Face the Fire Drill

[GOINGDEEP]

I'm gonna have to show my ignorance ( again ). My fellow coach on our traveling team is our hitting guru, and this looks like one of his crazy drills. I think by the posts that the idea is to look at a spot on the wall to 'teach' tracking the ball on the tee. But if the tee is at the same height every time that is not tracking, that is simply remembering where the ball is EVERY TIME. Heck after 2-3 swings I could do it blindfolded. Its in the same spot!!

Am I missing something? I hope I am.

 

[RayR]

We use something close to this, but really enforce the front shoulder being down and in before the hands start to swing (down and in - NOT counter rotated). One way to get them to do this is a variation on the Live and Indy hands drill. I have them position the hands close to the body and in front of the front shoulder. When the back foot lands as they walk up they then bring the hands back (across their chest) to the launch position. If they move their hands before the back foot lands, they tend to counter rotate and drop the back shoulder. Waiting until the back foot lands to move their hands drops the front shoulder down and in (at least it should).

Many kids twist their upper body away from the tee and the back shoulder drops as they start the swing. We try to get them to understand that the arms are not rigidly connected to the shoulders and that the shoulders are not turning the hands.

 

[tom.guerry]

The way I use this drill is after going through forward chaining arm action throwing drills then 1 arm back arm impact bag swings and i arm back arm hitting OPPO self toss drills with the focus being how the back arm sequence is the same in both the throw and swing prior to the GO ("drop and tilt") in the swing.

Then this walkup drill follows as a way to add the lead arm and continue the back arm sequence and synch with the lower body.

the step behind is a way of accentuating the turning/coil aspect of the inward turn/hip cock/negative move.

In this drill, when you step behind there is INternal rotation of the back arm and the hip cocks ("tip"/cock up past vertical)

the next step is the positive move with lift of the back elbow as stride foot goes out, then synched EXternal rotation of the back arm and front leg as you wind the rubber band (torso stretch/coil), bat "untips"

followed by GO ("rip").

The step behind or step forward are similar to crowhop long toss throws.

I find that the step behind encourages the feel of geting sideways and cocking the hips which most girls do not do.

The step in front emphasizes the forward linear momentum of the throw more and can be used to encourage a missing positive move, but kids usually need to learn hip cock first and avoiding of lunging in the swing before the step in front drill is used.

 

[Hitter]

I'm gonna have to show my ignorance ( again ). My fellow coach on our traveling team is our hitting guru, and this looks like one of his crazy drills. I think by the posts that the idea is to look at a spot on the wall to 'teach' tracking the ball on the tee. But if the tee is at the same height every time that is not tracking, that is simply remembering where the ball is EVERY TIME. Heck after 2-3 swings I could do it blindfolded. Its in the same spot!!

Am I missing something? I hope I am.

Goingdeep

This is a drill for tracking and teaching momentum especially for the new kids. Every drill has its purpose. What do you feel is a good drill to teach tacking and momentum?

Can you explain how the head and eyes are used during tracking so I have an understanding of what you know so as better to explain the drill.

Thanks Howard

 

[GOINGDEEP]

This link made more sense to me than the original. This one clearly is proper mechanics and momentum.

What had me puzzled is the reference to 'tracking'. Some were saying looking ahead ( like in a normal game ) to 'track' the ball. If you know where the ball will be every time, that's not what I call tracking. That's memorization. I mean I could do a backflip and two cartwheels then hit a stationary ball. ( well maybe a few years ago I could )

I'm a big live pitching guy. I throw pitching to mine all the time. I've always taught a simple philosophy to my DD. 'See pitch.......hit pitch'. Spend my emphasize on 'reading' pitches. By learning to 'read' pitches she has broken her school and travel ball teams home run record and slugging %, and second best batting avg. I use old school methods, I guess I just don't understand all this 'fancy' training. We were always taught to track a ball with your eyes, never with your head.

I said before I'm a pitching coach, I leave most of the hitting to my other coach. I will fwd this video to him. He played D1 ball like myself, but he is 10 years younger. This may be a new drill that an old fart like me never saw.

 

[Hitter]

What had me puzzled is the reference to 'tracking'. Some were saying looking ahead ( like in a normal game ) to 'track' the ball. If you know where the ball will be every time, that's not what I call tracking. That's memorization. I mean I could do a backflip and two cartwheels then hit a stationary ball. ( well maybe a few years ago I could )

I'm a big live pitching guy. I throw pitching to mine all the time. I've always taught a simple philosophy to my DD. 'See pitch.......hit pitch'. Spend my emphasize on 'reading' pitches. By learning to 'read' pitches she has broken her school and travel ball teams home run record and slugging %, and second best batting avg. I use old school methods, I guess I just don't understand all this 'fancy' training. We were always taught to track a ball with your eyes, never with your head.

I said before I'm a pitching coach, I leave most of the hitting to my other coach. I will fwd this video to him. He played D1 ball like myself, but he is 10 years younger. This may be a new drill that an old fart like me never saw.

Goingdeep

The clip you provided is what we do not do and here is why....they are looking at the ball on a tee the entire time and never move their head. As a lefty facing a righty you may get away with this however a lefty pitcher you may not see the ball as well. This is why I prefer the face the fire drill to simply walking up and starring at the ball and hitting it. Trust me when I say I am not trying to become overly technical when I explain this however give it a try. Have your daughter hit some balls off the tee and then blind fold her. What I would like you to observe is watch her body movements when blind folded. Does she look forward when blind folded and as she steps does she turn her head to the ball on a tee? Does she just look forward the whole time when blind folded trying to hit the ball. Usually if there is no head movement they swing over the ball typically. The vestibular ocular reflex motor skill is used to send signals to the deep joints and tendons in the body based on the body positions you use when doing a repeatable task such as hitting the ball. Usually a typical student will suffer a loss of balance unless they do exactly what they would do when the eyes are open as they would with the eyes closed. Your daughter may be very gifted. This simple exercise is why we can walk in a dark room in a darkened room as we know how to walk however most people have to see the horizon to be able to do it with some degree or sense of balance.

This fancy training is not really fancy and is grass roots in our opinion...why would you settle for second best on average if she could be the best. It is interesting to hear you say this as we made improvements in Finch, Topping , Berg, Lowe and Bustos using the tracking techniques we suggested. When you stop learning as Coach Larabee stated it is time to get out of the game. We started working with him when he was at Wright State a few years ago with this fancy stuff and he went from 22 home runs to 67 and doubled his offensive output in 5 months and made it to the WCWC playoffs for the first time in their schools history and now is the head coach at Arkansas. I will have to watch to see if he has any success this year.

Thanks Howard

 

[PEPPERS]

I learned this tracking a pitch on a tee method when I took my daughter to a hitting camp at the University of Alabama. They had a quest speaker who was a baseball coach and I don’t recall his name or school, sorry about that. He advised that they had found out that if you do a lot of tee work that starring at the ball on the tee burnt in a muscle memory that made it difficult to track the ball in game situations. By using the method as Howard and others have described he advised it eliminated that problem.

 

[GOINGDEEP]

Thank you both for taking the time to explain the drill. I fwd the original video to my asst coach who is our team's hitting guru. Between the 3 of you think got the the importance of the drill. I am making a new thread on pull hitters and would like your advice and opinions.

Thanks again.

 

[tom.guerry]

recently dug up walk-up video:

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[Wellphyt]

recently dug up walk-up video:

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The original slap hitter!