Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Tue Apr 23 17:41:52 2002

Hi All

Ever since the site opened in mid 1999, I have received many e-mails and posts to the site asking if I knew of a coach or batting school in Southern California that taught the rotational principles found here at Batspeed.com. Although I spent considerable time visiting batting schools and discussing hitting with numerous hitting coaches, I was unable to find even one that I could fully recommend.

Many proclaim to teach rotational mechanics and some of the coaches teach fairly sound lower-body mechanics for rotation around a stationary axis. But things go downhill in a hurry when we begin to discuss transfer mechanics. Most teach "quick hands" or "throw the hands," but even the coaches that proclaim to believe in "hips lead the hands" still exhibit linear extension type of mechanics when asked to demonstrate what they teach their students.

I am happy to say there is now a coach and batting school that I recommend. John Elliott, is located at Grand Slam Batting Cages in Mission Viejo, CA. John set the school record for hitting, 448 avg. at Long Beach City College. He was then drafted by the Houston Astros and played five years (1984 to 1988) of A and AA ball for them.

John and I have spent a lot of time together working on how to teach sound hitting principles - including good transfer mechanics. I feel confident he can help the hitting performance of players from Little League to the Pros. - For information on how to contact John, go to http://www.grandslambatting.com/ -- Below is John's Philosophy on hitting.

My Hitting Philosophy ‹ John Elliott

If you understand what your body does wrong, you can improve. Now, after working with Jack Mankin and studying bio-mechanics, physics, and motor learning and control, I know how and why. If I knew then what I know now and had the swing that I have now, I would still be playing professional baseball. It all boils down to this: If you do not have a circular hand path nothing else matters. You can turn on your back foot all day but if you do not have a transfer mechanism to put that energy into your hands, you will never have a truly effective and powerful swing. If turning on your back foot and hitting down on the ball was the answer, then why aren't the players using that approach if it produces better hitters?

My goal is to maximize a hitter's ability to hit the ball with power to all fields. To enhance balance, timing, and bat speed you have to understand the best way to use your lower half in conjunction with your upper half and how everything you do translates into a circular hand path and increased bat speed. The proper mechanics will put you in a position to hit a ball that is in the strike zone with the best results. You cannot control what happens around you, but you can control your response to it, and you must be in control of yourself before you can control your performance. The proper mechanics and breaking them down into their critical components ( the must do's ) will eliminate attention to unnecessary information and increase bat speed which, in turn, frees up the hitter to make split second adjustments to any pitch and effectively deliver the ball.