Do I even try to teach pitching?

[cnardone]

You have 10U girls that never pitched and are not taking lessons. You're worried that trying to teach them might be an epic failure? What is the likelihood of them getting it all on their own?

 

[Hawk_]

God no lol. You don’t have time in a normal rec practice to get girls good at pitching or hitting.
If a girl wants to pitch, suggest some pitching coaches. You have an hour maybe two a week, fielding and base running should be focus. Hitting and pitching need to be done outside of practice.

 

[lancer360]

My DD is one of our two catchers. If I did it, my plan was to ask the pitchers and catchers to come to practice 30 minutes early. Most definitely would not try to do it during practice.

 

[Recent Addict]

Our Rec organization used to hold a pitching clinic, where older girls from the organization (they also had travel) and the high school would spend a couple of hours showing the girls the basics. We collected $10 from the rec coaches and the older girls got a couple of bucks for their effort.

Several of the younger girls started working with the older girls for $10 or $20 an hour outside of practice time. It seemed to be a win for everyone. If they kept getting better, they found pitching coaches and dropped more money to refine the craft.

 

[cvsoftball]

you will never succeed without buy in from the parents. you will not only have to teach IR to the players but to the parents as well! they are the ones who will make or break the effort. lots of parents want their DDs to be the pitcher. very few understand what it takes to pitch.

 

[Laphoneman]

They are 10u you have plenty of time to learn so start learning yourself and try teaching them. Ultimately they need to find a pitching coach. But the more you know the more you can help. This will be a long journey I taught my dd because every P coach in my area teaches hello elbow I started with fastpitch power but found issues with the open hips then went to Bill Hillhouse approach so learn as much as you can from all the great info on this site.

 

[clarity]

Teach them to "throw" underhanded.

This is exactly what I was going to say.

This, this, this! I have 2 pitchers. If I could go back, this is exactly what we would do from the beginning. No wind-ups, no catcher, no plate, no rubber, nothing. Just throw underhand.

I can't emphasize this enough. Just throw underhand. Don't pitch. Just throw.

 

[ArmWhip]

Most kids will 'bowl' when asked to throw underhand. And when they add the windmill arm circle the bowling will be reinforced. Learning even the basics is a long term project. I always tell new students and parents that control is the last thing to come and to expect a lot of walks. If you want to give it a shot start with them standing sideways and have them IR the ball a short distance (slingshot). If they can do that add distance. If they can still throw with IR then move up to full circle. Good Luck.

 

[djcarter1966]

I see people here say this a lot here, but in my experience, it's almost never true. I can only think of a single girl I've worked with who has had something resembling IR mechanics immediately. And none of the others I'm thinking of have had any pitching experience or coaching to give them the wrong ideas. 90%+ want to bowl the pitch and have to be taught IR mechanics.

This is the #1 thing I start with...tell the girls we are throwing NOT bowling...as soon as they know it's NOT bowling then their natural throwing motion will take over.....also never ever doing wrist flips or 1/2 circle with wrist flips will also help to curb the bowling tendencies.

 

[sluggers]

When I said, "keep the right leg back", I was thinking about Whitney Canion. Whitney was the top pitcher in the NCAA a few years ago.

Whitney is a leftie, so she keeps her left leg behind her.



For young kids, the main problem is "bowling", where they close the hips. So, one way for them to "stay open" (and, yes, I understand that the hips should close to about 45 degrees) is to simply keep the push off leg behind them.