Posted by: Major Dan (markj89@charter.net) on Tue Jul 10 05:46:49 2001

IMO
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> When you stride, you need to feel like your front foot/leg is stepping out slightly ahead of the top half. Leading with the bottom half as in pitching. Should feel at landing like you have come to a balanced-athletic position.
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> But I agree, weight should not be left on the back side and many kids when instructed constantly to keep their weight back will end up "leaning back" making it difficult to handle low pitches and promoting a very upward path.
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I agree with Tim, though I've started thinking and explaining that forward movement as 'leading with the hips'.
I mostly teach no-stride. For striders, I like an early stride. From what I've learned from Mike Epstein, I want the hitters to get some weight on to the front foot (after stride or 'internal stride' if no stride) before the front heel drops/ front leg pivots. For me, front heel drop is the trigger AND must be used to drive the front hip back around with the front leg as it straightens. To do this effectively, you must shift some weight onto the front foot before front heel drop. As Tim said, this is done with hip shift.
Keeping all the weight back turns into squish the bug/back foot spinning all too easily.
Best results are with a central axis of rotation (the spine). To do this, the front leg drives the front hip back while the back foot turns over and drives the back hip forward - spine is in the center of the turn.
Any cues about where the weight is, should result in this action.