Posted by: rql () on Fri May 11 18:15:15 2001

jack, with all due respect for you and your teachings, i was very disappointed in your non-answer the last time we covered this topic....i will rephrase my questions and concerns and hopefully you will directly address these concerns.....again, i direct these concerns to you in a most respectful attitude.....i have taken a lot of verbal abuse from virg over at hitting.com in defending you and your teachings, and that is because you do hold many valid theories....but please clarify your thoughts on the following comments.............you say that the lower body's (e.g., the hips) contribution to the swing is restricted to whatever contribution it makes to shoulder rotation......in other words, you don't believe in the kinetic chain...what matters is shoulder rotation.....so...are you suggesting that great "shoulder speed" is what is important?....are you saying that, for example, if a hitter were to sit in a swivel chair and be able to swing the bat with powerful shoulder rotation he could hit the ball well?....or another extreme example....suppose a hitterinstead of being in the traditional stance would instead already have his hips 3/4 of the way turned (but without the shoulder being turned)....are you suggesting that by simply swinging with a powerful shoulder rotationhe could hit the ball well?.....on the one hand i know these examples are absurb but on the other hand they seem to be a logical extension of youremphasis on powerful shoulder rotation.....again, i plead with you to directly answer my questions...i ask these questions with the utmost respect for you and your teachings, but i would appreciate a complete response....respectfully, grc...... grc,I'm not jack,but I remember this thread we had here soon after I found the sight.Jack put out the statement of how anything below the shoulders could not swing the bat harder.If I recall I said that since the bat was not connected to the lower body it could not speed up the bat.Jack is not saying IMO that lower body does not speed up shoulder turn in fact I think he agrees it enhances it however it is the shoulder turn that generates the batspeed since the shoulders are what is connected to the hands and bat.However the hands are below the shoulders and they do add to batspeed so I can see holes in the exact idea.All in all its just a play on words to point out that shoulder turn is important not that it has all the power by it self.It builds up power through the body then that buildup is harnessed in the shoulder turn and put into the bat.However I think I have heard him say recently that 50% of bs comes from torque and that comes from the hands and forearms so were back to the hands are important in swinging hard as long as it comes in the right sequence.rql