Help us get it right.

[Shawn]

If you are willing to learn, you can learn. When my DD started playing softball, I knew pretty much nothing. I was a big baseball fan, but baseball was not one of the sports I played. I knew nothing about the details of proper mechanics. I put in the effort to educate myself about hitting, throwing, and the details of being an effective catcher in order to help my DD play at the level she wanted to play. Along the way, I learned about the game, and spent some time coaching my DD's teams.

I'm still educating myself. Constantly. However, my DD won't listen to me, so I pay people to tell her the things I want to say.

I have been at this for over 20 years. When it comes to someones neuromuscular system you can never know enough.

 

[Shawn]

Then prepare to be peppered, of all the sports my kids have played this is the one I have the least knowledge of, and the only one I am unable to coach.

You guys are going to have to talk to me like the new girl that's never held a bat.

The happy gilmore drill can help allot. It can help with the sequence of learning how to get the lowerbody into the swing as well as when the upperbody starts. It can help create preparing to swing and then swinging. Very good place to start for what I can tell from her swing.

 

[DoodleDad]

Eric - I have the same problem. She won't listen to anything I've told her that I've been told thus far.

 

[Gags]

Thanks guys. As much as I would like to be the one training and teaching her I am having a hard time understanding a lot of the jargon and cues. Maybe I can get myself a hitting coach HA!

I played some little league 25yrs ago and play slow pitch now at 40yrs old. I doubt my swing would help her at all.

Don't be so quick to discredit your own ability. Use your swing to help you understand what YOUR body is doing, then use that as a starting point for helping her understand what her body is or should be doing. I say starting point, b/c there is a very big difference b/w what you FEEL, and what is REAL (search Hanson Principle). That's not to say that teaching a "feel" is wrong, but know that your feel isn't her feel, and it definitely isn't the same feel as some MLB'er describing their swing in a 2-minute interview during spring training.

She's your daughter, so you're going to know better than any of us how she learns, and what she responds to. Even if you don't become a hitting guru, you are doing your daughter a huge disservice if you don't also play the role of gatekeeper regarding the quality of instruction she receives. Like I said, you don't have to be able to teach it, but it won't take more than a few hours of reading through some threads and watching some videos and gifs to be able to start identifying the wheat from the chaff.

But back to your swing for a minute. If you already play slow pitch, I'm guessing you can probably also throw a ball up in the air and hit a fly ball to the outfield. So go ahead and watch the Justin Stone video, in particular the "feet together, step and swing" drill. Then grab a bat before your next game, and hit a ball to the OF. Or just stand up from the computer (yes - right now!) and mimic the same motion. (If you're like me, you've been sitting at your desk for too long anyway!)

What you should discover, is that you're doing nearly an identical motion shown in the video. Your feet started together, your bat was either on your shoulder or being held somewhere near the centerline of your body, and once you tossed the ball up, you put both hands on the bat, pulled your hands back, took a step, and swung with a slight uppercut to ensure you hit the ball in the air.

IMO, that movement is "the sequence" in a nutshell. If you can toss a ball up and hit it, you're probably doing something right. After trying this, if you're even the slightest bit more aware of how YOU swing, then you're already in a better position to help your daughter with how SHE swings.

This might be a bad analogy - but it's like helping kids with homework - you don't have to know it all, you just have to know enough to stay one step ahead of them.

 

[Eric F]

Eric - I have the same problem. She won't listen to anything I've told her that I've been told thus far.

A big part of you being effective with your DD is gaining her trust that you know what you're talking about. Your DD is at an age where you can learn together. Get her involved with comparing video of what she does vs. what the goal is. Keep it positive. Make sure she knows that you are there to help her be as good as she wants to be, and that you don't expect her to have a pro-level swing today, tomorrow, or next week. It's a process of improvement, and we always work towards a goal of being the best. In this case, that means using the best examples to compare ourselves against. Also make sure she knows that it's not an instant fix, reprogramming muscle memory movement patterns can be very difficult, and it takes dedicated hard work. There are no shortcuts.

For you, don't try to fix everything all at once. You can easily overwhelm her and damage the process by heaping a tone of changes on her all at once (this is a mistake I made when I started this process with my DD). Start with improving her sequence (Justin Stone video), and focus on that for a while. You will likely find that a lot of things will start falling into place a little better. Sequence is the foundation on which to build everything else.

 

[Eric F]

Don't be so quick to discredit your own ability. Use your swing to help you understand what YOUR body is doing, then use that as a starting point for helping her understand what her body is or should be doing. I say starting point, b/c there is a very big difference b/w what you FEEL, and what is REAL (search Hanson Principle). That's not to say that teaching a "feel" is wrong, but know that your feel isn't her feel, and it definitely isn't the same feel as some MLB'er describing their swing in a 2-minute interview during spring training.

She's your daughter, so you're going to know better than any of us how she learns, and what she responds to. Even if you don't become a hitting guru, you are doing your daughter a huge disservice if you don't also play the role of gatekeeper regarding the quality of instruction she receives. Like I said, you don't have to be able to teach it, but it won't take more than a few hours of reading through some threads and watching some videos and gifs to be able to start identifying the wheat from the chaff.

But back to your swing for a minute. If you already play slow pitch, I'm guessing you can probably also throw a ball up in the air and hit a fly ball to the outfield. So go ahead and watch the Justin Stone video, in particular the "feet together, step and swing" drill. Then grab a bat before your next game, and hit a ball to the OF. Or just stand up from the computer (yes - right now!) and mimic the same motion. (If you're like me, you've been sitting at your desk for too long anyway!)

What you should discover, is that you're doing nearly an identical motion shown in the video. Your feet started together, your bat was either on your shoulder or being held somewhere near the centerline of your body, and once you tossed the ball up, you put both hands on the bat, pulled your hands back, took a step, and swung with a slight uppercut to ensure you hit the ball in the air.

IMO, that movement is "the sequence" in a nutshell. If you can toss a ball up and hit it, you're probably doing something right. After trying this, if you're even the slightest bit more aware of how YOU swing, then you're already in a better position to help your daughter with how SHE swings.

This might be a bad analogy - but it's like helping kids with homework - you don't have to know it all, you just have to know enough to stay one step ahead of them.

THIS^^^!!! All of it. Great stuff, Gags.

 

[DoodleDad]

Gags - funny you mention "yes do it now". I was watching the video during one of my breaks today and actually was standing in the smoking area with my vape and going through motions in the video. I was doing it as much to mimic what he was doing as I was to feel it and see if i could recognize the feelings he was pointing out when I bat myself.

 

[clemenslee1]

Getting our kids to trust us that "Dad" knows what he is talking is something I think everyone of us go through. Can't tell you how many times I tell my DD something to learn, in which she doesn't listen. Then her coach will tell her the same exact thing in which she listens to. That being said, something I started to do that I think helps, is encourage her to ask questions about what you are trying to teach her, That way you get the benefit of teaching her without her realizing and also her feeling like she is involved in the process.