Posted by: John (Sottilaj@bellsouth.net) on Sun Oct 27 12:01:11 2002

The swing should obviously be initiated by the body and not the arms or hands. But, what part of the body should the batter think about moving first? Should it be the pulling back of the lead shoulder or the driving through of the back side?
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> > The bad news is that it is virtually impossible to make the lower body "think" it should start first. You don't hit the ball with your hips, you hit the ball with the bat, which is being held by the hands.Therefore any "thinking" is done with the hands.
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> > The good news is that if everything is done right, everything will be done automatically, in the right sequence and without having to "think" about it. I won't rehash my prior posts in detail, but here is a brief summary:
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> > If the bat is cocked sufficiently, when the time comes that the hitter "thinks" swing, his hands will start the swing and the rest of the body will follow suit. Once the hitter "thinks" swing, the bat will start uncocking because the bat can not go anywhere except in the uncocking motion in order to ultimately head toward the target. The natural uncocking motion is causing the hands to head toward the catcher, while simultaneously the hips are starting to open.
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> > It would be futile and unnecessary to try to make a conscious attempt for the hips to start opening first. They WILL open as I described and without thinking about it if there is suficient bat cock.
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> I disagree. All the hands do is hold onto the bat. The body "is" the swing. Show me a guy who starts his swing with his hands/bat and I'll show you a guy who can't catch up to a good fastball and a guy who can't adjust to offspeed pitches, breaking balls and pitch location. Start the swing with the belly button. Why? Because you can move your hips without the upper body moving (not good) and you can move your shoulder/hands/arms without the lower body moving (not good). It's hard to move the belly button without everything moving as a unit. Everything moving as a unit (as one package, not as individual parts) is critical.
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Every swing starts with a trigger of some kind, something that will allow for timing. That is where the swing starts.