New to the mound.

[Proud Papa]

She has been working on hiding the ball better through her windup but is still a little green as mentioned. As for her forward momentum, I will pass that on and work on it with her. I bought some 8" nails and bright yellow string today to establish her power-line. Thanks for all the info and ideas guys its greatly appreciated!

 

[NVfishing]

She starts her pre-motion by moving the ball back, then forward to her glove, then back again behind her hip and then forward. I believe she's crossed her hip forward and can be called for an illegal motion. Knights B was right about the forward lean on release. Some of the pitches look like she's trying to force a hello elbow.

 

[Cannonball]

New to the CIRCLE!

 

[Ken B]

NVfishing,
Her pre-motion is legal.

 

[FrozenRope]

Thanks for sharing. As others have mentioned, pushing straight off from the pitcher's plate... For my DD, we had to modify her pre-motion so that she would start with her hips and shoulders square for that straight push off. Some are able to get back to a good push off position with their chosen pre-motion, my DD wasn't.

Work on more reverse posture at release... nose behind toes.... nose behind belly button...

Practice without a ball trying to get into this position at release:

Go through the motion without the ball 5 times for every one with the ball to have her get the feel of the proper posture at release.

Great advice. She looks really good as far as the arm circle and the drive. The pivot foot turning isn't the end of the world. Something to work on, yes, but not the kiss of death. The bigger focus point in my mind would be the forward lean at release. Now that I've been exposed to some tournament play, I notice even more that the pitchers that maintain somewhat of a negative lean, generate the greatest velocity and have the best command. I was at a 10U tournament this past weekend and saw quite a few standout pitchers, and some OK pitchers. Since dd was on our teams bench with an injury, I payed more attention to the pitchers on the 2 fields than I did anything else. The biggest difference was the release/finish. Most of the pitchers had a strong start, good foreward momentum, and a powerful stride. The biggest difference between the shut down pitchers and the OK pitchers was most evident in the release/finish. I had the luxury of sitting next to one of the parents of the pitcher that crucified our team in one of the games. Her mechanics were spot on. Didn't have the longest stride, but her finish was A+. It looked like what dd's PC harps week after week. Pitch after pitch. Weight is back, strong front side, and an amazing whip. Found out this kid started lessons at 7 years old and has been doing it 12 months a year for 3 years. Needs to be taken into consideration everytime you take your dd out in the yard/garage/basement, that this is a LONG journey. Set challenging goals, but set them realistically. My daughter got SO MUCH from watching this. I'm almost happy she wasn't too tied up in playing and had the opportunity to "watch".

 

[Proud Papa]

Are there any drills or things to help her with the nose behind toes release?

Thanks again for all the help everybody!

 

[knightsb]

Are there any drills or things to help her with the nose behind toes release?

Since we had the same problem, I'll describe what we did.

1. We started with a very slow controlled pitching motion (no ball).... no leap, a good pivot foot drag position, good hip orientation (at 45 degrees).
2. We would then build off of #1 above by slowly adding more drive until we worked up to a full drive/stride (still no ball).
3. Next we added a ball thrown into a close net.... Repeating #1 above, but with a ball. Throwing into the net made DD feel like she didn't have to worry about speed or control, remember we are working on the lower body (push off, stride, landing - good reverse posture). Often times we would even exaggerate the amount of reverse lean we were working on.
4. We would then build off of #3 above by slowly adding more drive until we worked up to a full drive/stride (with a ball into the net).

Rinse and repeat until she gets the feeling....

 

[Ken B]

Good stuff!

 

[Proud Papa]

Great thanks, we will get right to work on that along with implementing the power line.

 

[go4fpsb]

Are there any drills or things to help her with the nose behind toes release?

Thanks again for all the help everybody!

PP, A drill I use to get them feeling the reverse posture/nose behind the ball/pitching against a firm front side is this: tell her you want her to throw six pitches in succession as hard and as fast as she can (while still keeping the mechanics correct), you want her to throw the first pitch and then back pedal quickly to the pitching rubber and throw again. What I want then to do is to push with the stride leg after the pitch to get them going in reverse to the mound. This helps them get the posture and mechanic you want, not walking out of the pitch, not leaning over their front foot at release, etc. Also another poster mentioned the twisting of her pivot foot. Tell her to think: push then turn not turn and push. As it is she is getting that pivot foot pointed straight backwards during the stride. Get her to "drag" on the side of her foot between the ball of her foot and her big toe then on the backside she can get her rear leg and knee to drive down the powerline more efficiently. She should find a couple of MPH right there.