Batting Instructions during front toss.

[RichK]

One suggestion. Move a little closer and do it from a seated position. I think that gives you more control and less movement so you can see more clearly vs. trying to do a windup or even just pitching from your feet (not sure how you front-toss, sitting or standing).

Beyond that, just think about what she is trying to accomplish with the RESULT. You can learn and work on a lot with that. Is she early and slow loading? Is she hitting the ball where pitched? Mix in some changeups...how does she handle them? Mix in some fake throws -- has she started her load or is she standing flat-footed? Plus I DO think you can see a lot of mechanics from the front, they just look.....well, different, ie from a different angle

 

[clemenslee1]

Agree with RecentAddict....Video video video. The girls that I work with one on one make the most progress... because we video every swing...do a few specific drills for feel or correction...then a few swings with a focus on what we are working on. They end up doing more good reps than bad. I still get amazed at what I miss at times with the eye...compared to video.

You can buy phone or ipad mounts fairly cheap as well as a 50" tripod. Well worth it.
50" tripod
Iphone mounts

I have a tripod etc. that I use most of the time. She does get to see what she is doing after the fact. I'm talking real time during the session.

 

[Westwind]

Rich K’s comments mirror my thoughts on this. And it’s not ideal but I think you can see barrel path pretty good from the front. I’ll add a few more:

We do tee work before front toss, that’s usually where we do any adjustments. That’s where the “thinking” happens. To me, front toss is where you practice emptying out your brain, not thinking too much and you practice getting in that place in your head where you are ripping the ball. I don’t work with any younger kids so we aren’t working on “only hitting strikes” at all. We are working on hitting every pitch hard except balls that are obviously way out of the zone. (No splitting hairs on balls vs strikes.) Everything else gets blasted from the hitting zone, lol

The result is important in front toss. Is she taking outside pitches hard oppo and are middle pitches going back up the middle. In front toss I try not to say anything that can be interpreted as negative feedback- the most correction I will ever give is “outside pitch, hit it hard that way” and then hopefully get her another outside pitch that she takes oppo. Then we celebrate that a little.

Noticing when they hit a pitch the right way is way more important than making corrections in my mind.

 

[Cannonball]

As mentioned, video. However, you can also throw front toss from a side angle. We often do this. We set the screen up as if to throw to the outside corner, angle it some and then toss. We do this a lot to work on outside pitches but also, you can get a good view on some of the middle/out pitches as well.

 

[clemenslee1]

Rich K’s comments mirror my thoughts on this. And it’s not ideal but I think you can see barrel path pretty good from the front. I’ll add a few more:

We do tee work before front toss, that’s usually where we do any adjustments. That’s where the “thinking” happens. To me, front toss is where you practice emptying out your brain, not thinking too much and you practice getting in that place in your head where you are ripping the ball. I don’t work with any younger kids so we aren’t working on “only hitting strikes” at all. We are working on hitting every pitch hard except balls that are obviously way out of the zone. (No splitting hairs on balls vs strikes.) Everything else gets blasted from the hitting zone, lol

The result is important in front toss. Is she taking outside pitches hard oppo and are middle pitches going back up the middle. In front toss I try not to say anything that can be interpreted as negative feedback- the most correction I will ever give is “outside pitch, hit it hard that way” and then hopefully get her another outside pitch that she takes oppo. Then we celebrate that a little.

Noticing when they hit a pitch the right way is way more important than making corrections in my mind.

Thanks for the info. I like the tee is where the "Thinking" Happens vs Front toss. Makes more sense. Plus doing tee work first, then into front toss, They should have the feeling of what they did on the tee still fresh in their head.

 

[justanotherguy]

As others have said: video, video, video! But I haven't seen anyone else say: slow motion playback! When you can show the kids a frame for frame playback vs regular speed then comparing it to a target swing against someone like Cabrera, you'll see lights go off. Learn how to use free video tools like Openshot video editor so you can use your mouse to drag the timeline frame by frame. This was, probably, the largest thing that helped my DD more than any other thing.

 

[clemenslee1]

As others have said: video, video, video! But I haven't seen anyone else say: slow motion playback! When you can show the kids a frame for frame playback vs regular speed then comparing it to a target swing against someone like Cabrera, you'll see lights go off. Learn how to use free video tools like Openshot video editor so you can use your mouse to drag the timeline frame by frame. This was, probably, the largest thing that helped my DD more than any other thing.

I use slow motion, frame by frame all the time with my DD. I use Coaches Eye that allows me to manually go through a swing frame by frame.

 

[Recent Addict]

Technique by Hudl is also a great tool.