Weight Transfer...Part of the Swing or Preparation?

[joof]

Clip

Mark,

Thanks for the reference to the Benyi clips. Have been looking for the frontal view - only had the side view. She is the hitter I am going to use as a model with my team this coming Janurary. Am already working on some of the underlying pelvic and scapula movement patterns associated with throwing and hitting - just can't use a bat or ball in the off season trainning period. Have some good athletes and excellent students to work with - surprising for a 1A school.

Thanks, joof

 

[Mark H]

I'd love to come watch a game. Please let me know the schedule when you have it.

 

[tom.guerry]

wellphyt/aimhigh -

I know you are familiar with cochran who emulates Williams and likes Ethier. Here is something similar to the H-I concept (or as Mark would say "theory" of back leg/single leg hitting, similar to what BM has admitted to learning recently). Here is an excerpt from a recent conversation between Andre and Loren Clifton, fuller info and pictures at H-I.com:

Ethier and Loren: “The main difference between college and pro for me was two things. I got stronger and I learned how to do this.”

Before he showed this position to me, he said, “You’re going to laugh.”
I asked why he thought I would laugh. He replied, “Because everyone talks about getting the front foot down,----- we don’t “rush” to get the front foot down.


He said, “From here I feel like I can hit ANYTHING.” I now trust it.
If I get an offspeed pitch I may get my front foot down, but there aint much out there. (He was referring to shifting his weight). The demo he did right in my office still showed his weight "back". He said he began to really understand "staying back."

I asked him right then, “If you were to describe yourself as shift then swing OR shift and swing, what would you call yourself?” He said I shift and swing.

 

[ssarge]

I know you are familiar with cochran who emulates Williams and likes Ethier.

I don't think either of you (or the three of you, or however many there are - can't keep all the fake names straight) know Cochran - or her instructor - as well as some other people do.

Before he showed this position to me, he said, “You’re going to laugh.”

I asked why he thought I would laugh. He replied, “Because everyone talks about getting the front foot down,----- we don’t “rush” to get the front foot down.

He said, “From here I feel like I can hit ANYTHING.” I now trust it.
If I get an offspeed pitch I may get my front foot down, but there aint much out there. (He was referring to shifting his weight). The demo he did right in my office still showed his weight "back". He said he began to really understand "staying back."

Probably exactly what Nyman meant 4 years ago when he said that there was surprisingly little force on the front foot at heel plant (and it WAS a surprise, to many). He said the front foot wouldn't tear a piece of paper, or words to that effect.

So yeah, this is a point which has been made and which many of us have operated upon for years.

I asked him right then, “If you were to describe yourself as shift then swing OR shift and swing, what would you call yourself?” He said I shift and swing.

Does anyone feel differently? You've looked at the Soriano clip Mark has posted several times, right?

Might be time for a review on the difference between weight shift and MASS.


Who are you disagreeing with here? Who is saying anything otherwise? You don't even understand the position of the people with whom you are arguing.

 

[tom.guerry]

scott -

Theoretically speaking, you might ask proudpapa if his daughter and Ethier talked hitting or not. That would be/?was aninteresting discussion.

 

[Wellphyt]

I just want to clarify that I do not have any "fake" names. I have always posted on this board as "wellphyt". I do post on baseballdebate.com under a different name. I chose a different name on that site because the term "wellphyt" isn't relevent in my life anymore. Simple as that.

I just don't want anyone impuning my character.

As for Katie Cochran, she is one of the FP hitters I like to record on my dvr and study in slow motion. I'm a fan of any player that has studied Ted Williams. Katie is on record as saying that she has studied Ted since the age of 11. In one of her tv interviews, she stated that she keeps a copy of Ted's book "The Science of Hitting" in her backpack.

The fact is more and more FP hitters are studying the best hitters in MLB in an attempt to improve their mechanics. In many cases the players are ahead of the coaches and hitting instructors, and are leading the way.

 

[Hitter]

Dargoncoach:

I think what you are doing is appropriate for 10U. You really want your hitters to get acustomed to the individual movements of the swing.

Over the next year or two, you'll want to gradually wean them to more of a continuous movement through the swing.

Put as simply as possible, a great swing is a loading phase, followed by an unloading phase. With some overlap. By that I mean, the shoulders / hands are still loading even as weight is being transferred, momentum is being created in a forward direction, and the lower body is beginning to rotate.

Put even more simply, the swing is one continuous movement.

Think of a golfer, and how the best ones look extraordinarily smooth as they swing. They are said to have great TEMP through a series of ballistic movement. Looks like one long graceful movement. Part of the reason for that is that all of the pieces work together at the apporopriate times and in the correct ways. This is referred to as rythym.

The softball swing is no different.

The great advantage of developing a swing like this is that it will have a number of built-in timing mechanisms. The hitgter will be more in control because she doesn;t need to stop / start / re-establish impetus all of the time. And can slow / speed-up segments as required to time a pitch.

BUt I would again stress, this starts with the hitter being able to execute the appropriate movements, which it sounds as if you are instilling. As that becomes true for any one hitter, it is time to start challenging them to make the movements more seamless.

To answer your specific question, most of what you are doing is right. But I think that if you study the very best hitters, you'll see that they shift their weight (more accurately their mass) AND begin to rotate INTO heel plant, not after heel plant.

Best regards,

Scott

Scott to take it a step further we try to get our kids to understand what shifting their weight means and feels like. I use a water bottle that is half full or have half empty depending on your point of view, horizontally in the palm of my hand and they put their hand under mine. I shift the bottle side to side and show them I can control the flow of the water and they can feel it shifting in their hand.

I then put them against a wall so their left shoulder is against the wall and their feet are directly under them. I ask if they would lift their right foot foot and hold it in the air? They of course can not do it because they can not transfer the weight to the other leg because the shoulder will not move (tilt).

As I walk away from them I show the heel of the foot landing then the toes and then lift the other leg or transfer it and point it out. Now I have them stand in front of a mirror and get into their batting stance, bend at the waist and soften the knees in that sequence and do a simple knee cock to transfer the weight inside their back leg. I position my self in front of their lead shoulder and brace myself while holding their shoulder and ask them to lift their lead foot leg so I can hold them up. If I can hold them with one hand I point out they are leaning backwards and their knee is directly over their foot. I want them to feel I am holding them up and they can see their knee is inside their foot and fell the weight inside their back leg.

By getting them to control their weight shift we point out they are flowing to the ball like the water and try to get them to land on the inside edge of the foot on a flexed front knee as this allows the weight to shift forward and they can learn to control the weight shift. Recognizing the speed of the pitch is when we say your commitment to stop the linear movement and rotational movement begins. I thought Sue Enquist did a nice job on RVP of explaining this as viewed from the back side of the hitter by showing the hips moving further on a change up and less on a faster pitch in relationship to heel plant and when it started. She explains this is a major difference in your higher levels hitters as to being able to adjust.

 

[Mark H]

Scott to take it a step further we try to get our kids to understand what shifting their weight means and feels like. I use a water bottle that is half full or have half empty depending on your point of view, horizontally in the palm of my hand and they put their hand under mine. I shift the bottle side to side and show them I can control the flow of the water and they can feel it shifting in their hand.

Nice visual on momentum. I'm going to steal that.

 

[ssarge]

Hitter:

I agree with Mark. Those are some great ideas, which I really appreciate you sharing. REALLY like the water bottle idea. Thanks very much!

Do you make any differentiaion between weight shift and redistributing the body's mass? I ask because it seems to me that the middle/core of the body gets forward more than what is above or below it. Almost like this: >. An exaggeration, but in fact, with some hitters, I use the "greater than sign" cue. And this seems to happen AS the hitter is rotating into footplant, as Mark demonstrated in the Soriano cue. This of course is similar to what Ethier said in the quote as well (or at least how I munderstood what he said).

Best regards,

Scott

 

[ssarge]

Theoretically speaking, you might ask proudpapa if his daughter and Ethier talked hitting or not. That would be/?was aninteresting discussion.

As I recall, Katie has talked to Ethier. One of many influencers, I'm sure. Those around ASU softball would know that there is a pretty low tolerance level for outside influencers, but that isn't atypical in D-I softball. Katie is indepent, yet still respectful to everyone, takes value where she can find it, and deserves tremendous credit for her success.


Let me again state that I have no issue with the quote from Ethier. And will again point out that Nyman said almost EXACTLY the same thing 4 years ago. You use these quotes - or so it would appear - to refute the methodology to which I subscribe. And yet, the author of the methodology said virtually the same thing. Was that when you were a moderator at the web site and strong proponent of the same methodology to which I subscribe, or did it happen after?