Posted by: Marv () on Sat Oct 16 09:01:28 2004

what is the best way to teach an 11 year old to keep the barrel of the bat above his hands (and prevent dragging the barrel thriough the zone) in the early stages of the swing? how does he transition to an slight upward trajectory at contact after the "shoulder to hips" path of the early swing?
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> I read this terminology but cannot find an image of the barrel above the ball through any contact point. If you do he sure hit a high pitch. However ...dragging does seem to occur in certain hitters. IMO , arm and hand action should work to facilitate and enhance the loading of the shoulders and hips leading hands. Improper arm and hand motion interfers with the shoulder load and the result can be the " all arm swing" vs. launching the bat by unloading the shoulders as a unit.

What you described is "flail" nad this is where the disagreement with Jack (tht) and Teacherman ("flail") comes in. THT is the preferable approach because it is rotational, and flail is linear, which results in less bat speed. The greater the batspeed the farther you can hit the ball. Linear encourages "knob to the ball" type of hitting.This type of hitting might be ok for hitters who are satisfied with singles once in a while, but the beauty of Jack's principles is that you can have power AND high batting averahe. Anyone disagree?