Posted by: John Elliott (quakesbaseball@earthlink.net) on Tue Nov 12 18:46:45 2002

Hi Jack,

I think that the best wat to understand the relationshhip of hips to hands is to get into a hitting stance a pop your hips as if they were about to hit the ball. The one thing you will notice is your hands won't move at all, there is no link with the top half. The next step is start with the lead knee bent and hit the heavy bag, you will notice if you keep your balance your lead shoulder will bring your lower half around and it will rotate. I once thought that the lower half supplied power for the swing by facilitating torgue, but I do not anymore. I think the lead hip facilitats front shoulder pull and that is what we see not the back hip rotating. I met Jack one year ago and my top bat speed was 74 mph, today my average batspeed is 85-90mph on the heavy with a 34-32 ounce bat.
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> Hi rql
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> I would describe good lower body mechanics just the way you presented it above. But just a few short years ago, that would be called ‘spinning’. Rotating around the center of the body was what determined ‘spinning’ to authors such as Jim Lefebvre and Charlie Lau. To them, the back-side must rotate around a posted front-side (like a door swinging). Otherwise, the batter would have an arcing hand-path and hit around the ball (Jim showed drawing of this).
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> Rql, I guess when we use a term or cue, we should also give what era the definition comes from. These definitions seem to evolve over time.
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> Jack Mankin
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