Posted by: Teacherman () on Sat Jan 13 09:50:12 2007

Does the lead shoulder pull the lead forearm around?

Of course it does. The arm is connected to the shoulder. The shoulder will pull on the arm. Do you want it to.....HELLO NO. You fight that big time because that action is the #1 killer of amateur hitters. It is taught to them and it kills them. It pulls them off the ball. It causes huge timing problems. It creates the "hard left turn" of the hands (righty batter) away from the ball and out of the hit zone.....a major problem in hitters. It sends the force the hitter creates toward the 3rd base coach or 3rd base dugout.......not into the ball. Professional hitters have another technique.

The barrel is not rotated around the spine. It is rotated in the hands by the forearms. The forearms pronate and supinate, the triangle unit, formed by the forearms and the body, rotates about the hands and the shoulders laterally tilt. As they laterally tilt they resist rotation. And, the "jutting" of the lead elbow is very important to the process. This jutting turns the hips energy down the rotating forearms to the barrel. This creates a bypass of the shoulders. The energy the body creates goes into the rotating forearms. It is not bled or lost in shoulder rotation.

The hips rotate and supply a large amount of energy.....but they do not give it to the shoulders......they give it to the forearms.

The cusp is when the upper body unit mechanism, what I call the Second Engine, and the lower body mechanism, the hips rotation, join....suddenly....very suddenly.....and release all the built up energy that they created into the forearms....when the hips and hands (forearms) have created so much energy the shoulders can no longer resist rotation. The result is a whip effect that is called the cusp. A sudden launch and spend of all the built up energy applied directly into the forearms which turn the barrel.

Go to www.teachersbilliards.com/hitzone/barryted.gif for a very good view of the hands turning the barrel and the hips working independently leading to a cusp.

It is very clear to me that the axis of the barrel's rotation is the hands. Notice the capital "C", made by the barrel, in both hitters. Notice how the captial "C" is done early and leads right into launch and contact.........all with the barrel's rotation about the hands.

Also, very clear to me, is the lateral tilt of the shoulders and how they resist rotation as the hips rotation builds up energy and sends it to the forearms, bypassing the shoulders by the jutting of the lead elbow.