Posted by: donny (donnybstr@aol.com) on Tue Jan 20 11:39:56 2004

Nick-
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> Sometimes the teaching is to achieve certain desired positions to speed up the trial and error process,and the drills use extreme/exagerrated positions at one end of the spectrum.
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> I suspect this is why Epsetin finds the very open foot(encourages 45 degrees) and the "proprietary" (very close to fence) fence drill useful.This will encourage Getting close to the plate and hooking the handpath and "handling" the inside pitch.You may have to grow up and get bigger to handle outside as well,but he seems to prefer the progression starting with the inside type mechanics.

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> Nick , always look forward to your comments. My son and I are dealing with this issue now. We landed heel higher than toe before and it artificially keep the shoulder in. I think it was a couterfeit move to make up for poor upper body loading as I look back. When we turned the table and worked on better shoulder mechanics then we were able to open the foot to 45 degrees and lower the heel going into toe touch. Much better balance. We battled a dead front leg for years and now we land and use the front side better facilitating rotation and eventual straightening of the front leg through contact. We have not put it to the game test yet but I like what I see now. What happens to those ankles looks brutal when the pitch is inside and they are closed off. Can't be very efficient maybe?