Posted by: grc () on Sat May 18 13:07:58 2002

Is the hands staying inside the ball the only difference between Jack and Epstein?
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> Mike-
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> If you took a hundred typical coaches and showed them one video and then cut them loose to make or break kids during the crucial time that their brains were wiring up(would we do that to our kids?),Mike's is the video that would do the least amount of damage.
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> Why? Because he communicates as simply as possible the rotational swing without hopelessly oversimplifying things.But remember,he is communicating exactly the same swing that Jack describes here in more detail.Jack's detail that is useful for a certain kind of coach.The rotational swing has been developed over about a hundred seasons in major league ball.It is a single optimal biomechanical solution,or as Jack and Mike might say,the same from launch to contact.
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> Mike thinks extremely carefully about what he says.These are the core mechanics,in order,as the unfold in the swing
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> 1-hips lead the hands-wind and unwind the rubber band,then comes
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> 2-match the plane of the pitch-adjustment of body posture/axis of rotation,then
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> 3-keep the hands in-same as Jack's circular handpath
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> Mike has the best description of how to stop lunging I have seen.As Jack has said,you have to rotate around a stationary axis.There can be no hip slide after rotation starts.
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> Mike tends to give more emphasis to a limted number of cues that are useful to support drills that let coaches teach teach kids without confusing them too much.
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> Jack describes much more the reality of how the body moves to harness the underlying principles of developing and transferring energy to the ball so the coach has a chance to develop their own systen of teaching.But,it's the same swing.

tom...i think there are two significant differences in jack and mike....

(1) the fence drill....jack clearly articulates why the fence drill is bogus....on the other hand, not only does mike teach the fence drill, he does a might poor job of explaining his justification for this drill....

(2) the wind the rubber band thing....as far as i can understand the r.b. thing (and i do have mike's two videos), mike has his hitters overly-contort the body so as to be in the "torque position"...the t.p. as i see it in the video is the hitter having his hips nearly fully rotated AT LAUNCH POSITION!!!!....i think i may have seen one photo provided my mike showing willie mays in this position at launch....but this is one photo out of how many swings mays took in his career?....from what i see in major leaguers, their hips are nearly fully rotated at the "LAG POSITION", the half way point in the swing where the bathead is ready to be "released", or arcing outward....but by and large, the hips are NOT nearly fully rotated AT LAUNCH.....show me one setpro clip where they are and i will show you 10 where they are not....and as far as i know jack does not subscribe to the rubber band thing....

respectfully, grc....