Natural vs Trained Mechanics

[Rick Pauly]

JJ you called it!!!!
Other than the Natural vs Trained discussion purposes, one of the reasons for making/posting this video is to give hope to a lot of parents/coaches that are wondering if their DD will ever develop into a decent pitcher. It can happen with a lot of work and patience.

My money is on both girls being Sarah. That would be a cool way to drive the point home.

 

[GatorGirl]

I agree that debating is how we learn. I guess I was being nice using the word debate. Sometimes topics that start off as debates turn nasty quite quickly and end with people saying stuff they shouldn't and get banned. I guess I just don't see how debating if ir is "natural" or not really benefits. Best ball position, best release point, best method of teaching yes, but this topic is like debating the color of hair. What comes naturally to some, comes harder to others. If we decide that it is natural how does this benefit our daughters with their pitching really? "Honey this is natural, so you should naturally want to pitch this way."

So I am thrilled that Rick posted this showing that it isn't really natural. I think debunking this will make a lot of us who are working hard with our dd to accomplish IR feel a lot more optimistic about putting forth the effort.

 

[Rick Pauly]

Mad, I think you have hit the nail right on the head!!!

Rick,
It is very difficult to see clearly but, even as rough as the girl on the left looks, she still does not seem to be pushing the ball. If this is a take off from IR1, 2, and 3 thread I think it needs to be pointed out that no one meant to say that anyone just naturally can pitch.

I would hope that everyone who comes to this site for info. knows flat out that it takes hours, days, weeks, months, and years to get good. Without the desire to get better no one can get to that level. This is why we lose some many young girls. In little league every little girl wants to pitch. Once they find out what it takes to get better, most fall to the wayside. Some will continue with "poor" instruction (these are the girls we need to save) and most will never reach their potential.

I can only speak for myself when I say I think that some girls intuitively know how to pull the ball to some degree. I would ask if you found this to be true with Sarah early on. Did she seem to know how to use her body to pull the ball to some degree? This is what I mean when I say it came naturally. Not the whole pitching motion and all of the work that goes into learning. I have video of my dd at 9yr pulling the ball and she was never taught to do it.

 

[cuzmail]

This topic is being rather "intensely" contested in another thread. I thought it might be worthy of its own Thread.
Below is a quick video comparison of a young pitcher and my DD, Sarah. The intent is to show that not all girls are naturally gifted pitchers right from the start. I've made just a few comments about the young ladies issues.....the list could be a lot longer, but this is just to get the discussion flowing. IMO, there have been some very valid points made on each side of this discussion. I hope we can bring out more good points on each side.

Rick,
Thanks! This is probably one of the most useful posts here on DFP (for me) in a long time. It certainly serves to remind us bucket dads that perfection at the young ages is not mandatory. BTW, how old was Sarah in this first video?

 

[Rick Pauly]

Cuz...she had just turned 11 yrs. old. Believe it or not, she was a lot "less natural" when she started about 3 months before this.

Sarah has now been pitching for about 20 years.....we did some pitching together over this Christmas holiday and we still identified several things for her to work on. It never ends! I have an old saying; "Happy, never satisfied". It seems to be instilled in Sarah also.
Sometimes it is difficult for us parents or coaches to be happy with any hint of progress (and to convey it to DD). We expect the girls to perform perfectly as soon as she is shown something......another old saying that I think applies to learning how to pitch; "its a marathon not a sprint".

Rick,
Thanks! This is probably one of the most useful posts here on DFP (for me) in a long time. It certainly serves to remind us bucket dads that perfection at the young ages is not mandatory. BTW, how old was Sarah in this first video?

 

[knightsb]

Nice post Rick. So the question is, did you coach Sarah or did she find her own way "Naturally"?

From a coach's perspective who gets the girls later, it needs to be less talk, less minutiae, less overthinking inside the kid, and more doing and focusing on results.

IMO, the younger kids should be focused on both the feeling and the results that come from the feeling of good trained mechanics.

 

[Rick Pauly]

Knightsb
Good question.
I am going to be doing a clinic tomorrow for beginning level pitchers. We will go through all the mechanics, backward chaining throwing positions, etc. that us coaches feel compelled to expose on. At the end of the session we will do a drill I call "The 30 second Drill". This drill totally takes out all the thinking (mental grinding) and encourages the pitcher to throw as many pitches in 30 seconds as they can.......somewhere around the 3rd or 4th pitch you will see the most fluid/beautiful Jenny Finch like mechanics the kid has ever displayed. There will probably be 2 or 3 of these in about the 12 pitches the girl throws......but that number increases every times she does the drill.
So, short answer is, yes there is a blend of both theory's ("just let them throw the ball" and "drill, drill, drill") that I've seen work well.

Nice post Rick. So the question is, did you coach Sarah or did she find her own way "Naturally"?



IMO, the younger kids should be focused on both the feeling and the results that come from the feeling of good trained mechanics.

 

[curiousgeorge]

I'm not sure what to take away from this. I don't believe this is an apples to apples discussion of what was being discussed on the last thread. I don't think for a second that BH was saying nobody needs to train. In fact, I believe someone highlighted where he said that they do need it. I don't think the implication was that sending a 10 year old out to pitch for the first time, she will automatically throw with IR or even with HE. She will have zero body awareness and know what to work on first or last. I took away from the discussion that given the work ethic and staying away from the harmful drills will lead to an IR in the ones who work at it. The part Bill mentioned that got overlooked was, he mimicked other pitchers he saw. Spending hours and hours of mimicking pitchers who are throwing with IR, should lead to someone throwing with IR, no?

I think this is a great motivational tool for bucket dads to see what will come of that hard work but, I don't think this falls in line with the details of what was discussed in the other thread. JMHO.

cg

 

[JJsqueeze]

Sometimes it is difficult for us parents or coaches to be happy with any hint of progress (and to convey it to DD). We expect the girls to perform perfectly as soon as she is shown something......another old saying that I think applies to learning how to pitch; "its a marathon not a sprint".

This is what I needed to hear today. As ya'll know, I have two little Dugout Divas. Both trained by the same inept father. DD1 is a pitcher now. Her control is excellent, I am especially proud of the job I did in training her height and long limbs (got milk?). She has a stiff arm I/R delivery that I have been trying to get her to improve for 6 months. Just when I think it is better it stiffens up again. She most definitely does not have any natural inclination to bend and whip. But she does have a natural gift for pitching, I did not have to ever mention anything about brush interference, she naturally got this part.

DD2 is a pitcher in training but the whip came perfectly natural to her, Everything else needs work, but this part is just easy for her.

The point is that there is room for some girls to get parts of pitching, like arm whip, naturally and others to need time and a lot of training to make it "look" natural.

Life is analog, not digital. Everything is more a shade of grey than strict black and white.

Rick- that was a great way to both drive the point home about natural vs. trained motion and also a perfect little before and after to act as inspiration for girls to realize that it is indeed a marathon. You are one cool cat.

 

[FP26]

Sometimes it is difficult for us parents or coaches to be happy with any hint of progress (and to convey it to DD). We expect the girls to perform perfectly as soon as she is shown something......another old saying that I think applies to learning how to pitch; "its a marathon not a sprint".

Rick,
Thanks! This is probably one of the most useful posts here on DFP (for me) in a long time. It certainly serves to remind us bucket dads that perfection at the young ages is not mandatory. BTW, how old was Sarah in this first video?

Excellent advice for all of us!! I for one have been guilty of not following this!