Posted by: S. Procito () on Mon Jul 8 07:09:55 2002

I have recently been exposed to the fence drill because of Jack Mankins mentioned site that demonstrates it. I am not sure if Jack thinks its a good drill or not. .

I will make an assumption-- the idea is to swing so the bat does NOT hit the fence.

The pictures on the site pointed out my Jack Mankin the back elbow is mostly hidden so you cannot see clearly the flaw in this swing. But, if you look at the little bit of the back arm that is showing you might see that the elbow looks to be in front of the body.

The problem of the elbow in front of the body was pointed out in a thread on this site 2 or 3 months ago and no one commented on at that time. Since I read it I have been aware of this swing flaw and have noticed it on many batters, expecially in softball.

Since I saw how the drill works I have tried it and found that if the goal is to avoid hitting the fence that I could do it very easiely by pushing the back elbow in front of my body rather then leaving it against my side. It was much more difficult to miss the fence if the elbow stayed at my side pointing to the ground. I think that, because it's so easy, this will happen more ofen then not if the coach is not making sure that the batter does it correctly. But, this swing flaw is not visible to the naked eye. I only picked it up in slow motion tapes after i became aware of the problem. So, I don't think that most coaches are picking up on it and are not correcting it.

Further, I don't think that many coaches are aware that swing flaw exists and the damage it causes. Other then that one time I have never seen it discussed in on this site.

Sam Procito