Posted by: tom.guerry (tom.guerry@kp.org) on Wed Dec 18 10:01:40 2002

To me, the Lau approach seems to work well. you are allowed to get great extension and you are free and loose. i believe the most important thing for all young hitters to do no matter what style the use is to get in a balanced workable stance. Does anyone want to debate the Lau theories vs. other theories.

We have discussed this a lot here.I personally find Lau's description very useful,but only because(thanks to JAck and Paul Nyman and Epstein/Williams)I have what I believe is a "sufficiently tractable"(Adair's term- though his model is seriously flawed)model of the swing.As with any set of cues,the danger of misinterpretation is so high that Lau's method does not allow a coach to just read/see his stuff and then be qualified to start teaching.Too much danger of confusion/misinterpretation here.

Given this overall model,I think Lau is describing(often with cues excessively detached from reaity)the get off the plate/accentuate THT/make everything an outside pitch hit near extension/type swing.

He is particularly interesting to me in how he describes the different hip action for the inside vs outside location.

My current obsession is trying to resurrect Ted Williams "hip Cock" idea which has somehow gotten lost in the details.Now that this important hip loading early in the swing is underappreciated,there is lots of emphasis on other cues to try to encourage good rotation-Lau's "extension"/pull with the bottom hand,Epstein's pull with the front side/work the elbow up,Jack and John Elliot's keep flex in front knee,Don't push from the back,keep front shoulder rotating,don't rotate the front elbow so it points down(rolling).

Jack has pointed out the absolutely necessary(but not sufficient) role of the circular handpath,but once it's time to rotate,if the hip has not been loaded and remained that way,no amount of knee flex/shoulder pull,etc will be able to pull the front arm and drive full torso rotation.