Poor form and rushing the kids too fast

[Coach Al]

I am an assistant coach on a 9u team that has coach pitch the first half of the season and is suppose to switch to kids pitching half way through the season. I started drilling the girls with hitting off tees , progressing to soft toss and also using the small golf ball whiffles. The result has been mixed, After a month of practice I still have the majority of the kids still stepping in the bucket, dropping their hands and all the other problems we as coaches run into at times. The last 2 weeks we have had only 2 practices because of rain.
I coach with a wife husband team that had the team the year before. They were the worst team in the league. Today at practice the husband insisted that the kids take live batting practice, I knew better, they are not ready. I understand the fact that we will start playing the 1st week in June. However, this is a rec league. I feel this is a marathon and not a sprint. If their swings are bad I feel they will not improve and this should be a priority.
So I threw batting practice today at his insistence. I was going to anyway, but not they old school boring way we did. I this would of been a game, most of the innings would of been 1,2,3, all K's. We had 6 girls at practice (this is another problem we have had), only 1 hit the ball consistently. I don't want to go into the season an be a strikeout leader, this will do damage to the girls. I NEED HELP! Anyone have any suggestion because I am at wits end and am almost ready to quit.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

IMO a decent instruction session should attempt to build improved mechanics into live BP. If you stop short of performing BP, then you don’t know if the kid’s are “getting it” … and you’ll have stopped short of the goal ... which is to build improved mechanics into your student's swing. After all, we’re trying to prepare these girls to hit in games ... that is the goal.

It can be difficult for some girls to bring the concepts being worked on during the drill sessions into their BP swings. Don’t expect that to happen for the majority of girls if you skip live BP. In fact, be prepared for a rude awakening if the first time they see live BP is during games.

For my instruction sessions I select a least one “point of emphasis” (sometimes 1 POE, and other times up to 3 POEs). The drills I select are intended to stress the particular “points of emphasis” being worked on. I’m especially focused on getting students to “feel” the actions “under the hood”.

After the “drill work” I have the girls take head-on soft-toss. I continue to stress the “points of emphasis” worked on during the drill work. During this portion of my sessions pitch speed is “slow” … the intent is NOT to overpower the hitter, but to give them an opportunity to use their developing skills regarding the “points of emphasis” being worked on. During this session some of the drills can be repeated and mixed with full swings … but the focus is on the “points of emphasis” being worked on.

After the “drill work” & “head-on soft-toss”, I have the girls take live BP … at first the live BP is performed with drills … drills that stress the POE being worked on. Then they follow-up with plain-vanilla-BP, with the student stressing that day’s “point of emphasis”. During this portion I feel that it is important for the instructor to label “success” to be a replication of the “point of emphasis” being worked on … and not so much on the result. The reason being that when some hitters see a ball in flight coming at them, they tend to “turn off” working on the POE and instead “turn on” on a success mentality of getting a hit … and this has them reverting back to prior mechanics. What you are trying to do as an instructor is promote particular “points of emphasis” and build them into your student’s mechanics. I’ll often mix in drills, with full swings, during BP.

Bottom-line … if you aren’t getting these kids up to the point of live BP in practices, then IMO you aren’t getting them ready for games. One month isn’t very long.

One more point. I perform the majority of my drill work, and BP work, hitting into an open field. I want the result of my student’s swing to be on display. The feed-back to the students is immediate when they hit into an open field. If you as an instructor are confident in what you are doing, then this is the way to go IMO. The flight of the ball into the field never lies … it is the result of the swing on display. When the girls see how using improved mechanics result in improved ball flight, then they become sold on what is being instructed and work diligently on the “points of emphasis” being stressed.

This is just one approach. I’m personally a big fan of conducting live BP during hitting sessions.

I wish you good luck.

 

[straightleg]

Al

I started with the girls when they were 5-6 years old. They are juniors in high school now.
We did the same thing Coach pitch for a couple years then half coach half kid pitch.

I pitched batting practice to them from 6years old to when they were around 13.

When they were little I watched were there bat was. If a kid swung low that is were I threw the meatball.
The kids used to bat around. Once they batting around the iinning was over.

I just threw the pitch were each kid swung there bat. They got better and better and little by little worked on there swing.

Working on a swing takes years.

My daughter is a junior and we still work on her swing.

Good Luck


Straightleg

 

[tom.guerry]

suggestion -

spend major time every practice on teaching throw. teach parents to participate in throwing between practices.

see Hodge info.

 

[Wellphyt]

You sound a lot like me when I coached Rec ball. Eventually I realized that many kids in Rec ball sign up to have fun or because their parents want them to do something other than sit on the couch. Plus in Rec ball you have limited practice time.

The approach I finally settled on is I came up with a hitting PowerPoint presentation covering the HLBB swing. I would invite the parents over to my house and show the presentation. My goal was to get the parents interested in learning some basic drills and working with their daughters during the week. Even with this effort on my part, most parents and players aren't willing to put in the extra work or practice time. It's the 80/20 rule.

As a last resort I would just have them start out in their stance with the bat on the deltoid training position per Epstein. This was a qucik fix that always seemed to give the less talented players a reasonable chance at making contact. You will need to explain what you are doing ahead of time to the parents because to the untrained eye the bat on the deltoid training position looks weird. Especially in fastpitch where many parents and coaches utilize the monkey-see-monkey-do approach and teach the relaxed elbow high handset stance often seen in fastpitch.

 

[Chris O'Leary]

many parents and coaches utilize the monkey-see-monkey-do approach and teach the relaxed elbow high handset stance often seen in fastpitch.

Do you know why people teach this? What is the logic behind it?

 

[fosterspoint]

It is a challenge to help the young girls to hit in rec. They need some instruction on basic mechanics, and they need a lot of swings.

I had a bucket with about 60 or 80 baseball sized wiffle balls. Not the kind that curve, just plastic balls with holes. We dumped the balls near the center of the infield, four parents or assistants would pitch to a batter at each base. The balls were hit back to the center of the infield, so it does not take long to round them up. The girls rotated from base to base taking 5 - 10 swings at each base.

One of the better hitting coaches would pitch real balls in a batting cage next to the field. This coach would take time to give more instruction as needed. We had five hitting stations going at the same time, four were focused on getting repetitions, the other was focused on mechanics and instruction.

Maybe this isn't ideal, but you get a lot of swings and some instruction in a short time.

 

[FJRGerry]

I agree with Straightleg, do your best to pitch to where they swing. I did this during my daughter's LL days when coach pitch was used with reasonable success. I would have the girls step out of the box after each pitch and take a couple of hard swings, then I would do my best to pitch to their swing plane. Another trick I used was to pitch a little faster than the norm so the ball was flatter through the strike zone.

Like others have written, at this age and considering it's rec ball, there will be a WIDE range of ability so patience is key. I remember working extra with one girl who was playing for the first time and had no swing as would be expected. My goal for her was to get one good hit by the end of the season and during the last game she did and was so happy and proud! All the girls cheered for her, as did the coaches. The point is enjoy the small successes.