Week One Lesson Plan?

[FP26]

I am not sure how to link a thread from my phone but I remember a thread from a couple of months ago. I think it was calle d "Practical hitting drills progression". It was started by Indiana's Dh and he provided some very good info at the beginning of that thread. I highly recommend it. That may be helpful to you.

 

[madkenna1469]

That's what I would like to see also!

 

[madkenna1469]

I am not sure how to link a thread from my phone but I remember a thread from a couple of months ago. I think it was calle d "Practical hitting drills progression". It was started by Indiana's Dh and he provided some very good info at the beginning of that thread. I highly recommend it. That may be helpful to you.

Thanks I will take a look.

 

[chrispots]

I'm going to post probably an unpopular reply...I'll say this: I'm not saying "NO, DON"T DO THIS" I'm just saying be careful. If you try to run before you can crawl you might end up spending 3x the time undoing some non-efficient aspects of her swing.

The post referenced is here: http://www.discussfastpitch.com/softball-hitting-practical/17631-practical-hitting-drills-progression-checklist.html

I have 3 DD's: 6, 10 & 13. 10 & 13 play TB. The 10 year old has been playing TB since she was 8 - I'm her coach (see Daddy ball post). My point, I've got a bit of experience in this age group.

First, that document is based on 14-16U players. I'm not saying there are not applicable steps in there for your DD but IMO you need to scale some of this stuff waaaay back simply because an 8 year old doesn't have the core\leg\arm strength of a 14U\16U player.

For example, if you start with tip 'n rip...how well do you think she is going to use her legs? I work 11 months a year with my girls and see them still run into lower body issues. If the lower body isn't stable, they literally will be falling all over the place because the bat will be swinging them.

So...what would I start with? Weight transfer to the front leg (that remains flexed) while externally rotating the rear leg.



At the starting point - IMO - I could care less what the bat is doing. Getting her stance and weight shift\balance on track is key. This HAS to be reasonably mastered during some front toss before you even think about moving to the next step. If you think she has it mastered? Add some speed to front toss and see if her lower body mechanics maintain some semblance of being mastered. Don't be shocked to see her falling backwards and kinda squishing the bug on her own. OHHH the DFP tragedy LOL. It's OK - it's to be expected. You are teaching her a new movement pattern.

To give this some perspective, for example, if I told YOU that you had to change your walking pattern 2-3x's a week so that your left arm matched up with your left leg and vice-versa for your right leg (as opposed to our normal walking pattern of our normal right arm swing\left leg step and left arm swing\right arm step pattern) you would really struggle with this for a while. How well do you think an 4' tall 8 year old will do swinging a piece of metal that is 2+ feet long, weighing over a pound while torquing her upper body against her lower body while loading into the unload, rotating the barrel to an on plane position yada yada yada while the other teams "witch-er" is firing fastballs at 40+ MPH from 35 feet away? OK...rhetorical question...

That scenario seems pretty hopeless and I'm not negative Nancy. I'm just suggesting you take a simpler approach and look at this as an ongoing improvement project. Plenty of stuff that is talked about here can be added in after the fact to increase resistance, adjust-ability and explosiveness. If you think you're getting into scap loading anytime soon...well...good luck with that IMO.

Here are some of the easy drills I used for a girl I just worked with tonight. When I first saw video of her 2 weeks ago, this girl is 9 years old and 70 pounds. She was falling all over the place with huge barrel drop and drag (again, I don't care about what the bat is doing at this point until the lower half is fixed). She's worked on these drills for the past 10 days or so. Huge diff tonight - her footwork\weight shift\balance was terrific 50% of the time. This is me demonstrating the drills I gave her:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7PjKA2_nc8

Are these drills where her lower body movement going to ultimately end up at? No...but given what she was doing I felt the need to go somewhat extreme with weight shift to get some stability in her body. Yes, I realize there is almost zero lower body resistance being demonstrated - this was on purpose - an extreme to overcome an extreme.

We worked tonight with mom for about an hour. By the time we were done, she was happy because she hit well off the tee and the TCB's that I front tossed to her tonight but I won't even think about progressing to her upper body for another couple of weeks until I feel reasonably confident that her lower half won't go to hell in a hand basket. I never said a word about anything from the waist up. Most of her barrel drop disappeared as her lower body started to stabilize.

Like I said, IMO...no quick fixes...no miracle...oh and NO D1 scouts looking at your 8 year old...step by step build it right from the ground up.

This is an example of how I do it...is it 100% guaranteed or some blue print for the perfect swing? Nope. I'm just simply offering a practical place to start.

Enjoy the ride!

CP

PS: Go SLOW - keep it fun! I schedule practice time with my DD's. They know what their schedule is...if they don;t want to practice that day...they get a pass...don't try to beat it into them...you'll likely go backwards...

 

[madkenna1469]

Chris-Thanks for the post it was very thought out. I agree with not over complicating it. When we are working on stuff we have nothing but fun. When I throw front toss to her I cheat and throw it to the spot that I know she has the best opportunity to hit it to build her confidence. If she only wants to practice for 10mins that's what we do. There are a lot of people that has been down this journey with there kids on this site and that is my biggest interest is to find out what they would do different if they had that chance again.

 

[chrispots]

When we are working on stuff we have nothing but fun.

Ding Ding Ding we have a winnnnna! Free Chicken Dinner!

First, you 're welcome...I went back and forth as to whether to hit reply or cancel before I posted...not looking to starting an argument...I'm glad you took my post at face value as it was intended.

As I said...enjoy the ride! You have an older DD so you get "it"...lots of "rookie" parents start making "it" about them and not about their DD's and in many cases that can be the long term kiss of death...CP