First session with a PC/What to expect?

[JJsqueeze]

We just got back from our first eval/lesson with DDs first pitching coach. I am not sure what to expect from a PC and working with one so I want to get my expectations in line. The session went like this.

1) DD and I did some stretches and overhand throws.
2) DD did some K drills. about 5.
3) PC asked DD to do some wrist flips instead. about 10.
4) DD did more K drills
5) During K drills, PC showed DD that the elbow should point to the catcher at follow through (dads eyebrows raise)
6) DD does Ks with elbow pointing to catcher at follow
7) DD pitches for the first time with complete motion using new wrist flip and elbow pointing at catcher.
8) lesson continues for an hour with PC giving DD instruction between every pitch on shoulder position, follow through leg drive, hand position etc.

I guess the thing I want to get at is that I was totally expecting the PC to observe DDs warmup and full motion for a while to get a sense of where she was, what is working, what was ingrained vs what was changing pitch to pitch, and then focus in on one or two things to work on at first. I kept my mouth shut but was pretty surprised that any correction would be suggested before getting a sense of how everything was working, she actually made two change suggestions before DD had actually thrown full windup. DD is a pretty obedient kid so she immediately starting trying to flip her wrist and get her elbow pointed at the catcher and you can guess how that worked out. I know very little about pitching but I am a pretty good troubleshooter and I can't think of a troubleshooting situation where you don't try to observe the problem first to get a sense of what is going on before you start replacing parts. I was also shocked by the amount of things she said to DD and how often. I expected her to give DD one thing to focus on and then work it for a while till it sunk in a little and then move on, but PC literally had feedback between every pitch. It's like she had a notion of what every pitcher with 6 months experience should be working on and was just reading from her pitching recipe, while I was expecting a tailored effort for my DD and her strengths and weaknesses.
DD is shy but really liked her so I am going to work with her on the drills she gave us and go back one more time at least to see how it goes. Also, I have purposely avoided wrist flips based on something I saw in a Hillhouse video that made a lot of sense. He was basically saying to keep the kinetic chain to fewer linkages for young pitchers and that the wrist flip could be added later if desired once the upper and lower arm timing was set.

Is this pretty standard for an eval or should I be concerned?

 

[Ken B]

Based on what you have read here at DFP, how much of what this PC was teaching seemed similar? How many other PC's did you scope out before choosing and what drew you to this one?

 

[humpty]

This sounds exactly what I did the other day. DD went to a pitching evaluation from A friend of a friend. I wanted to get a different perspective on dds pitching. The guy wanted DD to do wrist flicks. Then T drills while facing the catcher, closed position. And he was pushing for hello elbow. DD kept giving me the look and I kept giving her the nod to just do it out of politeness. It was kinda awkward. For the last year we have been doing boardmembers drills as warmup. All focusing on IR. DD really impressed the guy and he wanted to take her on as a student. We both walked away asking why do we need a PC. we have dfp. Thanks again boardmember your my DD PC and you don't even know it.

 

[GOINGDEEP]

First session with a PC/What to expect?

You can expect $50 to jump out of your pocket and drive home wondering, what the heck just happened?

We went to a PC for a month when DD was 9, worst month of my life, and we never went back to one. Sad thing is this PC was highly recommended by everyone we met at TB tourneys. I did NOT like what she was trying to do/convert my DD to do. Years later and hind site 20/20, it was hello elbow ( learned that term on here ).

Buyer beware for sure when looking for a PC. If I could do it all over, I'd still teach DD myself, but I'd ask someone like Boardmember, Hal, Hillhouse for advice on anyone close to my area they recommend for help/advice on the side. Sometimes someone else can see a flaw that a parent can't, even if it's right there in black and white.

Good luck

 

[halskinner]

My normal sessions were 30 minutes. First lesson, 45 minutes and it was a cram session trying to explain EVERYTHING that I needed to explain at the first lesson. There is a minimum amount of knowledge and understanding the student and parent MUST have to go home and practice correctly. So, expect alot of talking.

Everyone has heard me say this before; If the stride speed, length and landing is not consistent , NOTHING ELSE WILL BE CONSISTENT EITHER. You MUST set that groundwork and 'Foundation' first before anything else in mechanics. I would draw out my 'Foundation Method' and that is where we started. I would send them home with a print out and instructions so they could EXACTLY DUPLICATE what they did in our session.

My students would progress extremely fast, other instructor's students would not.

As far as mechanics, I like to hear reports of other instructors starting off with the footwork and then moving on. Once that 'Foundation' is set and strong, everything else just falls into place alot easier and faster.

 

[JJsqueeze]

First of all. I am really grateful I found this site and appreciate that you all are there to bounce this stuff off of. It makes this process so much easier.

Ken- Her legwork matched pretty well what I learned here. She talked about loading that front foot and pushing strong and keeping a strong front side. BUT she also recommended landing with the front foot at 90 degrees to the powerline which is definitely not what I have learned here. Everything she talked about with the upper half seemed like hello elbow stuff. She demonstrated her whip with the hand on top of the ball and had the wrist snap and the high elbow follow through. in a nutshell I think she is going for staying completely open until the arm is past the back hip then snapping the elbow and wrist up. We have not chosen her as of yet and I just found her on the web so I have no knowledge of her skills other than I know when used to pitch for DePaul. I fully plan on having an eval with two or three more PCs before we choose one.

Hal- When she told me that the front foot should land at 90 to the power line I thought of you and figured you would give her a good explanation why that was completely wrong and would lead to a very weak delivery.

Humpty and Going deep- glad to know that this is not me being completely off base and happens to other bucket dads.

I thought about this during my round of golf and I'm not going to go back until we have visited a few more coaches. She was a really nice girl and clearly knows how to pitch but I just see a lot of conversations with my daughter telling her to listen to only portions of what her PC said and that is just too confusing and I don't see that as the best collaboration between this pitching obsessed father and qualified professional. Hopefully I find one who's instruction rings a little more true. When I first got into this I saw a lot of different stuff on the web but it was the Hillhouse videos, BM's IR thread and some of Hals and Kens posts that rang true on how to best pitch so I'm sticking with my gut. Thanks again guys.

 

[JJsqueeze]

one other thing- she was saying that DDs low inside miss was due to hip getting in the way. I realize this is one of the ways you can miss inside but I have videoed and review this miss MANY times and it is because of early release during IR not because DD closes her hips too soon. The tell is that it is always low and inside never high and inside. If anything, she stays open too much. when DDs hip gets in the way you know it, but the generic lo inside is early release IR trouble and is timing not mechanics IMHO.

 

[Cannonball]

DD just gave her first pitching lesson and I was there to watch it. She used someone else's facility so the first thing she did was have the parent of her student sign a "Hold Harmless Agreement." Pretty standard at a lot of places but parent had never signed one before. DD did a good job explaining that it was to protect that facility as much as possible but that nothing signed covers any aspect of neglect. From there, DD did an evaluation starting with playing catch with the young lady. She played catch to see how athletic the young lady is (very) and to see how relaxed the young lady was around her. She did mention a thing or two about throwing including that the young lady should not be holding her arm straight out as if it were at 2nd base to play catch. This young lady is athletic but seem to have been taught to be mechanical. Lesson then began by DD asking the young lady to go through what she had learned from previous PC. They went over a few drills and this young lady threw to a wall target out of a bucket of balls provided by my dd. That enabled my DD to watch closely as this young lady progressed through what she already knew. DD explained everything she was doing both to the young player and the parent. Parent wants hello elbow and so DD tried her best to suggest that the best don't do that. I loved it when DD said to the parent, we'll work on it. (Meaning, she is going to convince this parent of the right way before it is all over.) DD then had player do a couple of basic drills that the pitchers at her college do. I know some of you don't like the walk through drills but with this young lady, it became apparent right away that she could not drive off of her back leg. It was always straight when in contact with the rubber. One thing I really liked about my DD's instructions on learning how to snap the wrist and and the wrist/hip relationship was that my DD told the young lady that she didn't care where the ball ended up because the student was just learning some of this stuff and so, they could laugh if the ball hit the top of the cage once in a while. The parent remarked to me that this was the first time her dd laughed all the way through a lesson. At the end of the lesson, DD told the young lady that she wanted 5 pitches with the young ladies best effort at the zone. After that, DD sat on the ground with the young lady and talked to her about her homework and that she has to learn how to drive with her legs. She said that her hips were always in the wrong place because her legs were never working right. DD then had this young lady go tell her parent what her homework was. The 30 minute lesson was about an hour. Since this was an evaluation, there was no charge. BTW, DD is not charging but rather wants the parent to donate what they think the lessons are worth. This young lady is not a pitcher on her current team. She is a great kid and very athletic once she relaxes. IMO, she will be a good pitcher next year as a 10 year old. My DD can only give lessons until college starts so she is just helping this family get her started. The young lady took lessons before but those lessons proved to be too expensive when the child was never getting to pitch in games.

Well, that is what my DD did for her first pitching lesson. I don't know what any of you think about it but I was impressed.

 

[halskinner]

Cannonball - that 'Hold harmless'' agreement is not worth the paper it is written on. If she teaches something proven medically unsafe and you kid gets hurt because of it, any decent lawyer can tear thge instructor to pices in court.


JJ - I assume you mean inside and down on a RH batter. The most common thing I saw cause this over the years is the pitcher trying to follow through to the left or to the left shoulder. The ball comes off the handin the area between the index and thumb, the side of the index. Cutting the hand up and to the left AS the ball comes off the side of the index gives it the 'down and in; spin when they are trying for a straight dropball spin. Now, please dont look at that as a bad thing, its a good piotch when you do it on purpose. If that is what is happening, dont lose it. Keep working on that peel drop and perfect it, but also work on making that 'Down and in' even better. It's a killer pitch that she is throwing on accident. Wait till she throws it on purpose in a game. If she can throw that good a piotch on accident, she's gonna be GOOD. Tell her congrats, she has another movement pitch.

As far as the instructor and the stride foot coming down at 90 degrees, huge thumb down there. The knee joint is made to bend forward, not to the sides. On both sides of the knee joint you have a Meniscus. The Meniscus is simply a douighnut shaped cartaledge that helps to keep the head of the lower leg aligned properly in knee socket. It is a little flexible but not a bunch. Too much stress to one side or another and a Menicus will tear. The other thing that keeps the knee in alignment is the Anterior Cruciate Ligamate (ACL). It goes over the top of the bone.

Enough stress to the side, the Meniscus tears, the bone gets WAY out of alignment stretches and tear/ severely stretch the ACL. Any time you hear of a playing damaging their ACL, bet the farm the also tore a Meniscus, had to for the ACL to tear also.

The foot, ankle and knee are the shock absorbers for the body when running, pitching, jumping. They only work in one direction. There is a slight give to the sides but NOWHERE NEAR 90 degrees. I can walk with my feet coming down at 45 degrees, I look like a dork, but I CAN do it. 90 degrees, no way..

Ask that instructor if she has had ACL and Meiscus surgery on her pivot knee. Then say 'Ceeya'.

 

[Cannonball]

Hal, I must have written my response poorly. She is using someone else's facility and it was their request. Did you miss the statement about neglect? This family can not afford lessons and so, my DD is simply helping them out some. That is why they will pay what they can pay. So, she is acting as much a friend to the family as anything else. In the 2 or 3 lessons she is going to give in these lessons, I doubt that any harm will be done. However, keep in mind that you can be sued as well since we all can be sued at any time for any reason. There is no scientific evidence for what you teach as well. Where is this evidence/research of what has been proven medically unsafe with regards to pitching? I'd like to go read it.