Posted by: tom.guerry (tom.guerry@kp.org) on Thu Jun 28 14:21:35 2001

TOM.....i don't want to beat a dead horse.....i know that my concern with the fence drill is well documented, but please bear with me.....the distinguished Jack Mankin once said about the fence dril: "why would we think that accelerating the heel of the bat ( or the hands) while keeping the bat head back during a good portion of the swing would result in greater batspeed and a shorter stroke than actively trying to accelerate the bat head from the start?"..........jack also said: "without moving away from the fence, self-toss (or have someone feed you) balls and see just how effectively you can hit.--good luck"..........i read your latest post and i appreciate the response, but i still don't get it........even with the bat one bat-length between the fence and the hitter's stomach, i have observed exactly what jack stated above: " keeping the bat head back during a good portion of the swing"......and the bat head has to stay back because the fence is in the way.....if i understand you and epstein correctly, you simply are tightening the circular hand path..........but if i tighten my circular hand path sufficiently in order to let the bat clear the fence, i end up having not a circular hand path but rather, at the tail end of the swing a circular wrist path..............again, i don't want to beat this thing to death......if it were almost anyone else besides you or epstein recomending the fence drill, i would simply ignore the matter......but you and epstein have so many other ideas that make so much sense that i don't want to be too quick to dismiss your views on the fence drill....i just want to understand how you can, because the fence is in the way, wait until the bat has cleared the fence before arcing the bat out and around.......(remember, using the tip of the bat head as a reference point, it too has a circular path, but not with a fence in the way!!!!)......thank you for your patience.....respectfully, grc......

grc-

I think the fence drill is one way to teach keeping the hands in.So are cues like "hit the inside of the ball".The coach needs to be careful that these drills and cues which are not necessarily what happens in reality are monitored to give the desired result as part of an overall program.Some kids can learn a less casting swing(keep hands in as swing handpath arcs forward using hands/arms to torque bat,not extend handpath) using a fence.I do not use this much,and never(so far)as a way of keeping the arms from extending at initiation(?the way Mike Epstein uses it).

If you look at the swing from the bird's eye view I think the bellybotton fence distance is compatible with the circular handpath.Unfortunately,I don't have access to many clips like this.If you look at Rose's swing on an outside pitch,the fence could be along the inside line of the other batter's box,and he is about bellybutton distance away(35"bat?).The swing would fit well within this distance for the middle-in pitch to get the sweetspot on the ball while keeping the circular handpath.

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