Posted by: tom.guerry (tom.guerry@kp.org) on Fri Jan 9 08:43:07 2004

I have found that if you clear the back foot or "get your heel pointed to the sky faster", it allows the hips to rotate farther with more force. Does anyone disagree?
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> Hi todd
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> No ofense but it sounds like squishing the bug mechanics, which i hate because they led me into years of frustration and unproductive at bats. By the way, one mistake of mine early in my rotational quest was to try to rotate on one leg only. It took a lot of trial and error to see it. Believe me you dont want to go down that road.
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> For me this is a non-teach area. If you rotate the front side, your back heel will go up, ...by itself. No good on focusing on it. I would rather think “rotate front knee” and your back leg will get involved violently. I dont know if you can do that but i challenge you to try it. Once you feel it you will never go back to one leg rotation. The amount of power generated by this move will kill the ball.
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> Thanks and keep it up.
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> toti
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Of course,any cue has infinite interpretations,but usually the turning over of the back foot to get the heel facing up is ised as a "cue" to break the bug squishin habit.Tom's back foot hypotheses:

I tend to look for/overdo the universal sort of things in the great swing,but I think there are universal sequences that are seen more or less in individuals depending on how their unique style sums and cancels motions.In general,the back foot in the good swing:

1- carries weight on the inside and mostly front of foot as hip is cocked and center of gravity goes forward

2- back foot turns back some(see youthbaseball clips,esp Glaus,Palmeiro,but also others including Lugo when you know what to look for)this happens just as the hip begins to turn forward(watch back hip get to max loaded back poition) a little right at the end of scap loading.It is the feel Epstein describes about "counter-rotation" consisting of turning the body back with upper body continuing/staying back(via scap action not taking a big backswing)as the hips twist open and you "rotate into toe touch")

3-coiling of body is assisted by back knee flexing and starting to turn down and in going out to toe touch.This is when weight goes more to front of back foot and heel may begin to come up

4-when front heel drops,hip turn maxes out often assisted by transformation of linear momentum to assist hip turn while the front leg assists/leads as emphasized by Jack.the back leg actively twists to create maximum hip momentum.Back foot rolls over at this point to have heel face sky/whatever cue you want.Addition/transformation of linear/weight shift momentum to rotational requires the bloking by the front leg after the hips have opened some so that you don;t just slide the hips laterally,that is why you have to be already "rotating into footplant" and why you might encorage landing with the front foot somewhat open at toe touch.

5-BACK TOE DRAG now here is a key speculation-while all this has happened,the hip is still "cocked" in the sense that the BACK hip is still pinched at the waist.Just after the launch sequence described above which crrates final "connection"/maximum separation/"X" factor,you are ready via tight connection and reverse of coiling at "drop and tilt" to pull with the bottom hand/lead arm as initiation/launch happens.This is when you want to uncock the hip giving a nice "bow-arch" which decelerates the hips well and gets the torso energized enough for a full turn to contact(105 degrees if necessary as for inside).This is when the back foot starts to drag some reactively behind the front.

6- Toe drag continues as long as the torso is untwisting actively.At some point,the torso is pretty depleted,either by high load/long radius handpath OR by significant hooking of handpath arc which triggersaccelerated tranfer of momentum out of torso.This action then turns the back foot(and entire back leg) back.

See if your video eval confirms any of this.