Posted by: missouridad () on Fri Feb 16 20:04:26 2001

I have them both. Son was at the point where learning to get the hips to lead the hands would be the next biggest thing to work on. Jack and Mike emphasize this. At first I thought Mike's tape was a waste of money, but it eventually grows on you. He is trying to teach something that is very difficult. Most hitters have been taught to swing down and keep the shoulders level. This creates a lot of weight shift habits. Most hitters are taught to stay back also. This will cause weight shift mechanics also when you try to stop the back side collapse caused by being out of balance backwards. There are other things most of us hold to be fact that go deep to the core of our thinking. These all made me think Mike had gone overboard on his approach. My son was hitting with his hands and his shoulders were turning at the same time as his hips. I tried everything to improve his mechanics in this area this winter, including taking only a portion of what Mike was saying as being correct and disreguarding the rest. After two weeks of trying it my way (6 nights a week) and not getting the results I wanted, I broke down and did it Mikes way. It worked. Jack's video is well worth the money also. He teaches how the top hand can improve bat speed via his "top hand torque" in a very good way. He teaches how much bat speed you get from the body's rotation. If you want to want to learn to use the lower body more effectively I would own them both.

My son is at an interesting point. For nine days we have followed Mike's instuction to the letter which includes always having the bat simply against the shoulder for every swing (not on top of the shoulder but against it) and keep it there. My son swung tonight on the setpro with the bat just laying there and his speeds were the same as they were nine days ago. I was slightly disapointed until he made the comment that this is just with my lower body (I forgot to let him go full out). So he started using his hands (loading and everything) but he only added a few mile an hour. I'm sure when he gets his timing back and the hands and arms start adding something it will improve bat speed but it is interesting where we are right now.