Posted by: Dylan (legendarywiffler@aol.com) on Mon Apr 10 09:06:51 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!

Hey Brad

I coach my brothers as well, and theyre are about 6 and 8. They play on teams that my father coaches, so I usually end up becoming the "hitting instructor". I teach them what is on this site, but I never use terms like Torque or Circular Hand Path. I only tell them a couple things, and everything else usually falls into place.

I usually tell them that before they swing the bat, they need to point their belly button towards the sky. This basically tells them to bring the hips into the swing, and the hands will drag behind.

I also tell them that they need to keep their hands as loose as possible, and let the bat barrel drop before they swing. This lets them bring the bat in a circular path, and also puts the bat in the plane of the ball.

All of this usually works. Just try to keep it simple for the kids. Then you can watch, as I do, kids running around the bases as fast as they can because they hit the ball long and hard everytime. If you get lucky, you can get a laugh out of a kid tripping as he rounds second base.