Young hitters "bouncing"

[FrozenRope]

Here is what I picture when you say a bouncing swing. The left side of this video is DD in a game this past summer. At this point, I thought Softball was just a passing fad. She liked it, but never wanted to practice at home or even play catch. I think it was at the time she was picked for the All-Star team that she got the bug and decided that this was her gig. That horrible swing on the left got her enought hits for her to make the team. The right side is around the same time once I started working with her at home, showing her a rotational swing. There's still 100 things wrong at this point, but it was an improvement. She was only able to do it from a tee though. It took a TON of front toss to get her to hit a pitched ball in that manner.
[video]http://www.flickr.com/photos/83407906@N02/7680956696/[/video]

 

[Dave619]

Let me guess....there is little to any hip rotation in the swing. My DD had a very similair problem. Almost like they jump up at the ball with a long armed linear sweep? It was a long drawn out fix for us. Even once she was swinging properly with the hips starting the rotation of the swing and getting some backward tilt when we did tee work, she reverted back to the linear jump swing when she saw live pitching. Took many weeks of heavy tee work with a 100% elimination of hitting a moving ball. Once she was consistent with tee work, we moved to quick front toss with wiffle balls. I intentionally tossed the ball with enought speed where the only way she was going to catch up to it was to rotate the hips, and quiet the motion of the arms. I kept backing up and tossing the ball harder, making sure she didn't have time to squat and jump.

I had the same issue with my daughter...we do a lot of work on the tee to help eliminate this and she also reverts back at times when she sees live pitching and the ball is lower in the strike zone. Like the wiffle ball idea....going to try that. I also think with younger players they have a limited sense of body awareness so a quick video with your phone and show them what they are doing. My daughter always use to say she didn't feel herself (fill in the blank). So a quick video helps her a lot.

 

[FrozenRope]

I had the same issue with my daughter...we do a lot of work on the tee to help eliminate this and she also reverts back at times when she sees live pitching and the ball is lower in the strike zone. Like the wiffle ball idea....going to try that. I also think with younger players they have a limited sense of body awareness so a quick video with your phone and show them what they are doing. My daughter always use to say she didn't feel herself (fill in the blank). So a quick video helps her a lot.

It's rare that we have a practice session, whether it be pitching, or hitting where I don't record it. I have more video of dd's workouts than I know what to do with. She LOVES when we go through it together, especially when we compare it to a month ago, 3 months ago, or in some instances, just a few days ago. It helps her to see her own progress and motivate her to keep working. One tip.... find a video of what you WANT her to look like, and constantly compare her progress to that goal. You need to get her to "Buy In" to the goal as well. With pitching...I absolutely LOVE the Amanda Scarborough slow mo video in the Power Drive video. We bring that one out ALL the time. As for hitting, we often look through the Model swings post in hitting technical. There is one in particular I have bookmarked that we look at. It's a real motivation for her.