Current State of Softball Swing vs Baseball Swing

[SBFAMILY]

How you teach or coach a female is different than how you teach or coach a male. Ask any teacher. Girls are Audio Visual. Boys are Kinetic learners. I have seen male coaches struggle with this. Girls ask why and want to be shown why you are telling them something. Get a girl mad at you , or your wife notice how they react. I agree with Tewks on the Epstein stuff. Many of the softball coaches in this area of the country came from baseball or were taught by the baseball coach. Tewks we talked about your visit. Sometimes talking and showing each other does a better job of communication than written communication.

 

[lhowser]

How you teach or coach a female is different than how you teach or coach a male. Ask any teacher. Girls are Audio Visual. Boys are Kinetic learners. I have seen male coaches struggle with this. Girls ask why and want to be shown why you are telling them something. Get a girl mad at you , or your wife notice how they react.

Girls on this site who have played at a high level through 18u and/or college. Looking back do you agree with this or do you think females should be coached the same as a male athlete.

 

[RichK]

With pitching distances moving back to 43 feet in recent years (at least where I live in Illinois) for all high-school levels and most 14U travel associations, "reaction time" clearly favors the hitter. Very very few fastpitch pitchers can overwhelm with speed anymore and hitting is much more dominant. Reaction time isn't a good excuse any more to dumb down the fastpitch swing.

The one level where pitching can still dominate is at 10U and 35feet, especially at the "A" level where an older (11 years old by the summer) and bigger girl can easily reach 50-55 MPH from that distance versus younger/smaller girls. That's a tough match up!

But at older levels, at 43 feet, if a softball player isn't maximizing their swing mechanics to drive the ball versus just putting it in play, they are missing the boat (unless they are slapping lefty, which is still a very compelling part of the fastpitch game).

BTW Tewks, are you teaching slapping (in all its variations: hard, soft, bunt, power slap etc)? I'd think you'd find it interesting. Maybe time to move from trying out (and filming) your lefty swing to your lefty slap mechanics : >

 

[Wellphyt]

If a hitter doesn't get off their backside when they swing then they are not hitting from a balanced position. It doesn't matter if they are swinging at a softball or a baseball. The steepness of the swing plane is a different issue than a player not getting off the backside. The steepness of the swing plane can vary between players, and is largely based on the type hitter a player sees themselves being. Bigger, stronger, homerun type hitters may choose a steeper swing plane to try and lift the ball more. Smaller, singles and contact type hitters may utilize a flatter swing plane to try and hit more low line drives, and avoid lazy flyballs.

For what it's worth, Williams says in "SOH" that he felt Epstein swung up too much. Which, once again is not the same thing as not getting off the back side. The reason why some players who were trained using Epstein's DVDs don't get off the backside, is because there is very little info in his dvds on weight shift. His new website addresses the weight shift and other issues through the use of tutorials.

We have eight cages at our park. Two of them are for softball and the other six are for baseball. When I'm at the cages I can hear what the baseball coaches are telling their players. In most cases it isn't good. IMO many baseball coaches are teaching the same stuff as a lot of softball coaches. IOW, most parents and coaches don't spend the time that some of us do to study the swing. My assistent coach is a "see-the-ball hit-the-ball" type person. I've tried to educate him on the swing so he can help me out more at practice, but he genuinely doesn't care. He has other hobbies and has no interest in learning the finer points of an efficient swing.

The fastpitch coach who says that the softball swing is different than the baseball swing, would teach the same swing in baseball and claim it was the baseball swing. Just hang out at the baseball cages and you'll know what I'm saying.

Most baseball and softball parents and coaches aren't into this stuff as much as some of us are.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

How you teach or coach a female is different than how you teach or coach a male. Ask any teacher. Girls are Audio Visual. Boys are Kinetic learners. I have seen male coaches struggle with this. Girls ask why and want to be shown why you are telling them something. Get a girl mad at you , or your wife notice how they react. I agree with Tewks on the Epstein stuff. Many of the softball coaches in this area of the country came from baseball or were taught by the baseball coach. Tewks we talked about your visit. Sometimes talking and showing each other does a better job of communication than written communication.

I’m not following the categorizing of girls as “audio/visual” and boys as “kinetic learners”.

It may be that I don’t understand what you mean by the categorization of “kinetic learners”. Give an example of kinetic learning.

I believe both boys and girls can learn from an audio/visual approach … at least that’s been the case with the boys & girls I’ve worked with. I wouldn’t restrict that approach to just boys, or just girls.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

From Wikipedia:


Kinesthetic learning is a learning style in which learning takes place by the student actually carrying out a physical activity, rather than listening to a lecture or merely watching a demonstration. It is also referred to as tactile learning. People with a kinesthetic learning style are also commonly known as do-ers.

 

[starsnuffer]

There are certainly different ways that different people learn, but you cannot correctly go so far as to generalize that "boys are one way and girls are another". There are many boys that are not auditory or visual learners, and many girls that are. A successful teacher understands the multiple ways that people learn and incorporates all of them in their teaching style, coaching is no different.

SBFamily seems to be refering to the Fleming VARK model of learning. Here's a link to the wikipedia article on learning styles and you can explore from there: Learning styles - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

-W

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

From The Four Learning Styles in the DVC Survey ....

The Visual/ Verbal Learning Style
You learn best when information is presented visually and in a written language format. In a classroom setting, you benefit from instructors who use the blackboard (or overhead projector) to list the essential points of a lecture, or who provide you with an outline to follow along with during lecture. You benefit from information obtained from textbooks and class notes. You tend to like to study by yourself in a quiet room. You often see information "in your mind's eye" when you are trying to remember something.

The Tactile/ Kinesthetic Learning Style
You learn best when physically engaged in a "hands on" activity. In the classroom, you benefit from a lab setting where you can man ipulate materials to learn new information. You learn best when you can be physically active in the learning environment. You benefit from instructors who encourage in-class demonstrations, "hands on" student learning experiences, and field work outside t he classroom.

 

[Wellphyt]

From Wikipedia:


Kinesthetic learning is a learning style in which learning takes place by the student actually carrying out a physical activity, rather than listening to a lecture or merely watching a demonstration. It is also referred to as tactile learning. People with a kinesthetic learning style are also commonly known as do-ers.

Ha, ha...

My daughter routinely tells me that the girls on the team don't like explanations or demonstrations. She says, "we need to do it to learn it." I subscribe to the "you learn by doing" philosophy.

Btw, don't most instructors explain and demo what they what a student, male or female, to do before they have the student perform the activity? How else do you communicate to them what you want them to do?

 

[Tewks]

Ha, ha...

My daughter routinely tells me that the girls on the team don't like explanations or demonstrations. She says, "we need to do it to learn it." I subscribe to the "you learn by doing" philosophy.

Btw, don't most instructors explain and demo what they what a student, male or female, to do before they have the student perform the activity? How else do you communicate to them what you want them to do?

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