Posted by: Stephen () on Wed Feb 12 15:19:29 2003

I am attempting to work with my daughter on lowering her rear shoulder so she can swing with a slight upper cut with the bat barrel angled downward.
> > > > > > She does this well on the heavy bag (similar to Jack's video) but when she moves to the tee she once again starts swinging at a downward angle.
> > > > > > With limited success I have tried working with two tees (one in front of the other) with the ball on the furthest tee being slightly lower hoping that she will learn to hit the first ball without drivig the ball or her bat into the second ball.
> > Is there something else I can do to promote a lower rear shoulder and a downward angled bat?
> > > > >
> > > > > First thing I would check is her effort level. If she's fine against a heavy bag and not fine against a T, I would guess she's trying to hit the ball hard rather than maintain her good mechanics. The body may not be ready to execute the "good" swing at a faster pace yet. And when we ask it to we revert back to the "old" swing. Because that's what the body knows. Takes 1000's of swings to relearn to the point of being automatic.
> > > >
> > > > Interesting on the two tees. I was at a college fp clinic over the weekend where one of the drills was hitting off a two tee station with the first ball higher than the second. The object was to drive the 1st into the 2nd ball, thus a downward swing. I prefer teaching the level swing to my daughter. Just to warn you that as you move into higher softball you are going to hear and see alot of different things.
> > >
> > > Funny how the coaches teach swinging down on the ball to create ground balls. THen they tell the pitchers to keep the ball down to create ground balls and play the infield in to field the ground balls.
> > > You'd think the offense and defense would work AGAINST each other.
> > > go figure...
> >
> > >I don't profess to know the statistics but I am of the assumption that a ball hit hard in the air (excluding a pop up)is more likely to result in a hit then one that rolls on the ground.
> > Besides, how often does a ground ball make it to a gap in the outfield.
> >
> > Phil C.
>
> Doesn't seem like a fair comparison to me to take "popups" out of the equation. If you do there is no argument. Line drives and long flys will always produce more than ground balls. I'm with you on what the proper swing plane is. I just don't like taking popups out of the equation if you're looking for a fair analysis.