How do you teach tracking the ball?

[Chris O'Leary]

We have found this useful and each drill gives an understanding of why and how to do it....From Outside Magazine October 2004

Great stuff, Howard.

Thanks.

Notice the focus on tracking with the eyes and not the head.

This is an example of what NOT to do.

 

[tom.guerry]

Regarding:

"He goes on to say in another drill, “One of the trickiest aspects of most sports is staying focused when everything is moving around you. Think of a wide receiver in football: He has to concentrate on the ball while he and the other players around him are in motion-a situation that easily overtaxes the brain. Skiers face the same task when speeding down a line on a crowed slope.”

It's nice to have a well toned vestibular system, but specific skills and drills like this just overall help sharpen up the overll system which is a different matter from tracking the ball.
The job of the vestibular system is to automatically/subconsciouscly control eye movements and balance so you can stay focussed on what you are looking at in a gravitational field while moving.

As with any system, it won't work well if injured or not used. tuning it up is an advantage of playing multiple sports, for example. Illness and head injury will mess it up, but it is made up of mostly very old brain regions (evolutionarily old) and recovers pretty well.

But this does NOT mean you should try to keep as much sharp focus on the ball as possible. Even if you keep ooking ahead so your eyes can use more convergence than lateral movement to follow the ball when looking ahead, trying to retain sharp focus is a conscious act which will interfere with a better/faster/more consistent unconscious process.

THe vestibular system will automatically adapt to however you tend to move your head on a regular basis. If you change how you move your head when tracking. this will temporarily mess the system up and make it less reliable and consistent.

The head needs to tuck and not turn back too much to support a good swing. a two eyed look from not turning the head back too much is also a good thing.

good eyesight that does not vary too much (and good lighting) is important.

soft focus/hard focus at release and soft focus again relying more on peripheral vision/ambient/less conscious intentional system and swing when it fels right based on your experience with a consistent swing PATTERN will yield best results.

 

[Hitter]

Great stuff, Howard.

Thanks.

Notice the focus on tracking with the eyes and not the head.

This is an example of what NOT to do.

Chris thanks for the post of what not to do as to tracking.

Thanks Howard

 

[Mike]

I'm not following. He is hitting a pretty low pitch. Are you saying the head should not move down or not at all.

Thanks

 

[Chris O'Leary]

I'm not following. He is hitting a pretty low pitch. Are you saying the head should not move down or not at all.

Thanks

He's looking at the ground at the POC. For one thing, that's not necessary since it's impossible to see the bat hit the ball. It also makes him lose sight of the ball early.

The greats have some head movement, but not nearly this much.

 

[Mark H]

Possibly a big slow 12-6 bb curve giving him time and inclination to track it this way.

 

[Hitter]

He's looking at the ground at the POC. For one thing, that's not necessary since it's impossible to see the bat hit the ball. It also makes him lose sight of the ball early.

The greats have some head movement, but not nearly this much.

When we first start teaching a new student we get them to select a stance of what feels comfortable and allows them to see the ball better. This is done in front of a mirror and what we look for is a good two eyed look. Can they turn their head far enough towards the pitcher so you can see the white around the eye. As a right handed hitter this would be the left eye. If they can not see some of the white we turn their head and they feel the discomfort in the neck and shoulder muscles. Then we have them move the right foot towards home plate a little at a time in one inch increments until they are comfortable. This is typically no more than 1 to 4 inches. TSW points this out in his book as a 5 to 10 degree offset. The ONLY hitters I have that use a closed stance are the lazy left eye kids or those that had the surgery for it. The pencil drill works really well for them. The other thing we establish is stance width during the early tee work as I draw a foot print around their feet. I point out this will get wider as they begin to feel how to generate more momentum and they will automatically adjust it. After a few swings I ask them to look down and sure enough they have gotten wider. As we say we are building a foundation to hit from. At the clinic this past weekend we noticed and pointed out to the coaches, parents and hitters they were starring at the ball on the tee and this is not what we would do in a game. Try it find a spot on the wall while looking through the net as they loaded and then at toe touch move only your head using the nose as an indicator while keeping the eyes focused in the direction of the ball and then allow the eyes to follow. When you hear the kids say out loud they see the ball better and that was just off the tee I would think they MAY see the ball better during front toss and during a game also.

Thanks Howard

 

[Chris O'Leary]

Possibly a big slow 12-6 bb curve giving him time and inclination to track it this way.

This was a 77MPH change-up but he does this on every pitch.

 

[Ken Krause]

A couple of pages back someone asked about other computer vision training. We've used Vizual Edge software, which they refer to as "weight lifting for your eyes." It includes a test that shows you where you are now, and then various exercises to build convergence, ability track objects quickly and some other parameters that I don't recall offhand right now. It was very effective for us. All the kids who did it showed improvement, and the ones who worked most diligently at it hit the best. It's pretty cool, and easy to use. It also gives you things you can measure, which is good.

It was developed by an eye doctor -- actually the eye doctor I used until my company switched insurance companies and he wasn't covered anymore. The software it's based on was originally developed to help kids with learning disabilities. But parents started telling them that their kids were doing better in sports after doing the training, leading to that Aha! moment. To do the LD training you had to go to the doctor's office. Vizual Edge is something you can do at home.

Definitely worth checking out.

 

[Hitter]

Chris I learned a lot by using the 150 MPH air cannon. What most people do not understand is that the cannon puts almost no spin on the ball and they start at 60 MPH and work up gradually giving you techniques to use to track. These people who claim to use a tennis ball machine to read numbers off a ball....I have yet to find a tennis ball wheeled machine that will spin it slow enough to do it. Maybe there is one out there however I have not seen it myself. I think some of this comes from the same people that claim their daughter throws 65 MPH until a radar gun comes out and they say show me! Whoops! She is having an off day today!

If you hold a 12 inch ruler in your right hand with the 1 inch just tucked into your hand by the baby finger with your hand outstretched directly away from you, you can not see the number 12 on the ruler if looking straight ahead. I think this is considered 34 degrees off the fovea. So I took an old wooden bat handle and mounted in a piece of smooth 1/4 inch drill rod. Then I drilled a hole in the center of the plastic hard ball and etched out several numbers and colored them in with a black magic marker. I have the hitter look straight a point on the handle and position the ball just beyond 12 inches and ask if they can read the number on the ball. If they cheat I just rotate the ball to another number. As I move the ball on the rod towards their hand they can read the number some at 12 inches and most at 11.5 inches. Then we work on tracking as I have them keep the nose positioned at the 1 inch mark and turn just their eyes to the ball on the rod at beyond the 12 inch mark. Then we point out the strain in the eye socket. We reverse this and the nose is positioned to the ball beyond the 12 inch mark. The eyes are at the 1 inch mark and again they feel the strain. Now we turn our head towards the pitcher so there is no strain in the neck or shoulder muscles and they get the good two eyed look and I have them turn their head/ nose as orientation point a little and then slide the ball on the rod and track it with their eyes and then the head and the eyes so they get the concept of giving the head a head start. The head is some what level and the eyes are tracking the ball. Depending on who you believe at about 5 feet or more you loose the ability to track or see the ball and bat collide and this varies with the hitter.

Thanks Howard