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Jan 6, 2009
6,587
113
Chehalis, Wa
I watched both lessons on twitter. As I have mentioned before, I am not an HI member. What I know about Rich and his theories came from DFP, BBD, and BBF. I thought I had a pretty good understanding of his overall theory, but was missing how some of the thoughts fit together. These lessons actually helped provide some clarity to me. I found some value in watching... I have no interest in debating pros and cons concerning it, as I have found most people already have their minds made up and are more interested in arguing than having a legitimate discussion.

Yeah, the tilt. I agree with the tilting action.
 
Sep 17, 2009
1,637
83
I'm not seeing videos of kids posted here that don't don't tilt.

I don't know. Most kids that arm swing, swing around their bodies or are (still) taught a linear swing don't tilt. We see a lot of those issues here. And I haven't really run across any hitting coach in the past, and my kids played for a long-time and crossed paths with lots of coaches and instructors through the years, ever instruct *how* to properly tilt or why you need to. And I do not think girls that think about 'swinging' a bat naturally implement tilt into their mechanics.

As to the elbow pinned/chicken wing, I see that too. But I also see swings "closer" to that style among pros these days. Judge does it (yes, he has obvious TM influence) but so does Trout (who doesn't), where there's not a traditional extension through contact, top hand thrown past bottom hand, but more of that fused look through contact. I'm not sure I've come to grips with this yet from a teaching perspective.

Anyway, we can all judge (ha!) and take away what we like/hate from these public 'lessons.'
 
Apr 2, 2015
1,198
113
Woodstock, man
Please post or link to a video of a kid not tilting. Every kid with bat drag tilts. They have to. Almost every youth hitter has bat drag. So they don't need to learn to tilt.

Part of learning to fix bat drag is to bring your back elbow down, not forward.

So just saying the word 'tilt' may make the problem worse. Taking the back elbow down to the belt would go part way to fixing bat drag.

BatDrag_002.jpg
 
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Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
Please post or link to a video of a kid not tilting.
I think 99% of kids have some tilt the question is are they using it correctly to adjust to balls at different parts of the zone. Whether that can or needs to be taught or just needs to be learned through lots of reps is a different story. I know that my DD doesn't get enough tilt on balls low in the zone, in particular low and inside, when there is any sort of speed associated with the pitch. Most of the time she will swing right over the pitch and at best will top it. With her it seems the amount of tilt she has doesn't vary with pitch location.
 
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Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
90% of the second lesson falls under slow and early, slow and early....

One thing that I don't like about his demos is that most of the time when he demos "1 leggedness" he does it with his shoulders upside down at launch. Watch how the kid demos it at the end when TM says very good..he is in a correct "attack position" with his shoulders when he does it. Not sure whether it is physical limitations with TM or what but he does it constantly. I get to see enough of that with my DD... :LOL:
 
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Sep 17, 2009
1,637
83
Please post or link to a video of a kid not tilting. Every kid with bat drag tilts. They have to. Almost every youth hitter has bat drag. So they don't need to learn to tilt.

Part of learning to fix bat drag is to bring your back elbow down, not forward.

So just saying the word 'tilt' may make the problem worse. Taking the back elbow down to the belt would go part way to fixing bat drag.

BatDrag_002.jpg
He's lost the barrel sure. But there's zero tilt here. I don't think we are talking about the same thing. I am headed to the airport sorry to ghost.

Learning to take the barrel to the ball via tilt versus drop-level is a good first step toward curing bat drag, IMO.
 
Jul 16, 2013
4,659
113
Pennsylvania
I think 99% of kids have some tilt the question is are they using it correctly to adjust to balls at different parts of the zone. Whether that can or needs to be taught or just needs to be learned through lots of reps is a different story. I know that my DD doesn't get enough tilt on balls low in the zone, in particular low and inside, when there is any sort of speed associated with the pitch. Most of the time she will swing right over the pitch and at best will top it. With her it seems the amount of tilt she has doesn't vary with pitch location.

I agree with this. Sure, most kids "tilt", but few do it properly. It's one of the things we looked for when playing other teams. Our catcher got pretty good at noticing it, and then calling low and inside pitches to exploit it.
 

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