I have a bug squisher

[smddad]

She was taught to squish the bug and she over-rotates horrible while doing it. This causes her hips to drop. After that, her body then does the right thing and she tries to drive off the rear foot. This causes her hips to raise back up again. It's not pretty.

We talked about what she should be doing and I showed her several of the girls on the model hitting thread. Now I'm wondering if there are any drills I can have her do to remove the squishing muscle memory.

 

[Eric F]

I'm wondering if there are any drills I can have her do to remove the squishing muscle memory.

Reprogramming deeply-ingrained muscle memory patterns can be a lengthy process. Be patient with progress.

Start by recognizing and understanding what the correct rear leg movement is. It's not about the rear foot. The movement at the rear foot is a reaction to what is happening in the upper rear leg and hip.

Another factor in getting the rear leg working correctly is proper weight shift against the front side. If the rear leg remains weighted throughout the swing, the hitter is pretty much stuck with a spin-the-leg movement. This is very common with young hitters.

There are lots of things that could be contributing to the bug-squishing, including an improper loading sequence. If you have a video clip of your DD's swing that you can share, it would help identify the right areas to focus on.

 

[gophert]

My daughter was a HUGE Bug squisher!!!! Maybe the worst to ever be documented.

The one thing that resonated with her at a young age was to first get in a hitting stance and throw a ball.

Then we got a small bat and got in our batting stance and then threw the bat down 1st base line. That was the only thing that worked for her to see what I was wanting at a young age. It really helped her at the age of 10.

 

[JJsqueeze]

You have guts to stand that close to a kid that age doing a bat throw drill....no doubt if I had done that at least one of my kids would have clobbered me and claimed it "just got away from me dad".

 

[TMoney]

Something that works for me, was to put a cinder block on the ground and have them place their rear foot against it. The can't just spin the foot without hitting the block. It requires them to take the rear foot up and out.