Posted by: Major Dan (markj89@charter.net) on Fri Jan 19 05:56:27 2001

Hi All
>
> The post below is from Major Dan's earlier post on learning bottom-hand-torque. I thought it might be helpful to other coaches and players.
>
> >>>I got out my old heavy bag and started pounding on it! I felt Bottom Hand Torque for the first time. I am experimenting with how to ingrain the technique and how to teach it/show it to students.
> One thing I did was to emulate your THT demonstration but for BHT - I held the bat with the bottom hand fingers only. I started at contact, reversed the swing about half way, then turned back into the swing and pulled the bat handle back with the fingers of my bottom hand to snap the bat barrel into the heavy bag.
> I hope that description is clear enough. I can definitely quicken up the bat that way as a demo. It doesn't work very well with a ball on a tee- no resistance and the bat bat tends to go flying out of the top hand.
> IMO BHT is a very quick motion that happens in a short moment in time during the fastest part of the swing. Therefore it is not easy to feel or 'do' on purpose, at least in my experience. That's why the heavy bag is such a brilliant idea - you can go full speed into the BHT moment and stop the bat dead right after you do BHT. In fact I can time the BHT to snap the barrel into bag contact.
>
> Any clues on how to transfer the heavy bag skill to a ball on a tee?
>
> Jack, on your point of developing solid transfer mechanics to have the shoulders accelerate the circular hand path - you are so right. My daughter (16 - fps) tends to push her hands forward. When she does that there is no way she can get shoulder turn and turn it into BHT. In fact when the hands push, the hips slow down and the shoulders pass the hips too early in the swing.
> As soon as her hands stop pushing and the top elbow stays near the ribs, the hips finish the turn, the CHP shows up, BHT is available, etc. It's all linked together.
> We have a lot of habits to remake however Thanks again. Major Dan <<<
>
> Hi Major Dan
>
> The practice routine you described above is very close to the way I teach batters just learning rotational mechanics. I am not quite sure why the bat would tend to come out of your top hand after contact. It could be that you are allowing the hands to be to far extended at contact and the lead elbow cannot break down-and-in to the lead side to finish the follow-through. -- Make sure the back elbow is still back at your side (“L”) at contact when practicing bottom-hand-torque (middle-in pitches). Note: this will not be true for using THT on outside pitches and you will need to release the top hand.
>
> I do not use a tee. I still have the batter use the bag while I soft toss. I underhand the ball at the bag. The batter gets use to timing their swing with a live arm but still expend the bat’s energy into the bag. When their form looks OK, I have them back away from the bag and hit live balls. -- The only problem is that now you must use video to check their mechanics -- caution, do check -- most will tend to extend the hands to far and need to work on the bag some more.
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> Major Dan, I think you made some excellent points that other coaches could benefit from, so I am going to post it at the top.
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> Jack Mankin
>
>

Just to clarify, the bat tends to fly out of my top hand in the following experimental circumstance:
I hold the bat normally with the top hand but only with the fingers of the bottom hand. I then pull with the fingers at the BHT moment. This twists the bat out of the top hand and the bottom hand isn't really holding on. Its OK against a bag, but hitting off a T or soft toss, the bat gets out of control without a bottom hand grip. I don't experience this if I hold on with the bottom hand.

I have seen a variation of this phenomenon in major league players. Last year Dante Bichette homered at Fenway, and at after contact, he seemingly pulled the bat out of his top hand, the barrel continued across, turning his bottom hand over/around to palm up and as it passed, he flipped the handle, sending the bat spinning as he watched the ball. Its a style move I've seen other players do.
Now I think I understand that it is the tail end of the BHT pulling the bat out of the top hand that creates this.

As for practice routines, my younger son alternates heavy bag and T. When loses the feel on the T, he hits the bag a few times, then goes back to the T. He's almost 10 and swears he can feel the BHT ! His bat looks pretty quick lately too.
Thanks again.