Slowly making progress. Help?

[Acroyear]

Long post, apologies in advance.

In the middle of last summer, right before we left for a 2 week family vacation/road trip, my 10u decided she wanted to pitch. Everywhere we went she kept picking up rocks and pine cones to "pitch." I had to apologize to strangers multiple times in Yellowstone NP alone for my DD as she almost hit them with her horrible throws.

Days after getting back home my 12u and 10u were in the garage hitting when my 12u asks me to come out and check her sister's form. This is what my 10u was doing.

Yes, that is shovel handle settled into an expansion joint (the 12u's idea) to push off, and this is how my 12u (who doesn't pitch) taught her how to pitch. I was doing my best not to laugh. We have a lot of work to do. This is also where the DFP Pitching forum comes into the picture.

After a couple weeks practice, a lot of reading and a lot of video watching, my 10u progressed to this:

Not opening up and still pushing the ball but looks tons better. She did end up pitching a few innings and started to improve quickly and open her hips, but the season ended and gymnastics took over. Here's a strike:

Fast forward to X-mas break. Another couple months have passed with multiple gymnastics meets done and figuratively zero pitching time, I'm finally working to get her to open back up and get used to the 12" ball.

This is her first practice in weeks (months?). Now she's forcing herself to get her drive knee up to the point that she is losing power moving forward. The work never ends!

Comments? Critiques? Help!?

Thanks to everyone for your help! This board has been an invaluable resource to this horrible bucket dad.

Keep up the great work!

 

[drc9805]

I'm betting she could be special with some help and I'm also guessing she picks up on and applies things quickly. Get her doing the push-backs and 2-step drills without rocking back on her push foot and have her send her glove toward the catcher instead of straight left. You've already mentioned the drive knee and it looks like she is putting emphasis on bending her foot up behind her which is taking away from the explosion forward with the knee.

 

[Edy]

Acroyear,

First, huge congratulations to you and to your daughter. She certainly has the will needed to be a winner.
The shovel handle was awesome!!!

I'll let the experts do the critique. The only thing I would suggest is about brushing.
I see her leaning the torso to the right to let the arm push the ball along the circle (she's getting the hips away, bending the waist).

At release, she needs to keep the hips firm (no bent to the right) and brush the forearm in the thigh/hip.
The sticky I/R classroom can give you more ideas about it.

Also, Java's two-step drill would be a good thing to work at this point.

My two cents worth..

 

[Top_Notch]

Here's some free internet advice. And sometimes, you get what you pay for! Admittedly, everything I know came from the internet.

And I am specifically referring to the last animated picture posted.

Comments? Critiques? Help!?

Comments: DD looks great. My guess is that pitch went wide (to a RHB).

Critiques: The free hand swings across her body and not to the target. Wasted motion. It's also pulling her shoulders off target, which she is fighting with her torso/hips.

Help: Have her swing her free hand towards the target and not across.

Of course, what do I know?

 

[SoGASoftball]

Acro, it appears that part of her body, her shoulders particularly never open, and also at some point she loses the whip. The experts will arrive, but I would start with BM's drills in the I/R sticky's. Forget the two-step or pushback drills for now. Work on whip without incorporating the feet for now. Then progress to K drill and Liberty drill with a step and incorporate the drag foot with shoe laces toward the catcher. Once these feel right, then and only then go full motion.

Then she is able to work on drive and the other small things that make up the other 10 or 15% of velocity. Whip is nearly 90% of it.

 

[JJsqueeze]

She is a box of parts right now, she just needs assembly.
Step 1: Stop with any more mechanics suggestions until she develops some feel. I see a girl TRYING to do too much stuff. SO less mechanics, more throwing.
Step 2: Underhand catch ala the IR thread drills. Get her FEELING a good underhand throw from non full circle positons. Emphasize the correct spin like an unforgiving spin NAZI and a loose arm, the rest will take care of itself.
2A) Make sure her throwing from these positions is natural, by that I mean look for signs of rigidity in the arm, leaving her rear foot planted and not following through naturally, poor weight shift into the front side etc. It is hard to explain but it should just look smooth and natural.
Step 3: Progress to a full arm circle but without the full leap. We use what we call "glove up/ball down" glove starts at the chest, ball starts at 6 oclock, This is to act as a bridge to the full circle and leap, it helps synch the timing between the bottom and top, look for degradation/over leaping (which your DD looks like she does) incorrect weight shift when leaping- by this I mean that the leap is not a clunky leap ONTO your front foot, it is a strong smooth glide on your rear foot until you land naturally and resist with your front...should not have a lot of UP but should have a lot of OUT. Concentrate on correct top/bottom timing.

STEP 4: full on pitch....now look for timing degradation from step 3 it will be there, just encourage her to not throw any harder and to focus on the correct feeling she had in the previous steps. You don't care where the ball goes at this point, just a smooth motion and good spin and pitching in the upper range of her speed. If she is doing it right she will mostly miss low and in and high and outside to a RHB. Encourage the low and away and tell her that the high and away has got to go and go now.

STEP 5: repeat above until the timing looks smooth, the spin is right and the high and away is gone. 2 weeks to 3 months depending on the kid and the practice quality and frequency.

STEP 6: Get rid of the low and in and start squeezing the zone until she is a strike machine. Figure another 1-3 months. Then add in a changeup-another 3 months to be able to throw consistently and voila, an assembled pitcher.

Easy stuff really, not sure why everyone doesn't do it.

 

[JJsqueeze]

I almost forgot, focus on good balance and a tight arm circle (close to the body) throughout. If she never hits her thigh with her hand then she is too far away from her body. She should keep it tight and every once in a while she will whack herself and it will hurt. THIS IS A GOOD thing DO NOT let her start to bend and clear as a result of this, just tell her that it will go away soon enough and will never happen again.

 

[Acroyear]

She is a box of parts right now, she just needs assembly.

This is exactly the way I was looking to describe her but couldn't find the words, thanks JJ.

Most of her issues are due to my crappy coaching as I tend to make her focus way too much on one particular thing in a practice. In the last image, I was trying to get her to get her drive knee up instead of throwing out her foot, so everything else suffered. I just need to let the girl work it out.

My guess is that pitch went wide (to a RHB)

Actually, my DD tends to pitch inside to RHBs. Like SoGASoftball noticed, she doesn't always open up and keeps her shoulders square to the batter, forcing her to pitch around her right hip. She is remarkably accurate, and for the most part, throws between the batters boxes but has release timing issues so she tends to be (way) high or (way) low.

I need to get her with a real PC, but with her gymnastics, softball, and two other very active sisters to boot, scheduling anything is a nightmare. If only my 12u could drive too.

Maybe, we'll fall back to what we call Boardmember's "7-steps" to get a better feel for her arm again before moving onto Java's drive mechanics.

Thanks a ton all!

 

[JJsqueeze]

You really don't need a PC at this point. She looks really athletic and her motions are not that far off, the real trick IMO is just getter her to feel a natural throw from that Liberty position in the I/R thread. Once she has this down then she has a foundation of what GOOD feels like and can try to maintain it as she adds the other components. If you can resist the urge to go to the full pitch which she retools and gets the posture/weight shift and spin from this position then this is half the battle. Things like not opening enough, height of the stride leg etc can really be left for another day. Smoothness, having her find her own arm circle cadence and matching the lower half timing and a nice, tight I/R circle will give her a foundation to build around and are relatively simple for a dad with a video camera and access to this site.

I also recommend learning to throw underhand yourself. Not necessarily a full pitch, but being able to throw hard from the drill positions will teach you a lot and help you identify issues and adjustments you can teach her.

 

[Doug Romrell]

In her pitching motion, have her take that glove up through and over the target to roughly 2:00, then have her bring it down through the target as she does her adduction (i.e., pulls the elbows toward her body). This will really help her keep her shoulders more open (rather than closed) going into release. It will also help her keep her head back and help with connection between her legs, hips, and torso.

Also, Javasource's push-back drill as part of her warm up will do wonders!