Posted by: skip (piks5@sbcglobal.net) on Fri Apr 6 13:08:42 2007

> Let me guess your an ex pitcher. Well my advice to you would be that its tough to teach kids at that age mechanics so getting him to make contact is your best bet. He may drop his hands but work on his timing and help him be on time with swing and he will be ok. Ive seen kids at that age hit well when they drop there hands. It´s not until they get a little bit older that they realize they can´t do that anymore because the pitching does get better. Although, dropping hands isn´t good at that age the kid will be ok. Any mechanics you tell him now doesn´t sink into his head anyways.
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> I have a friends kid on my travle team, who has a developed the habit of dropping his hands and swinging around his waist on every pitch. We have worked with the kid on every aspect of his hitting, but cannot break this habit. He is not the most athletic kid in the world and tends to be lazy and extremely slow. His load sequence is fine, but from their drops his hands and literally swings from about waist high. I have two options, get this kid to hitting the ball or cut him. I prefer to get him hitting, because I think if he can gain some confidence with the bat , he will pick it up in other areas of the game. The only theory I have on the reasons that this habit is so ingrained in his swing is over exposure to pitching machine ball. He is 10 years old and besides from my travle team has only played machine pitch baseball and is playing it again this year. I think he is using the hands drop as a timing mechanism for the pitcing machine and the swing is a result of the flat plane on which the machine throws the ball. No deviation in plane or location results in this awful swing. I have professional playing experience and have some very profound hitters on this team, two who I have personnaly turned into productive switch hitters, I do know a little bit about the baseball swing, but this kid is killing me. Any suggestions?

Baseabll: I agree with the other post, you're not going to cure that now for sure, and possibly not forever.
Over the years, in rec, I've fought the good fight agst. handdropping, but I think it's even tougher to cure than stepping in the bucket. It's what I always call the "intuitive" way to swing: drop you hands and get your hands in the path of the ball as early as possible.
But of course it's usually incompatible with either/or on-time swing or hitting with any power whatsoever.
My oldest son, a fine athlete, could never totally break the habit, which is why he washed out of HS baseball as a junior. Great strike zone discispline, good contact on strikes (he could somehow be on time with fasst pitching) but almost never exxtra bases.

There are exceptions. 2 yrs ago, a senior newcomer to the HS team, a handdropper in preseason scrim. I said , no way he'll hit. But he actually hit quite well with that swing (which is hard to look at) and in one game put 2 balls out at the base of 360' fence.

IMO, and with quite a bit of experience, 10 yr olds, even in high level travel, can get by and even do quite well with ugly mechanically unsound swings. The proof is in the pudding. If they can get it done, leave a serious flaw like that alone.At some point on the graph, maybe it's agst 55 mph, or 60 or 65, but at some point if youre a handropper you're going to "hit the wall" and not be able to catch up or hit with authority.
Don't know much about THT/chp, but boy I seen lots of handdropping in my time.
skip