Interesting Drill

[Justanotherdad]

I thought the short 3 was a variation of the numbers drill which does not start from the tourqued position.

I thought 1 was stride to toe touch with the shoulders "down and in".

2 was drop the front heel while lfiting the rear heel, aka the elvis move.

3 was the swing phase.

So the short 3 was basically the numbers drill but you were supposed to do step 2 as part of step 3.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

I believe you are correct JAD. I haven't looked at Epstein's material in a while.

The point I want to make is that this drill avoids body torque, and IMO Epstein was big on body torque.

 

[softballphreak]

What I was saying is that it appears this drill has the hitter moving the elbow straight out in front and then trying to use the elbow to move (hinge) the hands forward. Just not what I see in swings such as Benyi. It appears the hitter even has trouble being able to perform the drill because it is unnatural. The elbow should rotate as the shoulders rotate. At the point the elbow goes forward towards the pitcher, it's way too early to unhinge. The result of this drill, as I see it being performed, will cause the hitter to either 1) try to move the elbow straight forward while it should be rotating around the corner, or 2) unhinge way too early.

I taught my DD proper front arm movement by tossing her tennis balls and having her backhand them lefthanded with a tennis racket. Kind of a one hand drill with a racket instead of a bat.

Never tried that. How well did that work for you? Any other comments on this drill? Sorry, not meaning to hijack this thread.

Using tennis rackets and tennis balls we could comply with out of season regulations.

 

[Wellphyt]

I thought the short 3 was a variation of the numbers drill which does not start from the tourqued position.

I thought 1 was stride to toe touch with the shoulders "down and in".

2 was drop the front heel while lfiting the rear heel, aka the elvis move.

3 was the swing phase.

So the short 3 was basically the numbers drill but you were supposed to do step 2 as part of step 3.

The "short 3" is performed in both the "Torque" and "Numbers" drills. The "Torque" drill set-up starts the student in a semi-torqued position. The hips are partially opened and the upper body is completely closed.

The "Numbers" drill is as you describe. The most performed version of the "Numbers" drill is the 1-3 variant where the student goes to toe touch and pauses, then drops the front heel and swings. The "short 3" works the same way except the swing is stopped when the upper torso comes around and the chest faces the pitcher. The bat remains on the deltiod when the student stops at the "short 3" position.

As I said in my prior post, I prefer how Epstein teaches the "Short 3" position in his drills over what is being demonstrated in the youtube video. However I think I understand what the guy in the video is trying to teach.

If the girl in the video starts her swing the way she does in the drill, then she will almost certainly have a gate swing. I did notice that he teaches a one arm top hand drill. If the back arm action in that drill makes it into her swing, it should help her get separation. I would dump the bam-bam drill, and stick to the one arm top hand drill.

 

[Justanotherdad]

Thanks Well...its been quite a while since I reviewed the Epstein stuff.

 

[Wellphyt]

Never tried that. How well did that work for you? Any other comments on this drill? Sorry, not meaning to hijack this thread.

Using tennis rackets and tennis balls we could comply with out of season regulations.

The tennis backhand should give the girls the correct feel for how the front arm works in the swing.

 

[FPMark]

Never tried that. How well did that work for you? Any other comments on this drill? Sorry, not meaning to hijack this thread.

Using tennis rackets and tennis balls we could comply with out of season regulations.

LOL... hadn't even thought about out of season regulations. Good observation.

It worked great for my DD. She had a bad habit of collapsing her front elbow against her front side and causing her to roll her wrists early. That resulted in the bat hitting her in the back.

The tennis racket was lighter than a bat and made it easier to work on her front arm motion. I bounced tennis balls to her and had her hit them into a hitting net. Even progressed to a full swing with both hands on the racket. Worked great. Now, when she is in the ondeck circle, I see her working one handed on the bat (choked up) before going to her full swing.

 

[Mr T]

Never tried that. How well did that work for you? Any other comments on this drill? Sorry, not meaning to hijack this thread.

I've sort of mulled this one over and might try it in a modified version. This is basically the stance, setup with 1-2-3 pause, hips with 1-2-3 pause, swing drill but there is some appeal in that a more hands on approach might help. I'd almost want to push on the front elbow to keep it from activating, but perhaps a target could work.

If a target is used it needs to be taken away and I don't see a point of the second target. I am thinking about novices and imaging they might be a early wrist breaker or stop rotating so at that point maybe guiding the front elbow or gently pushing on the front shoulder to keep rotation might be a useful physical cue.

Then again maybe I should think twice about getting touchy with players.

Also thought back to the Tewk vid and hoping I am on board with what he was trying to convey. I am imagining that the way the girl does the bam bam drill might be a perfect demo of what he thinks of when he hears "hands to the ball" and why he doesn't like it. And I would agree. The thing that confused me about the way he swung when saying "barrel to the ball" was that he wasn't rotating at all, but perhaps because that wasn't the point he was trying to make. I think I believe in his barrel to the ball as long as you don't do what he does until your hip has uncoiled and you have started rotation.