Rear Forearm

[Cornbread]

The rear scap needs to continue to resist as long as possible until the hips clear. I think of the rear elbow attactched to the shoulders. If the shoulders tilt initially with the scap still resisting, the hands and rear elbow will slot appropriately

 

[Tango]

Toe touch to hip/elbow slot


1) Rear elbow
The rear elbow simply drives straight down to the hip (without quite touching) around belt level. You do not want to cast the rear elbow away from the body. You're trying to get the rear bicep close to the torso (think ice skater speeding up).

2) Hands
Yes. And No.

Hands go down and away - and around. I always 'feel' as if I'm slamming them down to my front foot. Yet, if you look closely, actually they stay very close to the rotating shoulder (which is going down and around). The rotating torso is making most of this happen.

However, you don't want your hands to 'cast' too far away from the body during this phase, so I understand why many would teach keep the hands 'inside'. It's not really possible to 'cast' if the torso rotates here, since the front arm can only stretch so far. So, if you rotate properly you should probably be trying to stretch the front arm with the hands as much as possible.

If you were not rotating fully or optimally, then you could easily cast the hands/arms away from the torso.

View attachment 14306

I will add that you must drive your back elbow down to belt level. Many/most non-MLB people 'spin' around because their elbow is 3-5 inches too high at hip slot.

So, having said all that, and with all the caveats and realities above, I would be thinking/feeling get my elbow down to my belt, and pushing my hands down/away.

90% of people are dead in the water at toe touch, so they never get this far.

Forearm appears up to me in the gif. Never really taught forearm and starting to see it as a major problem in young kids swings.