So you decided to get a hitting instructor

[Dabears17]

At 7 took my lefty DD to a place that had two lefty ex-college baseball players giving lessons. Only took her to a couple lessons to fix a few things.

At 8 just before All-Stars took her back to 3-4 lessons to break bad habits from rec league pitching.

Did similar things at 9,10,11 with 3 or so lessons to get tuned up for rec and 3 or so lessons for All-Stars.

Fall 2017 through August 2018 she played for a pretty good 12u B-Select team, so I took her for about 8 lessons with a college softball recent grad to learn how to slap to be a triple threat. She got into a slump end of May 2018, so we started going to hitting lessons every other week with the baseball players. She got it fixed for a Father's Day tourney and hit for the cycle one game.

She actually didn't slap in a game until her sophomore year of High School, but got pretty good at power slapping just over infielder's heads to get hits when that is what the defense gave her.

Through her high school career did similar things. Took her to lessons roughly every other week Feb through end of July to keep in good form for HS and summer ball.

 

[WPACoach]

instead of developing hitting on your own
Decided to go the instructor route.
What age and why?

Once I realized my skills as a hitting coach were no longer sufficient. She was in her 2nd year of 12U. I took her to a local hitting coach who coached some older players with very good fundamentals. 5 years later, my daughter finished her HS career with over 100 hits (3 seasons). She batted .742 with 46 hits, 39 RBIs, and 8 HRs in her Senior season (19 games)

Initially, we had bi-weekly lessons with some time off during the travel season. The past year or so, it's been a weekly hitting lesson.

 

[Rolling Hard]

Once I realized my skills as a hitting coach were no longer sufficient. She was in her 2nd year of 12U. I took her to a local hitting coach who coached some older players with very good fundamentals. 5 years later, my daughter finished her HS career with over 100 hits (3 seasons). She batted .742 with 46 hits, 39 RBIs, and 8 HRs in her Senior season (19 games)

Initially, we had bi-weekly lessons with some time off during the travel season. The past year or so, it's been a weekly hitting lesson.

.742, just curious, how many ROEs?

 

[nikkilugi]

Because my kid doesn't listen to us. She still goes to a HI weekly. I've sat in on a few lessons - he says the same thing we (dh and I) do to her but somehow she believes him and he gets results out of her with *less* attitude. I don't want the stress of dealing with it

 

[WPACoach]

.742, just curious, how many ROEs?

Just 2. And the scoring is legitimate. The team's scorekeeper doesn't give enough errors to our team when playing defense, IMO. Which didn't make the pitchers happy. But he's pretty accurate when scoring our batted balls.

 

[joe720]

I just like paying others to say the same thing i would say.

 

[uncdrew]

Honestly...

Two girls on her team started lessons and were hitting much better than everyone else on the team. We were in with the same instructor within two weeks. This was when DD was 9.

 

[uncdrew]

power slapping just over infielder's heads to get hits when that is what the defense gave her.

Is that what power slapping means? Seems like an oxymoron to use the word "power" to say "just over infielder's heads".

Personally, I'm a fan of power bunting.

 

[RJK]

My DD was 10 when we got her a hitting coach. He's been coaching softball for over 30 years and does a phenomenal job. She saw him weekly at first but now its way more sparing. She actually hasn't been in a while because she doesn't need it at the moment. I coach her team and also give hitting lessons myself. 2 parts to this one... 1) sometimes it takes a voice that's not their parents to get through to them. 2) found out she needed glasses. Long story short, that season DD went from a .065 BA in the fall to the plus side of .400 in the spring. Get your DD's vision checked!

 

[Northball]

I just like paying others to say the same thing i would say.

Hmmm...I wonder if I could have a good side hustle telling other people's kids to clean their rooms....