Posted by: John D (John@Dresslar.com) on Mon Nov 14 20:02:44 2005

As Jack's video notes, what makes a swing rotational is the fact that the hands move in a circular path (an arc) to get the bathead to the ball. Why? See one of these two pages:

http://www.batspeed.com/research04.html
http://www.batspeed.com/research10.html

The key component is having a firm "connection" between the shoulders and a firm lead arm, so that when the body rotates, the hands -- being at the end of a firm (and maybe even straight) front arm, will rotate as well. Just before contact, the bathead will whip around at great velocity, aided by a "hook" or aggressive pulling in off the bottom hand caused by pulling the lead shoulder back toward the catcher, like in a karate punch where the front arm gets pulled back. (Think also of a game of "crack the whip", where the first guy in line stops so that the rest of the line will get whipped around him.)

Beyond that, there's a little bit of disagreement as to the fine points of the swing, but I think if you click around on all the buttons at left, you'll have a pretty good feel for it at the end of your reading. Or, you could just buy the "Final Arc" video and it will all make sense.


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> To have a rotational swing, what are the main parts you need? (What do you have in your swing that makes it rotational). I am assuming that in the swing mechanics page that your swing does not have to be exactly the same, but the key parts have to be the same.