Posted by: Brian - BatSpeed.com (support@batspeed.com) on Thu Apr 22 08:48:55 2004

I don't believe Doug said good hitters become good instructors. I believe he said good hitters figured it out in the batters box not on paper.
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> I hope you understand the difference.
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> And, I hope you understand that a cue to one player means something completely different to another. A player who is doing most everything correctly can benefit from a cue that a player who is just beginning can't.
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> To suggest that being instructed is more valuable than time in the box is ridiculous. They are both important.
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> "Hands to the ball" is a frequent cue and one that is taboo here. Yet, hands to the ball is not a problem when done correctly. Jack hears that and thinks linear immediately. However, I can rotate my hands to the ball with no linear component.
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> So, although I believe instruction can shorten the learning process, all instruction is for naught without 100's of hours swinging and taking bp.
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> And, nothing is worse than coaches who haven't taken the swings dishing out the information like a lemming. They have a picture that they try to explain but they don't understand cause and effect and they don't understand which muscle groups are actually working to produce the required movement.
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> And, for this post to come from Brian and not Jack or John leaves me wondering.

Teacherman,

I hope that you understand what "reoccurring theme" means. It means that many people have suggested that you had to have played at a high level in order to properly teach batting mechanics.

If you want to believe that the linear cues are productive, then then by all means use them. However, history has shown that the linear cues were not productive. The rise in batting statistics occurred in the 1990s with the understanding that the best hitters were not actually using the linear cues that were being taught. In my opinion, there is be little disagreement as to what "keep your shoulder in there" means or "A to B," though there may be room for disagreement on other cues.

We agree that 1000s of hours practicing the swing in the cage are necessary. However, 1000s of hours practicing improper swing mechanics will lead to a good high school or college player and not much more. Therefore, it is important to practice proper mechanics.

I'm not sure if you are suggesting that Jack Mankin has never played the game and is only teaching based on video analysis, but if so, that is totally incorrect.

And this post did come solely from Brian. I am not Jack and I'm not John Elliot. However, I have studied swing mechanics for years with Jack. I posted this thread because I think it is a good topic that is often brought up to diminish the credibility of Jack and others who have not played professional ball (and Jack probably has no interest in rehashing it again), so why not discuss it.

Brian
BatSpeed.com