Posted by: The Hitting Guru (hitman3527@aol.com) on Mon Apr 10 00:56:59 2006

> I am coaching my sons 7 year old team this year, I am curious if this is a good program to teach them? At what age is it good to really teach these techniques. I have about 5 kids who can hit the ball conistently, but the others are very new to the game (firt year) and cannot get a hit. Thanks!


Brad. We must remember that many kids' motor skills are not developed enough for them to proficiently execute general athletic maneuvers. But to answer your question, it is not to soon to have kids learning proper fundamentals as well as knew concepts. What is being found out regarding education in that kids can comprehend more than what we once thought is also true in athletics. The important thing is to understand that if they initially fail that it is not necessarilly due to a lack of effort or comprehension. But they just need practice in order to become proficient just as if you were asked to perform with your opposite side. It might take a while but eventually you could learn how to do so.

It has often been discussed that kids should make use of a smaller and or lighter bat if not even in some cases a whiffle ball bat in order to learn some of the concepts or at least to have fun. See the video "Teaching of the Major League Swing II". The concepts are excellent.

As a coach, you probably realize that for the kids who are not hitting, the key is to encourage them until they do. If they stick with it, eventually they should see results. (There are probably some major league hitting instructors going through the same thing.) At moment the White Sox's Scott Podsednik was 1 out of 22 for the season and that hit was not a hard hit.)