Posted by: Graylon (g_dunc@hotmail.com) on Wed Sep 12 22:12:09 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".

Hi,

A follow up to you asking about real world results. I have mentioned before that I have coached for 20+ years and have taught both linear and rotational mechanics. My son growing up I have taught him mostly rotational mechanics and he had a lot of power and a good avg.. Around age 10 I thought that he needed another coach to work with him on hitting so I took him to the hitting coach of a very sucessful college program in our area. He taught linear mechanics and since there program was sucessful I let him "fix" my sons swing. He went there for about a year and his power and avg. went down. The coach told me to give it time. He said this is expected because he was learning something new. Well his avg. and power continued to go down. We stopped going to that hitting coach and it has taken me, and a lot of hard work on his part, two years to get his swing back. I completely believe what you hear from Jack to be true. I have seen the results in my son and the other kids I teach. By the way my son is 15 and very small 5'2" 105lbs and he can hit for power, although the majority of his hits are line drives up the middle or right side. I'll take that any day. Since he is pitched mostly middle away.

Things that helped my son and the other kids I coach are:

Swing relaxed and rotate your front hip and shoulder back to the catcher and help the bat on its natural path. Don't fight it.

Telling him to keep his top hand thumb on his back shoulder while he pulls around with his front shoulder.

and don't be afraid to make a mistake and be decisive.(if you're going to swing swing hard. Don't feel for the ball.)