Posted by: Jimmy () on Wed Apr 4 14:08:29 2007

> I'm no pro, just a veteran dad rec. and travel coach.
> If his swing is sim. to the rot. swing on this site, I'm too new to it myself to have any diagnostic opinion.
>
> If he initates his swing with knob to the ball, your mention of weak end of bat liners is a clue.
>
> Grab a bat. In slo=mo do an exagerated knob-to-ball lin. swing. As you approach contact, pull the front shoulder open the way you should for the rot. swing taught here. Notice that you have virtually NO plate coverage. Outside pitches, no chance of contact. Middle-in, weak glancing hits off the end of the bat. In short, he's "flying open" with the front shoulder.
> My older son is an agressive powerful HS hitter. When he goes into a mini-slump and mis-hits fastballs off the end of the bat, he always somehow cures it willing himself to somehow keep the shoulder "in" until contact, which is IMO always a tough thing to do when you initiate knob to ball and, like him, still (somehow) generate great bat speed at the bathead. For teenagers, it's always a battle because, IMO, pulling the frt. shoulder open is "intuitive" for a testosterone-filled body trying to rip the cover off. Because of this BP is ofetn oppo. field.
>
> As a new convert to THT etc, I think what originally attracted me to it was that you're SUPPOSED to fly open (pulling the hips and shoulders open in unison). And yet not lose plate coverage. Seems more natural to me.
>
> The season is short (and so is childhood). Why waste a day. Can somebody tape his game swing (surruptitously if it will make him nervous or do something different than usual). Then Slo-mo on your VCR at home.
> Otherwise, set up a tee on the outside corner. Lots of reps using his normal swing. Not reaching and feeling for the ball. Or do soft toss (more fun) but have a homeplate (pc of carpet) and get opposite him at right up close so you're flipping the ball in the air repeatedly and accurately over the outside black. Again , he's got to use his regular swing, not a free-lance 'emergency" two- strike "choke and poke" cover-the-outside corner swing.
> I hope this is of some use to you.
> Skip

Good thoughts, Skip. I do plan to get the camcorder on him, we did this last year with a few kids on our team and had some success. As an intterested Dad I'm sure you can appreciate the difficulty in analyzing your own kids swing...I too am no pro, just a guy who played HS ball and has a kid who loves the game.

My kid is small and for him to be effective he's got to hit it on the screws, so to speak. He does struggle with balls on the outer half and pitches down in the zone too.

Any other suggestions are welcome.