Thoughts please

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Jan 6, 2009
6,626
113
Chehalis, Wa
If you can get her to get up on her toe rather than dragging her foot sideways and stop her from collapsing when she plants she’ll pick up 5 mph.

Overall, it looks pretty good.

Needs to be back chain dominate. The collapse is killing energy transfer for sure.
 
Jan 6, 2009
6,626
113
Chehalis, Wa
The anchor is old get open DNA their mother keeps saying,, that is John’s fault. If you open in the wrong manner it can kill leg drive.
 
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Jan 6, 2009
6,626
113
Chehalis, Wa
Last year she started out opening up. She was all messed up. It took her some time to correct it before the season, she did go on to have a great year, all year. Thankfully she isn’t starting out like that this year.
 
Jan 6, 2009
6,626
113
Chehalis, Wa
I can’t stand watching Stanton swing.

What about the difference in the stride leg? Amanda’s is straight at the start where Taylor flexes the back leg.

Some would call it being one or two legged drive.
 
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Jan 6, 2018
224
43
I can’t stand watching Stanton swing.

What about the difference in the stride leg? Amanda’s is straight at the start where Taylor flexes the back leg.

Some would call it being one or two legged drive.
2 things:

1. We need to be careful comparing developing children to grown women who are among the best to ever do it. Yes, they are great models and we learn a LOT from them, but they are also exceptional athletes who have spent 1,000s of hours perfecting their mechanics and the same amount of time in the gym perfecting their bodies. This is why I mentioned earlier in the thread that this kid is looking great, and I personally think she'll stop collapsing the ankle when she gets stronger.

2. That said - make note of Amanda's push off the back foot as she starts forward. See that little puff of dirt as she gets a little bend in the knee and goes into "push - push?" Imagine what she could do with a start back! Yes your kid bends/sinks a little more than I prefer, but I also don't like a straight leg. My advice there is to keep her from sinking all the way into the left heel to enhance this first push. She's got it for sure, but it could be a little better.
 
Jan 25, 2022
895
93
Personally, I don't agree that she is late getting off the rubber. At least not enough to worry about:

View attachment 26373
Maybe she's closer to like 2:45 than exactly 3:00, but it close enough. Through the pre-motion and into this position, she is damn near picture perfect.

Its right here that things start to go haywire and its directly caused by the anchor of a drag foot:

View attachment 26374

Starting from here all the way to release, her body is out of synch because that anchor is slowing down the entire bottom half (not too mention that just looks painful as hell too). If you get that drag foot corrected, I'm betting you'll see most of the other problems disappear quickly.
I'm pretty new to analysis, but I agree the foot is likely causing all of this. She's dragging her body down, then trying to push back out of the hole, which results in the lurch upward like she's being pulled up by a string. I would say that push to get herself back upright is even the reason her shoulders are facing the catcher at release. Like you said, the anchor throws several things off.
 
Feb 25, 2020
958
93
I think her stride leg could work better. If she kicks it out front(her stride foot) and then forcefully snaps it down and back underneath her she will get more "resistance". It should work this way all the way through release, even after it's made contact with the ground. It will have the effect of stopping her and standing her straight up through release.

Like this.



Or this



I don't think the drag foot is the main culprit here, although it certainly is not ideal. Try to correct both. She looks pretty good.
 
Sep 15, 2015
98
33
Agreed that there are a lot of good things here, and with all the usual caveats about internet advice from one clip:

1. I would consider keeping her back leg straight as she backswings or you could move to a very small knee bend and push-push sequence. Either way, I think you want more hinge and less of a squat at the beginning of the takeoff. Right now, the amount of back knee flexion is creating a squat. Changing the back leg may help her displace her hips forward of the rubber and create more of a lean/fall and less of a sit to start the pitch. She may be able to develop a little more power that way, and it may create the “sense of urgency” feel that seems lacking right now.

2. Despite point #1, I would not fiddle a lot with her takeoff or initial drive mechanics. She may have stood up a hair early on this pitch (and it is just a hair), but she is using a glute-driven thrust, which is not easy to teach, so I would be careful about changes that detract from how she moves through hip extension as the ball reaches the top of the backswing. That looks good to me.

3. This will run contrary to what others are saying, but I thought the most interesting piece of the video was at the very end when she appears to roll on the outside of her right foot as she is getting her balance. My youngest son does the same thing sometimes—both hitting and pitching—and I wonder if your athlete does not have more than normal laxity in her joints, particularly the ankle. That would explain the foot drag on the side. Normally, I would agree that this is a sign of over rotating the hips sideways, but here I actually think the hip position looks pretty good. As you note, her right knee remains pointed primarily towards home (except in the one still posted by dneeld where it is probably more towards third), notwithstanding the foot drag. It is really the knee orientation, and not the foot orientation, that tells you more about whether the hips are at the right angle, and I am not convinced that these hips are “over-opened” (and if they are, it is only for an instant). Lots of high-level pitchers drag the side of the foot for part of the pitch (including Sarah Pauly herself, for example, see below), so you may want to work on it to see what effect you get. But it may wind up being more of an aesthetic correction. I would not necessarily encourage her to “close” her hips more than she is.

4. Where I might focus is on the release point. She is letting the ball go too far in front of the rear hip. My guess is that if you showed another angle, you would see that the BI is not there and that her posture is not stacked the way you want it. Fixing the release point will get her more upright, move the center of mass back as she moves into front foot strike, and thereby improve the front side resistance. I have said this many times before, but fixing the release point is the easiest way to fix posture, so I might make release at the hip with brush a point of emphasis in drills and see whether that affects the full pitch.

(I post this with a lot of nostalgia. My kid just went off to college, and I would kill to have another one just moving to 43 feet.)

Here is Sarah Pauly on the side of the back foot:


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

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