My 10 y/o daughter has played softball for 3 years now. She played in an 8U coach pitch league for 2 years, and has played 10U fastpitch last fall, half of this spring (till she broke her wrist), and is going to start again this fall. She has now decided that she wants to learn to pitch. I was hoping that someone may be able to recommend some good drills that I can set up for her, or some things I might be able to do to get her up to speed as quickly as possible. She is still developing her competitive spirit and she got really discouraged when she didn't do well this past spring in her first competitive fast pitch season. (Our fall league is 'instructional' and not taken as competitively as the spring season). She really enjoys playing, but her passive nature causes her to get discouraged quickly. I am afraid that if she doesn't have some success with pitching early that she will quit playing altogether. Any advice and feed back are greatly, greatly appreciated.
Starting Off
- Thread starter WTYA_FP_DAD
- Start date
Welcome to Discuss Fastpitch
Your FREE Account is waiting to the Best Softball Community on the Web.
- Dec 28, 2008
- 386
- 0
If you really want to let her give it a shot you need to help identify what "Success" will look like for her so that she doesn't expect to much out of the gate.
1. She pitches a whole inning and the sky doesn't fall down on her ... ie Nobody outright laughs at her.
2. She doesn't kill anyone pitching ... she hits only 1 girl per inning
3. She has to throw half of her pitches as strikes to you at home 3 times in a row before you even tell the coach that she's been practicing and would like a turn to pitch.
4. In terms of instruction the market is full of "beginner" videos for pitching. Pick one, doesn't matter which one, and watch it with her.
Honestly though, if you know she'll need IMMEDIATE success or give up, then I'd just avoid working with her on pitching at this stage of her career. Success takes A LOT of practice, and a long time to develop success. I hate to state the obviousy but there are no easy drills to do in 5-10 minutes a week that enable success the first/second time on the mound for players who aren't willing to put the work in and struggle to make it. If there were they would be sold at Walmart at the check out lane because every girl in america would want to buy that DVD. Every single player I've ever seen that has really become a pitcher has a different mentality than all of the other girls on the field. They aren't embarresed by walking people. They aren't upset because they hit someone and that person cries. Those are things that they are willing to put up with (just like the extra running, extra work all week long) for the satisfaction of having the game on their shoulders when their team wins.
Good luck, you are in a very tricky position.
1. She pitches a whole inning and the sky doesn't fall down on her ... ie Nobody outright laughs at her.
2. She doesn't kill anyone pitching ... she hits only 1 girl per inning
3. She has to throw half of her pitches as strikes to you at home 3 times in a row before you even tell the coach that she's been practicing and would like a turn to pitch.
4. In terms of instruction the market is full of "beginner" videos for pitching. Pick one, doesn't matter which one, and watch it with her.
Honestly though, if you know she'll need IMMEDIATE success or give up, then I'd just avoid working with her on pitching at this stage of her career. Success takes A LOT of practice, and a long time to develop success. I hate to state the obviousy but there are no easy drills to do in 5-10 minutes a week that enable success the first/second time on the mound for players who aren't willing to put the work in and struggle to make it. If there were they would be sold at Walmart at the check out lane because every girl in america would want to buy that DVD. Every single player I've ever seen that has really become a pitcher has a different mentality than all of the other girls on the field. They aren't embarresed by walking people. They aren't upset because they hit someone and that person cries. Those are things that they are willing to put up with (just like the extra running, extra work all week long) for the satisfaction of having the game on their shoulders when their team wins.
Good luck, you are in a very tricky position.
