help with "partial sidearm"

[ifubuildit]

The absolute first thing you have to fix is her windmill. As I suspected she is breaking the ball out of her glove way too early. Then as she brings the ball up she takes it in front of her face over the top of her head. This is a hard habit to break. Until this is fixed she is going to be very inconsistent with her delivery of the ball to the target. She will never get the ball close to the body at release.

The next thing is she is bringing the glove hand above her head and rotating it out. She is swimming it a little but not so much to as to really impact delivery. The glove should never go above the front shoulder and certainly not above the head.

Last but not least she isn't opening and turning side ways to release the ball. The hand must pass the back hip before she closes. She never opens to close. Her belly button is always pointed at the catcher. If she had a design on the front of her shirt and you were the catcher you should not see that design at release of the ball. All you should see is her front shoulder, hip, and knee.

The leaning over is a pretty good indication that she has hit herself in the back hip with the ball on more than one occasion. Often when I see a pitcher do that this is the cause. That is because they become gun shy of hitting themselves and start sticking the booty out to clear space between them and the ball. I refer to this as the "Booty Dance" Again it will impact the release of the ball. Your head is going one direction, your booty the other and the ball another direction. Which is a clear indication your off balance when your pitching. This is a direct reflection of never getting open at release. If you have no balance how will you be consistent in delivery of the ball?

Dana.

 

[RMGC]

Ok folks, got some video





Th eone marked spet is from a few weeks ago when thigs were better ( not perfect, I know that but bettter) and the one marked recent is from this weekend.

I am glad i got her dad to do the vids and I figured how to slow them down as they show a lot. I will let you guys add your advice. FYI one of the areas i have bene focussing on with her is to get her stride foot down earlier - when her arm is at 12. I see in these vids that was never quite accomplished although its a lot better than when we started. She had this Jennie finch like mega huge monster "kick" that had her foot 18" off the ground. My hunch is that the momentum of whipping her arm through with no leg to work against is the root cause of her tilting and the tilt then causes the arm to drift (and i stand corrected in slomo - its the whole arm not just the forearm). But I'll left your greater expertise chime in.

Hopefully the youtube thing works. Still working on how to extract stills from the files. I can se in both old and current that her arm is closer to in the 10 oclock area (sept) and 9 oclock now. I have been trying to get it to 12 - but obviously have failed to help her figure it out yet.

Fastpitch91: You are wrong to try to shorten and lower her stride in order to allow her stride foot to touch down when her arm is at 12 o’clock. The correct timing is for her stride foot to touch down when her arm is at 3 o’clock. I do not believe this is her problem though. After looking at the video from the front view, her problem begins when her arm reaches 12 o’clock. She drops her throwing shoulder and bends her back sideways in what I like to call “putting her head through the wall.” Picture that she is throwing the pitch while standing right next to a wall. If she does not stay straight up through the motion, her arm and head will hit the wall. She also needs to concentrate more on bringing her hand closer to her thigh as it passes by. A drill you can try is for her to walk through the pitch while standing close to a fence or wall, so that she can work on controlling her head and back and throw without hitting. Doing a significant number of these will develop muscle memory for her so it will take less conscious concentration to do it.

 

[starsnuffer]

I addition to what the others have said, I don't like how she turns out her knee towards her right before she even begins. The foot has to be turned out slightly, but the knee should stay facing the catcher. You never see sprinters take off from the line with their knees facing the grandstands. This can lead to all sorts of other problems as seen, where the whole center of gravity and balance is thrown off because the body is going in multiple directions from the get-go.

-W

 

[Ade's Dad]

I am not a profesional,but does she not lock out her elbow once in front then again behind her ?

 

[fastpitch91]

I had not thought that a problem. Not many teach the turn, but Hal Skinner advocates it as a way to get open easier - which seems to be something I need to help this player improve on.

 

[fastpitch91]

[video]http://imageevent.com/siggy/throwing/windmill?p=1&w=4&n=1&c=4&m=24&s=0&y=1&z=9&l=0[/video]

as i look closely and i can drag the slider frame by frame in movie maker, it looks like her hip is open at release ( rear view between 23 and 24 seconds). BUT her shoulders are rotated almost fully closed. looking at the finch video above you can see her jersey letters at release but her shoulders are at a 45 not fully closed. I have been watching her hip from behind like a hawk and it looks open as the hand crosses the thigh. Now the body is twisted way around and this certainly can pull that hip to a clsoe too soon. So I am thinking I need to focus on open shoulders not just open hips and that will naturally pull the arm back into the body.

what ya think??

 

[Ken Krause]

I dunno, looks like a simple balance issue to me. At the top of the circle she starts leaning out to her right. Her arm moves away most likely in an attempt to maintain her balance. Get her balance directly underneath her instead of out to the side and the arm will probably come in closer.

 

[ifubuildit]

I dunno, looks like a simple balance issue to me. At the top of the circle she starts leaning out to her right. Her arm moves away most likely in an attempt to maintain her balance. Get her balance directly underneath her instead of out to the side and the arm will probably come in closer.

Ken I agree she has balance issues and what your stating is correct. When I look at this vid there are some much deeper issues with her windmill that concern me in terms of consistent delivery to the plate with the ball.

 

[bobbyb]

I am no professional either...so this is just a thought.
If it is a balance issue...could it be because on one video shes in dirt... and the other on concrete? She pushes hard and has good momentum....when she lands with the front foot totally closed to the body....turned 90 degrees to the plate...the concrete doesn't give and her body could be trying to adjust to that because she can't get the foot opened quite fast enough...like she can in the dirt. Hard to say by looking at these two videos..but maybe something to consider.

 

[Ken Krause]

The other thing I see on the video labeled "Current" is that she is pulling the ball toward her left shoulder in her upswing. That may be setting her arm circle on a bad path right from the start. It offsets the circle. What that could mean is too far to the left at the start results in too far to the right at the end. I call that a "cowgirl" circle because it's like she's swinging a lariat.

If you can lay down a powerline, have her work on keeping the ball on the line in the beginning of the circle and see if that helps the end. She should walk through it rather than try it as a full pitch initially, which will allow her to focus on keeping the ball on the power line.

Plenty of good suggestions in this thread, by the way. Sometimes there is more than one cause, or more than one way to solve the issue. Nice to have a palette of ideas to work from.