Posted by: Shawn (mariner0324@yahoo.com) on Wed Oct 31 19:07:28 2007

> Hi Teacherman
>
> You have presented your observations and conclusions and I have presented mine. The readers can judge for themselves the credibility of each.
>
> Jack Mankin

Jack,

I agree with for the most part. You need high speed film to see how much the hips lead the shoulders.

Your right Rose was a singles hitter, great connection in that swing. And your right rotation brings the hands around. His hips and shoulders do rotate nearly at the same time. This is a good view as we can see the hips are about half rotated in the lag position. Power hitters are almost fully rotated at the hips in the lag position. So there is a difference in the kinetic link between Rose and power hitters.

Power hitters and there can be a difference between them. Usually lead with the hips. For one thing the swing is initiated from the hips so they should lead the other segments. And for the most part the hip and shoulder angle doesn't change that much from what they have at launch. They must maintain some connection as the hips start. In many clips you see the connection maintained as the hips start and the shoulders turn a little to being square with the plate. So there is some pull through the lead arm from the launch position.

Some might say the shoulder are closed as the hips begin. And they are somewhat correct, meaning the shoulders are then square to the plate. But', you have to watch the entire upperbody including the bat. In power hitters, most of them, the hips will rotate half way with the bat lagging behind. The shoulders do move some even though the bat is still cocked. Like I said there has to be connection to rotation. Many would call this separation. Because even with some shoulder rotation the arms/bat are still closed. The bat is the last link in the kinetic link sequence, so it is behind the hips. And there is a progressive gain in the kinetic link sequence, hips/shoulder/bat. So there is a sequence to the swing.

I will show some clips to discuss the hips and shoulders with you later.

But' for now Richard and Tom need to explain one thing. Why is it all biomechanical information suggest that the hips rotate and accelerate and then the shoulders accelerate to even a higher rate. Thus the bat to even a higher rate. Why doesn't the information from biomechanics say that the hand and bat accelerate before the shoulders. If the shoulder were truly by-passed then it would show up during an analysis. Biomechancs are based on facts, just like video it doesn't lie. It is taken from video and computed through software that has no bias on hitting mechanics. So you are either basing your theory on facts or fiction.