Pitching Plan for 11 old DD

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marriard

Not lost - just no idea where I am
Oct 2, 2011
4,316
113
Florida
From tonight's lesson. Things we are working on
1.) Back leg - use to plow flat foot, working on more toe. Finishing in 4 position
2.) Level shoulders - really arcs back. Trying to level shoulders on fastball. Keep glove arm level
3.) Coach likes hello elbow. DD doesn't do it correctly and verdict is still out for me
4.) Power line. Kinda goes with level shoulders. But still work on driving to front hip

Open for suggestions. Thanks[video]http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K4yideDp-kQ[/video]

I like an awful lot of what I see. She looks powerful and explosive and though I can't see the whole pitch the velocity looks excellent for her age.

Big points for me:

3) She is doing what my DD used to do with Hello Elbow. Her ex-PC coach wanted Hello Elbow as well so she puts her arm in that position as an after thought even though she doesn't do anything of the sort when she pitches. In the end we changed coaches because if you don't believe in Hello Elbow (which based on seeing 99% of college pitches not use it or do this fake thing we see here is a reasonable position to hold) why would you pay someone to teach her it? Plus the conversations afterwards "Ignore what the coach I am paying is telling you" makes little sense.

I am not a huge fan of the big, straight arm take away mainly because my DD struggled with her timing when it she did it and it looked extremely similar to what I see in the video. For my DD not everything comes up and down together when she did this and while her arm is moving backwards her body is already moving forward which means her arm is trying to catch up to her body through the pitch. Worth a side video to see is this is happening.

This take back also caused my DD to arc and lean to one side (your DD is doing this a bit as well when you talk about level shoulders). Think of it as skis poles - when you go back and pull with two skis poles everything stays level - if you went back with just ONE ski pole your shoulders are going to turn and become uneven and you are going to lean away from that side and one side of the body is much more active than the other side (which may also be why her back leg is going away from the power line - mine used to compensate by counter balancing with her glove).

My DD corrected this by taking her glove arm and instead of folding it into the body or flinging it out to counter she now evens both her elbows going back (do like a skier motion) which keeps her even at the rubber and stacks her well athletically before pushing off. Basically her left side and right side go back together the same distance. It helps my DD get more legs into the pitch and so her pitch speed remains about the same but it looks like it takes 100% less effort and more efficient.

Now a lot of very, very successful pitchers don't seem to get effected by this take away and some are even more extreme (see Amanda Scarborough's power drive videos) so as long as it is JUST stylistic then it is fine - if it is effecting her mechanics it might be something to look at.
 
Last edited:
May 31, 2012
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My DD is same age as yours. What would you like to see from your DD in 3-5 yrs. For my DD I would like for her to grow a foot and develop 3 great pitches. Haha
 
Feb 7, 2013
3,188
48
From tonight's lesson. Things we are working on
1.) Back leg - use to plow flat foot, working on more toe. Finishing in 4 position
2.) Level shoulders - really arcs back. Trying to level shoulders on fastball. Keep glove arm level
3.) Coach likes hello elbow. DD doesn't do it correctly and verdict is still out for me
4.) Power line. Kinda goes with level shoulders. But still work on driving to front hip

Open for suggestions. Thanks[video]http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K4yideDp-kQ[/video]

I like her aggressiveness and she does a lot of things right. The one thing I noticed other than forcing the arm into the HE position is that she is slamming her upper body closed right at and after release. Instead, if she stayed open more and resisted the front leg she would stay back on the pitch for better velocity and won't be as jarring on the back since the twisting of the lower back will be less. I can't think of a good reason to be fully closed at release. The one elite pitcher that gets away with it is Yukiko Ueno but she seems to close her lower and upper body at the same time (i.e. not a twisting of upper and lower body) and almost over rotates past closed giving her more give, if that makes sense. Keep up the good work, she is on the right track and with a few minor changes could be really good.
 

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