quote:
Originally posted by tom.guerry:
hot corner -
Here are some thoughts using a mixture of old and new buzzwords to try to shed some light on things.
Your kid sounds typical of the usual development process.
It is easier to "stay connected" for turning the body on an inside pitch. The hands stay in more, there is less "resistance" to rotation and the body can keep turning enough to not force the arms to take over and extend. If there is not enough body turn, your brain/body will sense a big problem on the fly and force the arms to intervene.
When the arms take over and extend, there is brief deceleration, then reacceleration and swing timing gets WAY off.
On the other hand, when you avoid disconnecting too much by one piece body turn, you "spin" and hit the ball out front too much or hit around the ball which produces the pull or pull/hook/foul type ball flight, but there is time to develop some power as opposed to the outside location. This is probably where your kid's swing is.
What you would like to next is learn to coil the body enough by "keeping the hands back" (keeping the shoulders from turning) and by opening the hips ahead of the hands so you can power the swing by "body torque" which gives a segmental (not "one-piece") unloading of the body and accelerates the bat with deeper acceleration and no need to take over with the arms, so-called "early batspeed" which means you can wait longer, then swing more quickly for deeper/squarer contact.
This type of desired body load/coil then turns the body segmentally from bottom up (body turns from bottom up which finishes coiling/"cusp" then torso uncoils from middle up once you "connect" at the shoulders) to power a quick swing by rotation as opposed to disconnecting or using a spinning type body rotation which can only produce "late batspeed"/force premature adjustment/commitment and usually the either or situation you describe - pull foul with some power or weak oppo hits.
This body torque/keeping the hands back is created by learning to start the swing by taking an inward turn of the body (avoid dead hips or "dead stop hitting), turning the bat between the hands (avoid dead hands hitting) then tilting (not turning) the shoulders to resist the upper body turning open with the hips so you can finish coiling then have uninterrupted and well directed uncoiling from the middle up. This also lets you adjust the swing plane by how much you load the hands back and in and how level (high heater) or loopy (match low/dropping) you make the swing to match the pitch location to create a longer contact zone to make "square" (well lined up center to center) contact much more likely.
This gives you more time to read the pitch and adjust better and lower timg error and better likelihood that square contact will produce fair ball hit with power in air (able to lift low ball, including low outside ball).
Matching the outside ball requires rotating with the hands further from the body/more resistance to rotation and a more inside to out path or a path with acceleration starting more behind the hitter which means MORE coil/body torque/loading hands back/in more.
So what you need to do is learn to coil/load the body better so you can hit both the outside and inside pitch with power and keep it fair.
High level pattern hitters do this by learning to develop lots of coil at the right time to hit the ball HARD OPPO. so they force themselves to wind the body more and not compensate by arm swinging.
For golfers, this is the same thing golfers do to learn to stop slicing that produces a swing that goes outside/in cutting across the ball and preventing square contact.
To cure this, they have to coil more and keep the arms/hands back. Theyn learn to develop a swing plane that delivers the club more from the inside by better coiling.
In hitting, you need to hit the ball hard OPPO, not use a push or pepper swing where you inside out the ball by disconnecting the hands from the body with arm action.
I like the Epstein apporach where you first learn to handle the inside ball, then learn to let outside get deeper. That is the time to work on getting the body to coil and not let tha arms interrupt.
Learn to hit ball hard oppo by coiling/uncoiling body, not using arms.
The body coil is controlled by handle torque and shoulder tilt which has been talked about here a lot.
You have to teach/learn good coil to deliver the bat/club from the inside which is part of what is meant by "keeping the hands in" :
deliver bat from inside (do not hit around ball) and
hands stay connected to body turn from bathead launch to contact.
This is one of the best explainations of swing mechanics I've ever read. I wish you lived near me, so I could have you demonstrate it in person, in slow motion. Are you a hitting Coach or a Private Instructor? You don't by any chance have a video out or a website, do you?
