Is that they only teach one way. And they always think that their way is the right and only way. As an infielder I;ve been taught to approach a grounder and kneel down with the right knee touching the ground, as well as having both feet planted evenly, as well as the left foot slightly forward of the right foot while scooping the ball up. I've read to 'vacuum' the ball into the naval area while transfering to the throwing hand, and taught at a college camp to scoop outwards on gorunders. For hitting, Ted Williams book he teaches a push swing, I've read/heard to shift weight back to centre as well as back to front, as well as inward turn. Batspeed.com teaches more of a oush/pull swing with full hip/shoulder rotation, one of my college coaches taught me to throw the hands at the ball and the hips will rotate naturally, another coach on the same college team taught me to straighten the front leg to get full hip rotation. So many different things, and there aren't too many parts of baseball where one thing works for everyone. I really dislike it when a coach brings a 'my way or highway' attitude to coaching. One coach argued with me not to hit with Major League mechanics because 'they get paid millions. Do you get paid millions?' Yet he didn't seem to realize that if they hadn't had those mechanics, they would hever get paid in teh first place.
However with so many sites, books, coaches I've been through, I have taken full advantage of this by trying out everything I hear about and see if it works for me. If it doesn't then I simply won't do it, no matter what others try to change. If coaches don't like the way I swing, then tough, I guess they might not feel so bad when I hit everything as compared to striking out and popping up every at bat. Now it's my way or the highway. Actually tomorrow (today) I might take a trip to the library and get every baseball book I can and try a bunch of things over the off-season.
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