My son started working with an Epstein certified instructor about three years ago and we have been very pleased with the results. KCDawgjr has pretty good wheels and great hand/eye coordination, so he’s always been able to put the ball in play and leg out a hit when needed. But, as we saw the competition getting better and the base paths getting longer, it was pretty obvious that those hits would decrease tremendously as he got older.
I did some research and ended up talking to the Epstein instructor on the phone and decided to give him a shot. The first lesson was free as he mentioned that what he taught was somewhat different from what I may have heard from other instructors so he wanted to make sure that I was good with what I was hearing. He videotaped my kid and pointed out a few things and then went straight to showing how the swing works. At the end of the first lesson, he videoed some more of my kid’s swings and we take another look. There was marked improvement in just 45 minutes.
So, we signed up for a seven lesson package, and my son went to work over the next few weeks. The first lessons, he rarely even hit a thrown ball. There were a lot of drills that he went over and over with him until he got them right. After each lesson he was given homework designed to build muscle memory for the swing. Needless to say, by the end of the 7th lesson my son was hitting better, harder and further with every swing.
While I wish I could say that my son son’s batting average increased dramatically after those lessons, it didn’t, at least initially. He hit more line drives straight at people that year than I have ever seen. I swear I don’t think I have ever seen a more snake bit kid. But, he persevered with the swing and finally the law of averages swung back to normal. And though his stats didn’t show how good he was hitting, the coaches certainly noticed.
He still visits the instructor for a refresher now and again, but it’s not something that we do on a regular basis. Prior to each season we’ll go in and the kid will do some workouts with his instructor and get back up to speed, but for the most part he just does the drills and monitors himself. As the instructor said over and over, “you have to become your own swing coach to be successful.”
One thing you need to keep in mind is that this swing is different than what a lot of coaches teach. Since he started the “Epstein method” he’s played for 3 different coaches and each one has tried to “fix” his swing. Which is funny, because when one of them called me to offer him a spot on the team said they were offering because he absolutely killed the ball at his tryout. Another one told him that if he didn’t change his swing to meet what they were asking then he’d probably hit 9th the entire year – by the end of the first tournament he had moved to leadoff. He made the freshman team at his high school this year and it’s so far so good there, but we’ll just wait and see.