DD at a lesson

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TDS

Mar 11, 2010
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All these technicalities are wonderful to discuss with this peer group, but at the end of the day I have to get 11 year old girls to stop dropping their hands and swinging flat. Crazy thing is, a vast majority of hall of fame hitters are not the Ted Williams, Josh Donaldson types. I would imagine if not for baseball Ted and Josh would be in the STEM fields. Their brains require a valid explanation of reality to work correctly. I am the same way. The problem is..... a big group of men and most all women aren't that way. No sexism, just facts, there are way more men in the stem fields and more women human services. That being said imparting feel may be a better tool than reason. Both are important, however at this stage in my development as a coach I am thinking 75/25 feel to real. So I am looking for the feel suggestions that will produce good results. I can technically break the swing down but have struggled sometimes to relate my knowledge to them in a way that produces the desired results.

Just this past weekend at a TB tournament I had a player who was dropping hands and swinging up. Golf swing like. Had to bunt her most the time but really wanted her to hit. I had to go to out on a leap of faith and tell her to swing down on the ball. She hit a line drive after that. That type of stuff makes no sense to me. But if it works.... it works. So I have to be smart enough to bypass my own brain which wants to say, you are dropping your hands, you are not getting your back elbow under and your front elbow up, you are not getting a downward shoulder angle into fyb, etc. Coaching is not an easy job. Can I get an Amen?

Sounds similar to creating a loop to swing up vs swing down like all the greats preach.
 
Nov 8, 2018
774
63
All these technicalities are wonderful to discuss with this peer group, but at the end of the day I have to get 11 year old girls to stop dropping their hands and swinging flat. Crazy thing is, a vast majority of hall of fame hitters are not the Ted Williams, Josh Donaldson types. I would imagine if not for baseball Ted and Josh would be in the STEM fields. Their brains require a valid explanation of reality to work correctly. I am the same way. The problem is..... a big group of men and most all women aren't that way. No sexism, just facts, there are way more men in the stem fields and more women human services. That being said imparting feel may be a better tool than reason. Both are important, however at this stage in my development as a coach I am thinking 75/25 feel to real. So I am looking for the feel suggestions that will produce good results. I can technically break the swing down but have struggled sometimes to relate my knowledge to them in a way that produces the desired results.

Just this past weekend at a TB tournament I had a player who was dropping hands and swinging up. Golf swing like. Had to bunt her most the time but really wanted her to hit. I had to go to out on a leap of faith and tell her to swing down on the ball. She hit a line drive after that. That type of stuff makes no sense to me. But if it works.... it works. So I have to be smart enough to bypass my own brain which wants to say, you are dropping your hands, you are not getting your back elbow under and your front elbow up, you are not getting a downward shoulder angle into fyb, etc. Coaching is not an easy job. Can I get an Amen?

Every child learns differently. Visual, auditory, kinesthetic etc. some strict. Some blended. Either way a good coach learns how to teach each of these to teach. Not easy or course.
My dd. More kinesthetic. A little visual. Not auditory. I can talk all day and she won’t get it. I can show her and she may understand. But if I put her in the positions and make her feel it. Home run. What frustrates us is we teach the way we learn. Teach the way they learn and success is greater. And your wanting to put a bullet in your head lessens. Lmao.


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Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
Every child learns differently. Visual, auditory, kinesthetic etc. some strict. Some blended. Either way a good coach learns how to teach each of these to teach. Not easy or course.
My dd. More kinesthetic. A little visual. Not auditory. I can talk all day and she won’t get it. I can show her and she may understand. But if I put her in the positions and make her feel it. Home run. What frustrates us is we teach the way we learn. Teach the way they learn and success is greater. And your wanting to put a bullet in your head lessens. Lmao.


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Good post. Still trying to figure this out for my DD. I am thinking there may be a 4th, potentially deadly (for Dad), option 4) unable to learn from Dad :LOL:
 
Last edited:
Jul 29, 2013
1,199
63
I think you mean watch the elbow slot and the top wrist become radial deviated. Turning of the barrel is the result of the back elbow slotting creating a delay in the release of the barrel. Adjustable.

Don’t you throw that way too? Why do we slot the elbow when we throw? Maybe to support the hands’ direction and intent? Maybe that’s why the elbow will slot deeper on an outside pitch because of the longer arc to the ball as opposed to the inside where the arc is much smaller and doesn’t need as much support to stay on plane? I don’t know maybe I’m crazy.

Common sense needs a push here.
You are crazy. You slot the elbow to throw?????
Wth?
 
Jul 29, 2013
1,199
63
Sounds similar to creating a loop to swing up vs swing down like all the greats preach.
So everyone used to teach hit down. And you're a good hitter and everyone tells you how well you hit down on the ball. Problem is...., you don't hit down on the ball but nobody tries to fix your swing because you hit the crap out of it.
Feel isn't real.
 
Last edited:
Nov 8, 2018
774
63
Good post. Still trying to figure this out for my DD. I am thinking there may be a 4th, potentially deadly (for Dad), option 4) unable to learn from Dad :LOL:

Lol. Yes there is a forth forgot to mention it. We as parents want to help so bad we overload our kids with information. I’m being serious now. After awhile they just tune us out. Not intentionally but it happens. I liken it to this example. If you went on a vacation to an amazing place. Let’s say Disney. But you only went one time. Your memories would be Pretty clear and would remember so many of the experiences. Now let’s say you went to Disney 20 times. You would remember it was a magical time but specific things would be lost due to the volume of events.
That’s what happens to us with our kids. We are telling them so many things they don’t know which Is important after awhile and start to tune out.
Make sense. Here’s how I deal with it.
1. I try to focus on limited things at one time. The more focus on 1 or 2 concepts at a time the more they are apt to stay engaged.
2. Tell someone else or a coach what you are trying to accomplish and have them present it. It will be coming from a different person. Ie it isn’t Disney for the 20th time. It’s great adventure now. They can store it in a different drawer in their Memory.
These both have worked. So give it a try and see how it goes.
But it isn’t easy coaching your own kid. You are dad. Not coach.
Enjoy.


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TDS

Mar 11, 2010
2,926
113
So everyone used to teach hit down. And you're a good hitter and everyone tells you how well you hit down on the ball. Problem is...., you don't hit down on the ball but nobody tries to fix your swing because you hit the crap out of it.
Feel isn't real.

Bobby, maybe if you tried to understand it like others have.





 
Last edited:
Jul 29, 2013
1,199
63
Bobby, maybe if you tried to understand it like others have.






Did you read the SI article?
I try but what I can't understand is how there are those who insist on how they are doing something, even though there is clear video evidence that it's not what they are doing at all. And then they show it and teach it wrongly to others.
It's as though there's a conspiracy to prevent those guys from being toppled from their lofty perches.

And then there are those who insist on what's happening in a swing in spite of there being no video or pictoral evidence to support their claims. They use terms like "kinetic chain" and "neuro-muscular" because they think it makes them sound smart. They think because the human body is involved, physics is somehow different.

Reminds me of the guy who asked me why softball coaches don't teach power hitting. I said it's because a) they dont' know how, and b) they don't think it will work because softball is different. He then went into a huge monologue about how kids and especially girls don't have the neuro-muscular ability to execute such high level moves. In spite of the fact that he asked the question after watching my dd crush ball after ball in a batting cage next to boys that he was coaching who couldn't hit the baseball as hard as she hit the softball.

Those are things I can't understand.
Can you?
 

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