Posted by: George () on Wed Sep 12 21:00:27 2007

> I began visiting this site in 2003 and have been coaching my daughter's club fastpitch team since then. I came to believe in the concepts advocated here based upon what I saw in clips and felt when I swung my bat using them, but I now spent several years teaching them and have seen great results. Either the concepts and drills jack describes---and the ones we've added according to our own sense of what would help teach them---are teaching a valid system of mechanics, OR they are flawed BUT somehow coincidentally teach "something else" that works.
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> Club teams turn over two or three kids each season, at least, and by now I have worked with about 25 kids. It has been a cool "laboratory" and I have posted here a time or two about my "results".
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> The recent multi-post,heated string reminds me that much of these discussions center around what various people believe, in good faith, about what they are seeing in video clips. what have people seen on the field of play when teaching the various mechanics----these or others----they believe in?
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> I would be interested in hearing about others' experiences, such as they may be, in trying to teach these concepts to young batters. have you had success? What "words" do you use? (Frankly, the term "top hand torque" doesn't compute well with 15 year old girls, we began using the term---also Jack's----"spinning the hands" some time ago and they immediately got it.) Do you have other drills that have helped/supplemented those Jack describes?
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> I would be especially interested in hearing from those who adopt/teach the concepts advocated here, but it would be very interesting as well for those who disagree to post of their "results".
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> I will add one other thing that has become clear the last few seasons: I've had three kids who naturally used THT and CHP, and they share one distinctive characteristic: They love to KILL the ball and put all the umph they can into every swing. My theory is that, left alone and given no coaching whatsoever, the desire to swing HARD may lead naturally to development of the mechanics that bring the most possible power into the swing. In any event, we have added the constant admonition SWING HARD to our drills, with very noticable results in a couple of players who drained off bat speed by "just meeting the ball".


Daw. You bring up some interesting points. From my personal experience I try to at least attempt most of the concepts Jack preachers on this site including the one's I do not agree with. As such I have learned a lot on this site especially with regard to the THT which I have recently questioned regarding its benefit.

But probably most important is that while we use more technical terms we must be careful in applying our passion to what we believe and do not believe in. Otherwise we will miss the meaning of what is actually being said.

Example. With Samma Sosa it was alluded to that his rearward movement created batspeed. Initially I was in disagreement because his bat dropped downward at a slight angle when his body angled during his stride.

But upon review Mike Epstein's site and seeing various hitters also drop their hands in order to get into a hitting position, I am willing to concede that some type of rearward movement contributes to the swings beginning or batspeed.

But all decent major league hitters take their bats back. Some are more defined than others and actually stop for an instant while others wind the bat head toward the pitcher forward and then go through the hitting zone. And to me that is what Jack's bat that is shown in the video represented. So when Sosa's bat did not come forward in the same way the Sheffield/Mankin way did I felt that it was not generating the acceleration process.

Albert Belle who I have actually tried to bat like takes his hands from out in front and brings them up before coming down. 20 years ago I was told that was a way for an upperbody dominant hitter to hit. I happen to agree. But for Belle who has great batspeed his upward movement likely accelerated his bat. But his technique is unique.

Jack mentioned that I should not compare Sosa's triggering mechanim to a hitch. But Ted Williams in his rarefilm video mentioned that a hitch takes away from overall timing which it does. But in Ted's book he mentioned that a number of great players hitch and still hitch. So we are back to square one. But I will say that in the case of Carl Yastremski Ted knew when Carl came up his hitch was too big. But he worked with Carl and Carl figured out how to shorten his swing to hit effectively when necessary.