Posted by: george stanley (saint_george13@yahoo.com) on Sun Jun 22 14:11:55 2008

> Maybe some might think I'm over simplifying here but, here go's anyway.
> Since the swing begins from the ground up,weight transfer, to load, does it not make sense, that at the initiation of the swing,it HAS to begin from where it started, the front side?
> As I've said before, Jack stated that one shouldn't THINK hips,it's kind of a by product of swing initiation.That is in my mind, a vitally important point.
> I work with 7-12 year olds. And ,what really stands out to me, is that when they don't begin the swing with some form of a weight transfer, the swing is flat footed, with no power and, certainly no hip rotation. But, when there is a transfer of weight to the load, the hips have no place left to go, but in the opposite direction of where they initially went to. But, again, they don't have to think hips.
> To me, the way the body is made, since the front hip is obviously much farther in front of the hands at load,when the swing is launched, the hips have no other physical choice but to fire first?
> One mans observation.

hello john!!

you're theory is LOGICAL, PHYSICS-wise.. however you should continue y our exptrapolation back to the oint where the motion beings.. the back foot..
pushing off the back foot, raising the front foot provides the initiation of energy which offsets inertia, which is the property of all matter to stay at rest unless otherwise experiencing some outside force. THAT IS THE KEY!! FORWARD MOMENTUM!! as you can readily observe your boys have no forward momentum.. that is no outside force to generate lower body torque.. so they ae no differrent than jeff bagwell.. all arms & shoulders. unfortunately at their age, they don't have a lot of physical powe to generate very much batspeed.. thus the low success rate when just swinging the arms.
hips are vital.. but so much more vital when the legs & back knee are generating energy BEFORE the hips start their torqueing motion.. to open your front hip & PULL the bat thru the contact zone is not going to generate as much bat speed as keeping your hands in tight to the torso & using your STRONGER SIDE, that is the back foot for pushoff, then straightening the back knee for MORE impetus, then PUSHING your back side around with your back hip. now the shoulders begin their torqueing sequence, bringing the arms and LAST but most important, the HANDS with the bat thru the contact zone..
you have focused on the MIDDLE of the entire movement & think this is where the starting point of energy initiation is.. not.. rather than at the start & what all those distinctly seperate but melded movements will generate when starting with your back foot, knee, & hip.
look at your leg.. then look at your arm.. the leg is at least 3 times stronger than your arm.. would it not make sense to try to incorporate your legs into your swing in harmony with your arms? only then will you maximize your bat speed. unfrotunately mr. mankin believes it's all about torqueing the bat with the arms & hands alone.. not so. the legs are far stronger.. to not utilize them is to diminish the speed of your bat.