Value of video

[skipper5]

I did quite a bit of cage work with a batter yesterday, and from my vantage point he seemed to be swinging the bat pretty well.

We had a camera running opposite him, and when I looked at the tape in slow-motion video this morning I almost choked on my coffee.

For diagnosing a swing, the pitcher has the worst view in the house. Our local batting academy, which is run by some great guys, doesn't use video. Is this typical?

(The batter mentioned above doesn't train there--that's not the issue).

[Coach G]

The pitchers view is tough. Sometimes i try to watch hard after pitching a ball and as a result I have been hit pretty much everywhere. You BP guys know what I am talking about.
I like video and I use it often I think that it goes alot further showing a student himself and his mistakes or triumphs than just telling him.

[Cannonball]

My daughter pitched the other day. I tried to get video from every angle.
When she hit, I also tried to get video from every angle. Every angle tells it's own secrets.

I place a lot of value in video. However, it will be exactly what you want it to be. In video of my daughter hitting, one comment made by those that viewed it was that her stride was short. Yes, we knew that but seeing it on video was still good. She is coming off of a significant injury to her knee. We now have video to reference as we try to get her to work on fixing that problem. One comment was made that she appeared to have a lag issue in one of the 4 swings. She still was 5 frames in one swing and 6 frames in 3 others 2 of which she was swinging a weighted baseball bat. That lag problem was the result of this being her first swings after recovering from torn tendons and ligaments in her wrist. Others saw that and so, I had suggestions from others on how to rectify the problem. While I had a plan anyway, those suggestions are so valuable in helping with her swing.

Besides the refernce of swings and progress, let's not forget one other very important part of that video. Years down the road when your son won't be playing anymore, they will have that video even if it's just cage swings. They'll cherish that.

[skipper5]

The swing faults that I saw on video this morning were so bad that I wouldn't post them on a public forum.

I was focusing intently on making sure the batter stayed inside the ball. He wasn't, and he was hitting nice line drives. My experienced eye was satisfied. But the camera didn't miss anything, while I had tunnel vision.

[MSandman]

I said the same thing for years. Many experienced coaches (including me) think we see improvement live only to be frustrated by the telling truth of the video later.

Sometimes, I try to look for small improvements in the area we were focused on for that session. IOW, the total swing itself probably still has many flaws in it; but if we were working on one particular aspect, I look to see if there was improvement in that area.

[skipper5]

The swing faults that I saw on video this morning were so bad that I wouldn't post them on a public forum.

I was focusing intently on making sure the batter stayed inside the ball. He wasn't, and he was hitting nice line drives. My experienced eye was satisfied. But the camera didn't miss anything, while I had tunnel vision.

Correction: I meant to say "the batter was staying inside the ball and hitting line drives." My tunnel vision saw this success, but didn't see several other supposedly-eradicated swing flaws that had creeped back into his swing like the darn weeds in my front yard.

When you coach hitting, relapses are constant. If I were a perfectionist, I'd be popping some Tums. You hit the nail on the head, Sandman. Keep looking for the good.

[MSandman]

You hit the nail on the head, Sandman. Keep looking for the good.

FWIW, I posted a new thread of my son Kevin, in which I did just that - focused a session on one particular issue, and later when watching the video, instead of getting too hung up on all of the other issues still remaining, just tried to see if there was improvement in the "issue of the day".

Still tweaking Kevin's swing (http://www.baseball-fever.com/showthread.php?t=89151)

[darbypitcher22]

I've always been able to take a lot from video, especailly when I have tape from 3 or 4 different angles...