About a year ago I came here looking for some coaching advice for my daughter’s rec team. I’m relatively new to the game and the advice and suggestions I got here were a tremendous help. During the season, the girls (and I) learned a lot and most importantly had fun doing so. Most of the girls have signed up again this year so I guess we did something right! I attribute a lot of that to the drills and practice ideas some of you gave me. So many thanks to all those who chimed in.
One area that was a little frustrating last year was hitting practice. I used stations (tee, soft toss, live, etc) and had parent volunteers so we could usually get a quite a few swings in but I found it difficult to give a lot of individual instruction to the girls. These are 9-10 year old girls and most are very inexperienced. I don’t think many of them get a lot of practice at home so the only instruction they get is what they get at practice, which because of field availability is limited to once a week for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Of course, we also have to cover a lot more than just hitting in this time.
As I mentioned, I can split them up into stations to give them a number of swings but I also don’t want to ingrain any bad habits. My volunteer parents are less experienced than me so they can’t help out too much in this area. At least I got one of my parents to stop telling the girls to “squish the bug and swing level” so I made some progress there!
Does anyone have any ideas for how to teach a large group of inexperienced girls proper swing fundamentals without getting too technical? I show them proper stance, grip, stride, etc. and I know a lot on here have mentioned teaching them to hit by teaching them to throw. I’ve used that and it does help but does anyone have any other ideas I can use? I appreciate any thoughts you might have.
One area that was a little frustrating last year was hitting practice. I used stations (tee, soft toss, live, etc) and had parent volunteers so we could usually get a quite a few swings in but I found it difficult to give a lot of individual instruction to the girls. These are 9-10 year old girls and most are very inexperienced. I don’t think many of them get a lot of practice at home so the only instruction they get is what they get at practice, which because of field availability is limited to once a week for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Of course, we also have to cover a lot more than just hitting in this time.
As I mentioned, I can split them up into stations to give them a number of swings but I also don’t want to ingrain any bad habits. My volunteer parents are less experienced than me so they can’t help out too much in this area. At least I got one of my parents to stop telling the girls to “squish the bug and swing level” so I made some progress there!
Does anyone have any ideas for how to teach a large group of inexperienced girls proper swing fundamentals without getting too technical? I show them proper stance, grip, stride, etc. and I know a lot on here have mentioned teaching them to hit by teaching them to throw. I’ve used that and it does help but does anyone have any other ideas I can use? I appreciate any thoughts you might have.