Posted by: Shawn (nariner0324@yahoo.com) on Thu Dec 21 15:47:52 2006

> Sorry, TA2, I thought that I was responding in the same tone as your initial post (possibly my mother-in-law has been here too long or that second glass of wine drove me over the line). My point is that this site shouldn't waste its time setting up "linear" straw men to rail against in an attempt to prove a point. Secondly, you'll get no argument from me that most coaches have no CLUE as to how to teach hitting. Finally, finding a better way to teach hitting is an appropriate goal but its one that will never get resolved. jima

Hi,

I will agree with the first post that not hitting around the ball is the same as staying inside the ball.

First you must understand spinout, casting and hitting around the ball.

Then you must understand the double pendulum and the mechanics there of. The double pendulum is a sequence of the upperbody that ties into the entire kinetic chain. You must also understand how the whip affect works in the swing.

Sticking to the double pendulum and kinetic chain using Bonds as an example from the clip given. The wrists remain cocked and rotation brings the bat 90 degrees into the lag position. Usually the lag position is very strong in HR derby swings. This first 90 degrees of movement creates both rotation forces and linear forces on the bat. For the double pendulum this linear movement is very important to the late uncocking which makes up the double pendulum.

Getting back to Bonds, you can see the linear phase of the double pendulum very well in the swing. I said it happens in the first 90 degrees, But I don't think this is correct. It happens closer to the first 45 degrees as the hands remain cocked. The swing enters the lag position pretty smoothly.

I can show you one clip, that bebunks all myths about early uncocking or "physically" trying to create batspeed early in the swing. I will not show the clip because it belongs to Don Slaught. Although this single clip proves and disproves everything talked about of physically trying to generate early batspeed. Where it fails in the early batspeed it must then rely on the linear phase and the double pendulum, late uncocking.

As the first poster said, it is a build up or a sequence. Physically trying to get ahead of this sequence is impossible and consequently not very affective.

Besides how the double pendulum works, trying to prevent early arcing or uncocking of the wrists. Staying inside the ball is best summed up by Mike Epstein. Simply "staying inside the ball is the hands following the rotating body". When you combine that with the workings of the double pendulum, needing both linear and rotational forces to work correctly, you have a pretty powerful explanation of staying inside the ball.

I know my words will fall on deaf ears, so I will leave you with a clip showing the first phase of the double pendulum and the swing. IN this thread you will she how the lag position is created and how staying inside the ball works.

http://z6.invisionfree.com/Hitting/index.php?showtopic=364

For select few that want to why physically trying to accelerate the bat doesn't work. Email me, And I might show you the clip and discuss it with you. For an example of who does this every time, early unocking then relying on linear I give you Derek Jeter.