
192
16
Pretty excited...taking my daughter and 3 other girls to their first pitching lesson tonight. Start our first season of kid-pitch in the spring, so hoping to get a little bit of a jump on the pitching aspect!

I've been working with my daughter a bit in the front yard, trying to go over some of the early items in the IR classroom thread, but I'm not too sure how successful I've been at teaching it, since I'm so new to it myself.

Instuctor is Kelsey Stevens from OU, so should be some quality instruction. I think I'm more excited to learn some things than the girls are! lol

From reading this board, I know that I should be skeptical if I hear the term "hello elbow". Anything else?

Thanks!
 
Mar 8, 2017
78
8
You probably won't hear the cue word "hello elbow".

You want your instructor to teach the absolutes that elite pitchers demonstrate. If she's not teaching your DD the technique referred here as Internal Rotation, then you may want to consider looking for a new coach. What we end up seeing is many very successful pitchers tend to teach in the manner that they learned as a youth, even though their pitching evolved into something that was not taught to them. They were the ones who defied the odds in many cases, but just because it ended up working for them, doesn't mean it's the best way for your DD to proceed.

Keep an open mind, ask lots of questions, maybe even have some video ready in case something she shows the girls is different than how she pitched. The basics of I/R involve pulling the ball creating a whipping motion as the wrist turns over as the ball is released from the hip (preferably with brush contact). If she's showing your girls technique which involves getting on top of the ball at 9:00 and pushing into release, then she's teaching Hello Elbow (although many don't know that term).

Good luck, keep us posted.
 
Sep 10, 2013
603
0
Also remember that the term Internal Rotation is alien to most pitching coaches. I remember years ago when I was looking for a PC for my DD and i mentioned IR, the response i got was "whaaaattt? Internal Rotation?". that term is used AFAIK only here at DFP.

as mentioned by others, if the PC starts to tell your DD palm down at 9 and PUSH the ball, find another coach.
good luck.
 
Feb 3, 2010
5,752
113
Pac NW
Some other things to be wary of:
-Wrist snaps
-Clear the hips
-Slam the hips
-Wall drills to "fix" the arm circle
 
Nov 15, 2016
80
6
You know pretty fast. I still get looks because we do no wrist snaps ever!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

JAD

Feb 20, 2012
8,231
38
Georgia
Congratulations on beginning the journey with your DD! Seems like yesterday my DD was 9 and we were doing the same thing. Enjoy it while you can because it goes by too quickly.
 

shaker1

Softball Junkie
Dec 4, 2014
894
18
On a bucket
https://youtu.be/NoRJnKq3ZGk
Focus here is having a long straight arm, biggest circle you can make on the wall. Good thing in the video is actually the kid throwing, clearly IR. Pause during her throwing the sock, leading with the elbow, bend in the arm. Even the back view shows her palm down right after release before she turns it into a HE finish.
 
Jun 6, 2016
2,714
113
Chicago
Some other things to be wary of:
-Wrist snaps
-Clear the hips
-Slam the hips
-Wall drills to "fix" the arm circle

Can you explain clear the hips/slam the hips. I assume this refers to when a pitcher should open/close, and this is the one area I haven't read up on much yet, so what's the right/wrong way?
 
Apr 12, 2015
792
93
In short, cues to clear the hips usually will result in a butt-out posture and no brush. Cues to slam the hips result in over-rotation of the body and limit brush effectiveness.

Opening/Closing of the hips shouldn't be a taught or forced action and should be the result of natural biomechanics that happen, well, naturally, due to good pitching mechanics.
 

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