Posted by: Major Dan (markj89@charter.net) on Tue Jun 26 09:48:12 2001

tom....i'm sure you overlooked major dan's comments on june 20 in response to "Q 4 tom.guerry".....i have always appreciated the views of yourself and major dan....perhaps if you could comment on major dan's comments.....and perhaps you could be a little more specific in HOW epstein's fence drill is consistent with his other views......remember...epstein is not only teaching the fence drill, but he is teaching to be EVEN CLOSER to the fence than in the "conventional" fence drill......i fail to understand what would be "the right way" to teach the fence drill without causing the hands to get way ahead of the hips, as well as the other things i discussed in my original post....your comments and clarification would be greatly appreciated..........respectfully, grc......
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> > grc-
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> > You certainly have an eye for the slightest inconsistency-good for you!
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> > I think you can adhere to Jack's principles and perform the fence drill at the same time,however,you better know what you are doing.Mike believes,and I agree with him that to be a feared hitter,you have to be able to do the Harry Heilman thing-"inside-out the inside pitch".Now you can mean inside-out in a bad way leading to pushing the swing,or you can simply mean "staying inside the ball" in the sense that the hands are ahead of the bathead or even with it at contact,erring on the side of the hands being ahead.Again- there is danger here,because the slightest misinterpretation can teach dragging the bat,loss of circular handpath,etc.
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> > However,to get the sweetspot on the inside pitch requires no lunging,rotating around a stationary axis and not just a circular handpath,but a handpath that hooks in front of the body with a tightening arc.You have to find drills and cues to teach this.heavy bag with a target and tee work can teach the contact position/location.I do find pulling back with the bottom hand is often a useful cue.keeping the head back or leaning back sometimes help as cues.When the swing is done successfully,the bathead stays inside the close fence that Mike recommends-barely for the very inside location..His opinion is that it is a necessary over correction to permit new muscle memory/breaking of old habits.
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> > Also remember the way Mike teaches the lower body.His experience is that he has ALMOST NEVER had a student(some already with MLB experience)that did not lunge(axis moving forward during rotation from initiation to contact) and stay forward or lunge and then reverse weight shift with too much weight ending up back.So if you think you are inside-outing the inside ball in a way that conforms to Jack's principles and you can't do it for the very inside pitch with the fence a foot away with a 34 " bat,maybe you are lunging.
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> am in no way taking sides, but that was a very good answer tom..
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> ray porco

Ray - get off the fence (just kidding)

Tom -
here's my confusion:
If you use a circular hand path and do a swing as Jack shows on his tape - back elbow against the side, bat already in the plane OR as Mike Epstein shows with the bat against the bat shoulder --
if you keep the hands in and turn the shoulders you generate a circular hand path - shoulders move the hands, hands don't move themselves.
The bat rotates around as Jack shows in his tape. If you kee your hands in until you are facing the pitcher, your hands will be in the center of your chest, approximately. If you are using a 33" bat, the end of the bat will be pointed toward the fence and sticking out about 30" from the center of the chest and 15-20" past the back shoulder. And at this point the hands are farther from the fence than at any time during the shoulder turn. So during the turn, the hands and bat advance toward the fence, then turn away, still ending up more than 12" from the fence.
The only way to do this drill without hitting the fence is to pull both hands forward without turning the bat until it clears the fence.
These are linear mechanics, directly out of Jack's video tape - where the arrow sticks into the tree instead of breaking off.
You can't do Epstein's fence drill with rotational upper body mechanics IMO.
What am I missing here? I am truly confused. Tom, I know you think your comments out very well so I must be missing something, I'm not trying to attack your post. I just can't reconcile this.