Teaching Control to 10U Pitchers

[ktsoftball23]

First, she is 10 YOA. If she is throwing hard and has control at practice, that is much more important than for her to throw strikes at a 10U game. The goal is to have a great HS pitcher, not a great 12U pitcher.

"Confidence" is a word that can't be defined. So, I think it is worthless to talk about confidence or lack of confidence.

Specifically, she is tensing up her muscles during a game, which stops muscle memory. To put it another way, "She is getting her head between the ball and the pitch." It is the pressure of the game situation that upsets her. She is thinking instead of doing.

This isn't unusual--this is "the" battle between an athlete's body and his/her emotions. How does a person perform at the top of his/her game under pressure? To do this, you have emulate a game situation during practice.

The way I approached this problem: This is going to sound cruel, but it really isn't. This is relentless teasing. A good sense of humor is essential. During practice, tell her you want her to throw a strike. And, then you tell her she can't. Tell her that she is going to throw the next pitch over the backstop. Talk to her all the way through the pitch, giving her negative encouragement. Talk about how impossible it is for her to do it. Try to get her giggling. Say she doesn't have enough talent--she is too slow, too short, too small...whatever.

If she is a normal DD, she will react with defiance and an "I'll show you attitude." When she does it successfully, treat her success as an accident. Like, "you did that, but can't do it again. The ball is going into the next county this time."

During the game when she pitches, you have to stop caring if she hits a batter or not. Set up a criteria for when she is taken out of the game.

We just recently came by doing this negative encouragement accidently and it has really worked for our daughter with her hitting. She was struggling mentally with hitting from getting some bad bat stings and everything she did hit went to right field. Sooo we were working with her along with her older brother out in the yard one night and her brother started telling her " I bet you can't hit it to that tree and I bet you can't do this and that" and the next thing you know she's smashing the ball up the middle and to left field. The next night her brother wasn't there when we were practicing and she started out hitting to right field again and I started in with the negative encouragement and next thing you know she's smashing it up the middle and to the left again. This carried over to her games this weekend without having to do the negative encourgement during the game.....

 

[CoachJBfor10U]

You're absolutely right - she has an extreme focus problem. She's actually called me out to the mound to ask me if I could ask people to stop yelling!

Anyway, when I saw how much better she pitched after a trip to a mound, I encouraged my catcher to talk to her, walk to her, yell to her - whatever she needed to do to keep her focused. So far, so good. But she does need constant attention to keep her "STRAIGHT", as it was put.

With a first yr catcher, second yr pitcher and only Game 3 under our belts, I feel like this season is going to be tiring and long. LOL However, I appreciate the challenge! I'm going to try the teasing thing this week. She's a bit sensitive so I think I'll go with the "I bet you can't.." and see where it leads.

 

[CoachJBfor10U]

I CAN define confidence for a 10u pitcher.

Confidence for a 10u pitcher is throwing strikes and getting strike outs.

Well said! I can see a complete attitude change with every walk.

 

[StacieM]

Very cool tips and ideas in this thread! It's definitely important to make pitching practice more than pitching to a catcher only.

Even with players in other types of stations, we will introduce "distraction" and challenge them to stay focused and get the job done despite the distraction. (usually it's something funny)

The "negative encouragement" is always great. Get them to see just how "silly" the "you can't do this" is and they start understanding that they really are VERY capable and start focusing more on that than the "I can't."

***WARNING: thread hijack coming up (sorry)***
I also did this with a struggling hitter recently. Told her that when she was in the box that it was only her and the pitcher (forget all the zillions of tips coaches gave, parents gave, well-meaning people gave). I said, "Can you honestly look at that pitcher and tell me she's better than you? That she can beat you?" This pitcher we were talking about really wasn't anything spectacular or overpowering. This hitter thought I was joking - of course the pitcher wasn't better than her nor did she have the physical ability to throw pitches this batter couldn't handle. Once this hitter realized that, she took a whole new attitude with her into the box. It's just her and that pitched ball and she can handle that ball. Before she was taking too much with her into the box:
my team needs a hit
I haven't hit the ball well yet
I have to get a good hit now
my parents have been doing all kind of extra practice with me, why can't I just get a hit?
if I don't hit I might get taken out of the game
why can't I hit now when I hit so well in the off season?

WAY too much going on in her head - stripped all that away and got her to focus on just the ball or just her and that pitcher - got her to realize that each at bat is just a battle between her and the pitcher and she's a good enough hitter that she knows she CAN take just about any pitcher we'll face. When I asked her if the pitcher was better than her - the answer was so obvious to her than she's now focused more on that - I'm better than the pitcher and I can win this battle vs all that other stuff she was thinking.

Now she's doing SOOOOOOO much better. Went 3-3 in our most recent game - with a few RBI's and a couple of doubles.

Get them to believe in what they are capable of (there's proof of it every time they do something great in practice) and add pressure/distraction to practice situations so that games aren't and overwhelming difference.