I just walked in the door from a 1.5 hour hitting session with my DD at the cages. I was pitching to her from behind a screen from about 25 feet away full windmill. I don't think either of us have ever been more excited. She told me she thought she figured something out a couple of days ago when we were hitting wiffles in the basement. I don't have video confirmation yet, but it appears from our session today that she has corrected her sync issue. The fix is something I would have never thought of in a million years. Both of us knew she was slightly out of sync, but neither of us knew why. She was watching me take some phantom swings and saw something I was doing that she wasn't. She incorporated it in her swing.
When I pick up my front foot to cock my hips, I bring my back foot back very slightly as I shift a very small amount of weight back onto my back foot to keep balanced. Ted mentions doing the same thing in his conversation with Boggs and Mattingly. I've mentioned this to my DD numerous times, but it went in one ear and out the other. Apparently she wasn't shifting enough weight back to maintain proper balance when she cocked her hips. Probably because we have been working so much on the forward-by-coiling concept. Believe it or not, that little change has made a significant improvement.
She hit for 1.5 hours today non-stop with her game bat without wanting to stop. That's something she has never done. The excessive anterior tilt is totally gone. As I suspected, she was doing that as a way to try and get herself in sync. She also told me that her back leg feels totally different. She is also clearly loading much slower and is exploding better than before. She can pick up her front front and sort of hoover now, which is something she has struggled with. She actually looks a little intimidating now when I pitch to her. The fact that she was having a blast and didn't want to stop, tells me she has likely figured out how to sync everything up. She said her swing felt effortless and that her arms weren't getting tired like they normally do.
One thing that I have been trying to convey to others on here is that a lot of swing issues that we see in kids are sync related or sequence related. Not every swing issue is due to hand position, feet position etc. That's why I keep harping on the sequence.
The best training tool I've ever used to teach throwing, is a Nerf football with fins on one end. I would give that a try. Start with the basic overhand throw and then progress to more of a sidearm throw. I agree that teaching girls to throw sidearm is a challenge. It's easier if you initially focus on the basic sequence as demonstrated by Slaught in the video. Any girl can easily do what Slaught does in that video. The tricky part is getting the girls to work the back arm correctly and then getting everything to sync up properly. The more athletic girls seem to sync up naturally, whereas girls like my DD have to figure it out.
On the way home from the cages my DD borrowed a line from Thomas Edison and said:
"Dad, over the past seven years we have figured out 999 ways not to swing a bat". -- Jessica
Teaching hitting is a learning experience for both the student and instructor. Every kid is different and some things they need to figure out for themselves which is why I have moved away from static type drills in favor of live swinging off of front toss or at the very least drills that incorporate a large chunk of the throwing motion sequence. My DD figured something out about her swing by watching me and emulating. If you read Epstein and Williams, both say emulation is how hitters learned in the old days. They watched the good hitters (not saying I'm a good hitter) and tried to emulate them. They also did lots of experimenting, which is something I'm most proud about my DD. Her willingness to experiment and think for herself has helped as much as any drill I could show her.
I could watch video of her over and over again and never figure out why she was out of sync. The reason she was out of sync was so subtle she is the only one who could of figured it out. Sync issues are for the most part an individual thing. Hitters do different things to get themselves in sync. Anytime we as instructors start to dictate to kids what their style should be, we risk messing up their rhythm. IMO the biggest culprit are bad drills. I know because I have been guilty of teaching bad drills myself.
