Keeping it Simple:

[Cannonball]

In listening to pro golfer Davis Riley comment on his recent PGA win, he said some things that most players and coaches should take to heart. He mentioned that his best year as a pro golfer was his rookie year. From there, he changed his lifetime coach for someone who could get him to the next level. In fact, his game took a step backward. Over the winter, he returned to his old coach who's advice was to simplify what he was doing, basically stop overthinking things and start to have fun with the game again. As I watched that, I was reminded of a young lady who had come to me before COVID. She was so messed up. She had been to so many coaches and they had told her that she had so many flaws in her swing and that she needed to do this or that and ... She was mentally destroyed by the time I got to work with her.

I did my first basic free lesson/evaluation and she was laughing before the lesson was over. IOWs, she stopped thinking, we had a conversation about hitting and stuff, and she had fun. I believe I gave her 3 lessons before everything shut down. I stopped giving lessons.

In my rambling way, sometimes more is not better. That guru who was good for your friend's child might not be the best for your child. Sometimes it is better to run than to allow your player to continue to take lessons from someone who overcoaches, overloads them on drills and mentally breaks your player down.

 

[PJR202]

In listening to pro golfer Davis Riley comment on his recent PGA win, he said some things that most players and coaches should take to heart. He mentioned that his best year as a pro golfer was his rookie year. From there, he changed his lifetime coach for someone who could get him to the next level. In fact, his game took a step backward. Over the winter, he returned to his old coach who's advice was to simplify what he was doing, basically stop overthinking things and start to have fun with the game again. As I watched that, I was reminded of a young lady who had come to me before COVID. She was so messed up. She had been to so many coaches and they had told her that she had so many flaws in her swing and that she needed to do this or that and ... She was mentally destroyed by the time I got to work with her.

I did my first basic free lesson/evaluation and she was laughing before the lesson was over. IOWs, she stopped thinking, we had a conversation about hitting and stuff, and she had fun. I believe I gave her 3 lessons before everything shut down. I stopped giving lessons.

In my rambling way, sometimes more is not better. That guru who was good for your friend's child might not be the best for your child. Sometimes it is better to run that to allow your player to continue to take lessons from someone who overcoaches, overloads them on drills and mentally breaks your player down.

The more I learn about the nuances and multitude of flaws in pitching mechanics, the more I learn how many of them can be corrected by taking the time to work on a few basic checkpoints that most pitchers aren't hitting. So, so many buzzwords and corrections that are pursued with a million futile drills because that pitcher isn't hitting a basic checkpoint of detaching from the rubber by the time the arm is at 3:00.

My god there are so, so many pitching drills and props out there. It's lunacy.

 

[cvsoftball]

See ball, hit ball. See pitch, throw pitch.

 

[DryHeat]

See ball, hit ball. See pitch, throw pitch.

This is one of DD's keys. Don't think while hitting. Just hit it. She doesn't know where the ball is going to go but neither does the defense.

 

[Rolling Hard]

There is a time during practice to work on certain mechanical flaws thru drills. For example, my DD can get in habit of leaking forward. So after heel down, her head continues to move toward pitcher a little. So we will work on correcting it. But part of practice will always include situations. 2 and 2, runner on 2nd, 5th inning, up by 2, rise all pitcher. The task now is to visualize and create a line drive (10 degree launch. Got that from JT Gasso.) deep breath, adjust helmet, stare at bat, visualize, create. Zero mechanical thoughts. Try

 

[HunterMO]

See ball, hit ball. See pitch, throw pitch.

DD had a pitching coach (her first) who was great. Quickly identified she was an over thinker. One lesson he stopped her and simply told her to "Throw dumb". In the sense of, don't over think it each pitch. Just go as fast as you can. He explained some of the best pitchers that saw him maybe weren't the smartest. But that actually helped them in the circle. "Just throw the ball" he'd say.

Side note: Depending on the lesson, he'd actually progress her through a lesson then make her pitch with her eyes closed. Those were some of the best drop balls she'd ever throw. It was really interesting.

 

[canyonjoe]

It's a fine line between trying to get better and performing at your best at the time. If you don't tinker a little you will have a ceiling on performance but sometimes that's good enough.

 

[cvsoftball]

DD had a pitching coach (her first) who was great. Quickly identified she was an over thinker. One lesson he stopped her and simply told her to "Throw dumb". In the sense of, don't over think it each pitch. Just go as fast as you can. He explained some of the best pitchers that saw him maybe weren't the smartest. But that actually helped them in the circle. "Just throw the ball" he'd say.

Side note: Depending on the lesson, he'd actually progress her through a lesson then make her pitch with her eyes closed. Those were some of the best drop balls she'd ever throw. It was really interesting.

I also do the eyes closed pitches.

 

[Rolling Hard]

Taking dry swings with your bat with your eyes closed can be beneficial, also. Helps with Awareness-knowledge or perception of a situation or fact.

 

[RichK]

I *was * a fast pitch coach for 20 years, 10 years coaching and instructing some pretty good players/teams. I was also a daily visitor to DFP for a good portion of that time, particularly the technical hitting forum. I gave up coaching about three years ago and stopped visiting DFP probably a year ago (old habits die hard). A little sad seeing the technical hitting forum a bit quieter than in the past, but good to see some old names AND ALSO good to see a lot of B.S. dialed down too. FWIW, I would encourage DFPers with young hitters to take mechanics seriously, and there are some good guides still here, Shawn, JDint, Cannonball to name a few I saw in reading recent posts. I like keep it simple too in games, but it has to get somewhat detailed in the cage ;>

The best thing is when a young player knows what makes a good swing, and in particular knows her own swing, and dad or mom can just sit back and enjoy! Best of luck to everyone, nice to be back for a drop-in visit, now back to your regularly scheduled programming lol