Posted by: Torque (roscoethewestie@comcast.net) on Mon May 11 13:32:55 2009

> I recently bought the Swing Analysis DVD, The Final Arc DVD, and the Pathfinder bat.
>
> I have two sons who are 10 and 11 who are now about a quarter of the way through in the current baseball season. They are both pretty good hitters with very good hand/eye coordination.
>
> I have watched and studied all the videos, and I have concerns that when the instructor teaches various elements in Swing Analysis, he frequently seems to state that "If your elbow is not up at the correct angle, you go linear"; "If your knee locks, you go linear"; etc. There seemed to be many different things that if they do not go just right, you go linear.
>
> Are these elements of ideal swing mechanics all necessary to be perfected in order to get anything out of the rotational hitting concept, or are they necessary to get the optimum/maximum out of rotational hitting? What I am wondering is: Do you have to perfect all the elements to get anything out of rotational hitting, or should you practice the concept and with every element that you get right (flaws included) will it help in bat speed and in using major muscle groups? How soon after getting some elements correct can you start attempting this overall method in batting practice?
> Sam

I'm not sure about all those ifs and rules; however, a hitter that slots his rear elbow into the L slot cannot be anything but rotational. Your hands have to follow a circular hand path and you have to rotate with the rear arm slotted into the L slot.

I always focus on the positive command and never the negative because when you focus on the DON'T that is exactly what you end up doing.

Top hand torque(THT), bottom hand torque (BHT), L slot, and circular hand path (CHP). These are the all of the key ingredients that will produce the desired power. L slot produces CHP. Hitting a punching bag with the bat really helps with most all of this and getting it right.

The only thing I would add is watching the ball well, back then forward weight shift, firm front leg, lead toe closed at contact, finish the swing somewhere near the lead shoulder. They need to learn how to hit at 90% to 94% of power. One hundred percent is to hard to gain consistent contact and less than 85% is too little power.