Posted by: tom.guerry (tom.guerry@kp.org) on Thu May 27 08:46:41 2004

Coach C- Thanks for ther kind words,but let's not confuse me with an expert/guru.I am doing nothing more than regurgitating good info from a variety of sources and fitting it together in a way that agrees with personal experience and lots of video in an atempt to recognize something more universal.

As Nyman says,mechanics coaches are attemting what is perhaps impossible - to determing how a student's motor system will organize itself to produce what we see, as well as the results we want to see.How do you effectively bridge the ? insurmountable gap between what is seen (which is still very subjective) and the students neuromuscular system/body ?

I would suggest one place is describing "feel" effectively one on one (teacher to student).This should not be overly confused with reality,but checked by an attempt to remain real with video being a good way to try to keep yourself honest.A community of hotheaded critics and open/shared info/data also helps.

This is what I "feel" as the muscle stretch/load/coil sequence,see what you think from your personal experience.

Epstein says when you "drop the front heel",it feels like a cord connects the front heel to the back shoulder.To me,this means you have prior to this stretched the body muscles as you coiled/"rotated into toe touch".

next you are going to create the last quick coil/prepare for uncoil with xfactor stretch with the "drop and tilt".You will now feel stretch going up the front side from the hip the shoulder.

next you are going to feel the torso turn which is not yet the beginning of uncoiling,but is yet another in the sequence of stretch which can be felt as a "cord" connecting the front shoulder to the back hip.This is what video at the lag position is showing (someone here- ?Melvin,?Doug has noted the position of the hands at this point as an important landmark of good mechanics).Now the BACK hip is in a position to be pulled forward as the uncoiling proceeds so it then pulls the back shoulder around/or allows the whole torso to pull around with ideal stretch/unstretch,coil/uncoil.This sequence is necessary but not sufficient to allow the hands to stay ahead of the back elbow and asist in eliminating what Nyman calls bat drag.

See if you can feels this.It may require certain upper/lower body joint sequences (internal rotation-scap load-external rotation) well synched ("mapped") to lower body action.

You also have to make sure weight shift is managed and captured well at the right time.