Swing help, and What to do with teaching conflicts

[tominct]

Hi everyone. My kids go to clinics arranged by local members of our league. These are run at a facility owned by a former AA all star. Unfortunately he is often busy with older kids and a HS kid ends up running the class. By issue was this....my son is not a great hitter, he tries, but its been a constant catch-up and he hasn't caught up yet. Being a january baby doesn't help, but there is certainly more to it than just that.

Anyway, at one point the HS kid asks my son, "What makes a ball go far?" To which my son replied, "Bat speed." I thought a fairly good answer, but he was told,

"No, what makes a ball go far is backSPIN, and to get backspin on the ball you have to swing down on the ball!"

....ok.....do we agree here that one swings down on the ball? And is there a benefit to talking to an 11 year old kid about backspin? So he put a tee in the cage to stop my son from dropping his back shoulder.

My question is....what do I do about it?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7326439282561782930&q=source%3A000976337324883695713&hl=en

Thanks,

Tom

[HYP]

Hi everyone. My kids go to clinics arranged by local members of our league. These are run at a facility owned by a former AA all star. Unfortunately he is often busy with older kids and a HS kid ends up running the class. By issue was this....my son is not a great hitter, he tries, but its been a constant catch-up and he hasn't caught up yet. Being a january baby doesn't help, but there is certainly more to it than just that.

Anyway, at one point the HS kid asks my son, "What makes a ball go far?" To which my son replied, "Bat speed." I thought a fairly good answer, but he was told,

"No, what makes a ball go far is backSPIN, and to get backspin on the ball you have to swing down on the ball!"

....ok.....do we agree here that one swings down on the ball? And is there a benefit to talking to an 11 year old kid about backspin? So he put a tee in the cage to stop my son from dropping his back shoulder.

My question is....what do I do about it?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7326439282561782930&q=source%3A000976337324883695713&hl=en

Thanks,

Tom

I don't agree with swinging down ON the ball. we swing down to the ball. The barrel is on an upward plane.

Tough question as to what to do with a coach that teaches something you don't agree with.

On the HS team I coach. I have a very gifted player. He has a private hitting instructor that is ruining him. I hope he figures it out before any chances he has are gone.

HYP

[Grizzly]

As I'm sure you will hear from multiple sources on this forum, it is not generally agreed that "swinging down on the ball" is proper. (Nor for that matter, does swinging down on the ball guaranty backspin. Hitting the bottom half of the ball does.) I believe that an ever so slight uppercut which is level to the flight of the falling ball is the ideal swing path. See, for example, Ted Williams' Science of Hitting.

As to your larger questions (as they seem to me), I'd recommend discussing your concerns about the instructors with the owner. You'll want to make sure that what they are teaching your player makes sense to you. It may be that the HS instructor is not teaching consistent with the owner's philosophy.

Good luck.

[Ursa Major]

Tom, what do you do when you hire a painter and he tracks paint all over the house, gets the colors wrong, and doesn't finish the job? You fire him. High school players are often poor teachers, and this guy seems to be.

Hitting down on the ball is exactly what your son should NOT be doing. He's got substantial disconnection issues which that cue exacerbates. The first time I saw his clip, I saw his setup and thought, "This could be a good swing." And then he stopped his rotation in the middle of the swing and his hands went forward, and I thought, "uh-oh".

The best (or at least most intuitive) indictment of swinging down on the ball goes like this. If you swing down, the ball and the bat intersect in time and space for only a brief moment. But if you bring the shoulder down and around and have the bathead start a slight upward path just at it enters the strike zone, it will be in the same plane as the ball for many orders of magnitude longer, so if you're slightly early or late, you'll still make some contact. Also, pure physics come to mind -- what will make an object go back faster and harder -- a collision that is directly in the path of the oncoming object, or one that strikes it at an oblique angle? Even fastballs descend at that age level at about a 15 - 20 degree angle, so you want to strike it at the same angle going up.


I wouldn't blame the age issue -- he seems (and correct me with his vital stats if I'm wrong) to be plenty big and athletic to be a successful hitter in 11-12 y/o ball. But if he's pushing his hands out that way and swinging down, he'll be hitting soft pop-ups and grounders to the second-baseman all year long, if he's making contact at all.

See your PM -- I've got other ideas.

[jacksimpk]

I think you need focused and consistent instruction. What the HS kid said my have made more sence if they had been working together for 6 weeks and really built a foundation. In a "class" senario what you say to a bunch of 11 year olds in a 1 hour hitting clinic really is never going to amount to much. I think you need to find someone to consistenly instruct your son so at least he is moving in a direction. As with the painter example I'd go and watch the instructor work with other kids at several different levels and see the results. If your happy get your son in their program. There are several things you can do yourself. Tee work in the garage is good, soft toss with wiffle balls is good to. As you start to learn more both of your skills will increase. A college coach that presented to our league (who was a DH in college) said something the really impressed me. And is had nothing to do with technique. He said that his father never allowed him to take batting practice until he had done 50 swings off a Tee moving the tee from outside to down the middle, to inside. Learning some of the basics and putting in the reps to get comforatable with your body and your bat and how they work together. Sometimes that is a good place to start. The Ted Williams book and a good work ethic can take you far. Some focused and consistent lessons would be great to get you there faster. But a HS kid talking in vocabulary that neither you or your son understand for 1/2 an hour will get you exactly no where.