Hey guys, I’m a little late to the discussion so maybe a few of you are still following this thread and can help out. I’m here in Europe developing a couple of pitchers for the local military high school teams and have used this website, along with YouTube, to further my limited knowledge on pitching. Between Boardmember and Bill Hillhouse I think I’ve got a pretty good grasp on the fundamentals of a pitch and how to teach it. I developed a number of pitchers in the Shreveport/Bossier area of Louisiana back in the late nineties, I wish I knew then what I know now. I also took my daughter to Tim Timmons who was a pretty decent PC back in his day as well. His philosophy was spin spin spin. Not a bad philosophy to have. I saw an interview with Cat Osterman once and she credited him as one of her influential coaches as well.
After working this summer with my latest pitching project/prospect I’ve got her arm whip down pretty good. I took to heart Boardmember’s thread on I/R, my student has a pretty decent 1/7 rotation from the k-drill, nice velocity, nice movement from one plane to another. She’s not 100 percent with performing this every time but gets better by the week and I’ve got another six months before Europeans start. Where I’m struggling now is how to get this same motion into her leap and drag. It seems as though as soon as she leaps the ball slows down and she loses her spin. I suspect she’s trying to push versus flicking it with a “whipper snapper” motion. This summer when we were learning how to whip the ball it came in an instant after weeks of trying. It was not gradual, in one outing she had it. I’m wondering if incorporating these two skill sets together will take the same ah-ha moment or do you guys know of any drills that will help? I’ve searched high and low. We’ve worked on dry leaping and dragging, she looks pretty good. Put a ball in her hand it all goes to pot. When she does power k-drills and she looks all world. How do I marry these two together without hundreds of hours of practice waiting for her “oh that’s how it works” moment. We’ve gone back to working on whip, snap and spin with Circle-Ks and dry leaping until I can make sure I’m on the right track.
My thoughts on torque. I won't claim to be the or an expert on pitching, most of what I currently know has been picked up here and on various websites including YouTube, but what I will add to the discussion is my own observation working with both hitters and pitchers. There is some commonality between the two skill sets. Most high school pitchers are also their teams number three and four batters. This could be because pitchers are typically the best athletes on the HS team but I also think there is a corollary effect from learning how to work with front side resistance as leverage for generating power and creating a stable platform. When teaching hitters I lean more towards rotation (core torque) for generating power while in pitching it seems to be more of a linear motion with a touch of core torque and a lot of arm whip. No matter which hitting technique you teach…front side resistance it the key to driving through the ball. The core torque in pitching might just be an illusion, I’m starting to suspect the torque movement is the body’s way of creating a throw zone without leaning over, which we see some pitchers do. In the shoulder/elbow/wrist/fingers there are four degrees of freedom that take literally years of practice to perfect. In a full pitch, from launch to the ball being released off the fingertips there seems to be at least ten degrees of freedom depending on how you count. All required to be sequentially performed in a seamless movement. If just anyone could do it then everyone would be a pitcher. Some have spoken about injury and arm damage. Not everyone’s body is capable of being a pitcher. Same with any sport, some bodies can’t take it and that’s the way it is. Catching is hard on the knees, some girls and boys aren’t capable. I doubt I would ever dumb down what I teach in order for everyone to do the skill.
After working this summer with my latest pitching project/prospect I’ve got her arm whip down pretty good. I took to heart Boardmember’s thread on I/R, my student has a pretty decent 1/7 rotation from the k-drill, nice velocity, nice movement from one plane to another. She’s not 100 percent with performing this every time but gets better by the week and I’ve got another six months before Europeans start. Where I’m struggling now is how to get this same motion into her leap and drag. It seems as though as soon as she leaps the ball slows down and she loses her spin. I suspect she’s trying to push versus flicking it with a “whipper snapper” motion. This summer when we were learning how to whip the ball it came in an instant after weeks of trying. It was not gradual, in one outing she had it. I’m wondering if incorporating these two skill sets together will take the same ah-ha moment or do you guys know of any drills that will help? I’ve searched high and low. We’ve worked on dry leaping and dragging, she looks pretty good. Put a ball in her hand it all goes to pot. When she does power k-drills and she looks all world. How do I marry these two together without hundreds of hours of practice waiting for her “oh that’s how it works” moment. We’ve gone back to working on whip, snap and spin with Circle-Ks and dry leaping until I can make sure I’m on the right track.
My thoughts on torque. I won't claim to be the or an expert on pitching, most of what I currently know has been picked up here and on various websites including YouTube, but what I will add to the discussion is my own observation working with both hitters and pitchers. There is some commonality between the two skill sets. Most high school pitchers are also their teams number three and four batters. This could be because pitchers are typically the best athletes on the HS team but I also think there is a corollary effect from learning how to work with front side resistance as leverage for generating power and creating a stable platform. When teaching hitters I lean more towards rotation (core torque) for generating power while in pitching it seems to be more of a linear motion with a touch of core torque and a lot of arm whip. No matter which hitting technique you teach…front side resistance it the key to driving through the ball. The core torque in pitching might just be an illusion, I’m starting to suspect the torque movement is the body’s way of creating a throw zone without leaning over, which we see some pitchers do. In the shoulder/elbow/wrist/fingers there are four degrees of freedom that take literally years of practice to perfect. In a full pitch, from launch to the ball being released off the fingertips there seems to be at least ten degrees of freedom depending on how you count. All required to be sequentially performed in a seamless movement. If just anyone could do it then everyone would be a pitcher. Some have spoken about injury and arm damage. Not everyone’s body is capable of being a pitcher. Same with any sport, some bodies can’t take it and that’s the way it is. Catching is hard on the knees, some girls and boys aren’t capable. I doubt I would ever dumb down what I teach in order for everyone to do the skill.
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WillyT812... Nice to have interaction with one in the world of the "good glass & stones" I can relate to your quest. Here are a couple things that I'm thinking that I can help you with:
