Posted by: Major Dan (markj89@charter.net) on Fri Jan 24 06:59:38 2003

I have read epstein's material on "wathervaning" and I have his tape, but the concept is still a bit unclear to me.
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> If I understand correctly, using a lower oitch as an example, if a hitter tilts his lead elbow up this will help tilt the axis backwards a bit, in turn helping to obtain a more upward plane of the swing.
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> When I simply tilt my lead elbow up or down a bit, though, it does nothing to change my tilt of axis. What DOES change the tilt is a conscious dip of the front shoulder (simply tilting the lead elbow up will not in itself cause the back shoulder to dip....it seems to take a conscious dip of the back shoulder to tip the axis backwards a bit.)
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> But dipping the back shoulder seems to have drawbacks. For example, it seems that the more shoulder dip there is, the more weight that remains too long on the back foot. Also, it appears that the more shoulder dip there is, the more that rotation is inhibited.
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> I would appreciate your thoughts on weathervaning, shoulder dip,etc.....
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> Bart

While waiting for Tom's response, I just want to say that the weathervaning concept is greek to me as well. It is counter-intuitive to say the least. I suspect that if it is even accurate, it is at best an observation of an effect of something else, not something you do on purpose in your swing.
I think body posture, amount of bend at the hips/waist (upright vs bent at contact) affects how you hit a high vs low ball.
Clearly a more upright posture will lead to a more horizontal shoulder rotation and similar swing plane, good for a high pitch. A bent posture will lead to a greater vertical component in the shoulder rotation. In that case the lead elbow would appear higher, but it is an effect of the plane of the shoulder turn.
If anyone can explain weathervaning, I'd appreciate it as it doesn't make any sense to me.