Posted by: mb () on Fri Jun 7 11:56:21 2002

Hi Tolson.. just let you know, I responded to your post, buried somewhere down under the stack.
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> > > Regards.. Scott
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> > Scott
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> > It's good to hear from another father struggling with his kids' hitting prowess. I have two sons 16 and 18 who are great kids, they like to learn, they work hard, watch video, read the internet, swing off the swing-away every night, swing off the personal pitcher if they're not swinging off the swing away, and then struggle in games. Very frustrating but I still feel they have it in them and success is just around the corner. We have always had a timing problem which we think we have detected as getting the stride foot down late. To counter this we make sure its early if not on time and we have seen tremendous results in the cage. It's like we go to Epsteins #1 position early, hold it until swing time and its made a tremendous difference. It looks a little unusual but we can't argue with the early results (in batting cage). When we are at the #1 position there is definately a weight forward look to it. But it has kept us from collapsing the back side and upper cutting and better yet, for us, it has kept us from pulling off the ball. Our bathead seems to cover the zone better. Rainouts have kept us from being game tested this week. My 16 yr old (lefty batter) did hit a line drive to opposite field in his one at bat this week (unfortunately it was caught)after having struck out 7 of his last 9 at bats due to a pulling off the ball problem. What is this forums' (panel of experts) opinion on this?
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> I need to add to my post. We think part of our improvement is related to the stride to hit v stride and hit technique. It's like we need to get the stride foot down before any rotation (foot at a 45 degree angle). If we rotate as we are striding we pull off the ball and the bat head is not in the zone very long.
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This is what I teach my kids. Start with a slightly closed stance or stride to a closed stance. AS YOU STRIDE have the HANDS GO BACK, UP and IN while keeping the head steady/still. This will close your shoulders to the pitch (inward turn) and load the torso. Weight should be 60% on the rear foot. From this position rotate and let everything go into the oncoming ball.