falling off to side

[JJsqueeze]

Here is a clip of my adopted daughter Lizzy. About a year older but a great example of a good alignment of forces. see how she drives out and the rear foot disengages? this prevents ANY powering the pitch from a planted rear foot, all of the power has to come from the front foot plant/suck/whip.

Also see how all the power is going down the line tot he catcher?

 

[JJsqueeze]

Here is a clip of my actual daughter as well, she is your daughter's age so might be a better comparison than Lizzy (who incidentally will be the starting pitcher for the new NPF franchise in Dallas).

Less refined, but you still see the rear foot disengagement, the power going down the line and the power being generated by the plant/suck/whip (mostly), she also has a little too much slam the door hip action in this clip.

 

[covrec1]

Thanks for the video. She throws about 40mph now and is pretty accurate at hitting all of her spots so this should help increasing those things. So work on??
Staying on the power line which will fix most of her bad habits.
More push off with her back foot.

 

[JJsqueeze]

Thanks for the video. SHe throws about 40mph now and is pretty accurate at hitting all of her spots so this shouild help increasing those things. So work on??
Staying on the power line which will fix most of her bad habits.
More push off with her back foot.

The best advice I can give you for a 10 year old pitcher is to forget everything and focus on mechanics only and she will be far better off in the long run.

The bottom line is that your kid looks athletic, has a lot of potential, but she has a lot of changes ahead of her to build a motion that will work at 12/14 and up, the worst thing for a 10 year old pitcher is to focus on being a good 10 year old pitcher. The best thing is to focus on being a good 12U pitcher. So sacrifice results now for long term superstudliness. that is not to say that she won't surprise you and be a stud in a few months with cleaner mechanics, but it is just to say that caring about accuracy over mechanics at her stage of development is the big pitching trap...it is the "just throw strikes' thing.

 

[JJsqueeze]

Thanks for the video. She throws about 40mph now and is pretty accurate at hitting all of her spots so this should help increasing those things. So work on??
Staying on the power line which will fix most of her bad habits.
More push off with her back foot.

It is not as simple as "staying on the powerline" it is more like making sure that her motion efficiently transfers power down the line and gets it all into the ball. Staying on the powerline and being balanced is just an indicator of something that generally needs to happen in order to facilitate the goal of better mechanics. But in general if she can drive on the powerline (or a hair to the left) and finish on the powerline, then it is a good indicator that she is BALANCED and that is the goal.

Same thing with the MORE PUSH OFF, it is not a matter of more necessarily, although more would be good, it is a matter of not powering the underhand throw with ground force reactions from the rear foot. You power the drive with this, but then it dissenages and the power of the pitch comes from elsewhere. It is really hard to describe in words but if you look at your DDs vid and watch the power you will see it start in the rear foot (not the drive, the actual throw) it does not disengage until after she has accelerated her arm from the 9 o clock position.

 

[JJsqueeze]

slow work day finally so I grabbed the vid and slowed it down so you could see what I was talking about with the rear foot.
See how it is engaged and only from 9 o clock through release does the knee straighten and then the foot disengage? this is the "powering from the rear foot" that I see as so problematic.

 

[covrec1]

I do see that. So we need to work on disengage at 12oclock?

 

[SoGASoftball]

I'm no expert, but use the cue... "turn the shoe laces over to the catcher or ground" during the drag. This helped my daughter.

 

[FastPitchCat]

1) You have a lot of clearance between the ball and your body, this makes it really hard to decelerate your upper arm and optimize whip.

JJ - great explanation, but I can't seem to get my 14 yo DD to understand when and why deceleration is necessary of the upper arm to optimize the whip. Can you expound this further such that a 14yo can understand?

tnx

 

[JJsqueeze]

maybe...it is hard to say where to start from this full pitch clip. What does she look like in her I/R drills from BM? It starts there. That is where a kid learns to power the release with adduction and whip. If she does not feel that then any full pitching motion is going to be hard to correct because her body will do a lot to try to keep her current power source in place and it will feel so weird to her that she will have a strong inclination to keep doing what she is doing.

I think you start with those I/R drills to give her the feeling of these things first before you add in the drive and the full circle. Try that and post some clips. Hopefully by then some one who actually knows what they are talking about will chime in instead of just me.