Posted by: Jim C. (jhconklinjr@comcast.net) on Mon Apr 25 20:00:00 2005

It is hard to explain in words, but easy to see.

Try this. Assuming you are holding the bat near the launch position, say, top of the bottom hand as high as your collar bone and both hands as far back as the armpit and around 4-6" toward the plate from your shoulder. Then, imagine that someone puts a cotton ball on top of your rear shoulder. You want to shrug that shoulder out and back as if you are trying to shrug the cotton ball off your shoulder to the back. Your hands go with the shrug. Your rear elbow scribes a small counter-clockwise arc in space (for me, my rear elbow starts at 9 o'clock and moves to about 2 o'clock, but not with the same radius throughout the shrug). The max of the shrug is as you feel the muscles around your rear side shoulder blade tighten up or 'pinch' a little.

The trick is to not "lock and load" there or to fall static again there, but to get there with a soft, light, fluid 'gathering' sense that you move to and through without a pause. If your grip is right, your rear elbow may raise somewhat and the bat may cock a little toward your helmet. From there your hip/torso turn and the elbow sweeping down to your side pull the bat head back and down as Jack has illuminated in his Top-Hand-Torque discussions.