The Saga of Rebuilding a School Program: A parent-coach's journal

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Jan 25, 2022
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As the 2022 season progressed, it became very obvious that we had two main issues.

1. Mental stability.
We were obviously still young in age, but even more young in years of experience. When the season started, we had two players with 5 years of experience, a couple with 3, and the rest were 2 or less. They could do well enough in practice to get the job done in a game, but doing it under pressure was another story. Once things went bad, the defense got sloppy and the pitcher slowed down. Once the optimism waned, they fell apart. Some of that is still related to skill, since they hadn't had thousands of reps yet, but overall it was the mental game. Wiz tells them constantly that the game is mostly mental. Missed routine plays, bad throws, ball-watching, timid base running. It really adds up. Was it as bad as 2021? Nope. Not even close. Our defense wasn't terrible. We could catch most routine fly balls and make the normal ground-outs MOST of the time. It's just that 10% sketchiness that was the killer.

2. Hitting. Also better than 2021, but still very weak. We could count on 1 through 4 to make contact. 5 through 7 were about 50%, and the rest you prayed were walked or HBP. We did do fairly well with base running, but Wiz and I and the other assistant basically had to keep full control. We gave them signs pretty much every time. They just didn't have the knowledge and savvy to do it themselves, and a third of them were so scared of being thrown out that they would hesitate halfway. It's so frustrating when I'm coaching 1B and say "go on this pitch. no hesitation. don't look over." and they still do it.

We spent two nights a week hitting indoors last winter. I think we did it from early November up until mid February. They all improved, but it's really hard to get a lot of work done when we have 45 minutes per session to put 6 kids through tee work and short toss. The see maybe 60 pitches each over those two nights. Wiz and our lady AC both know a lot more than I do about hitting. I'm almost worthless in that regard. Luckily they were both present for pretty much all the hitting workouts. We'll be doing it all again soon, plus a Monday pitching night.

I know a lot of this just still comes down to a lack of experience, and they HAVE definitely improved. We just started so far behind that we have to work twice has hard as everyone else just to even be competitive.
 
Jan 25, 2022
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How about a present day post?

In the weeks since I took over DD2's pitching instruction, I've dived deep into learning as much as I can. Lots of videos, and a couple of Rick Pauly's (and his partner in science) webinars he does for his coaching course graduates. He's big on 4D Motion analysis, and now has added physical assessments by NASM standards. I really think DD2 has some mobility limitations and some hyper mobility issues that could hinder her progress if all we do is put her through the motions and drills. The assessment and 4D analysis are very detailed.

So as it turns out, Rick's partner is only a couple hours from me. She and I both happen to have the day off tomorrow, so I got with him today and am taking her over there for a full work-up. He does all the assessment and analysis, then builds a program with exercises and drills for strength and mobility correction. I'm really hoping to find out more about her seemingly being unable to keep bend in her arm. Even from a K it seems like she can't do it. Regardless, it'll be nice to have a high-level coach take a look at her and give me some pointers. I'm really looking forward to it. I'm not sure about her, but she's always up for ways to get better. Plus she has to do what I say anyway. ; )

Screenshot_20221005-124457_Chrome.jpg
 
Apr 30, 2018
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How about a present day post?

In the weeks since I took over DD2's pitching instruction, I've dived deep into learning as much as I can. Lots of videos, and a couple of Rick Pauly's (and his partner in science) webinars he does for his coaching course graduates. He's big on 4D Motion analysis, and now has added physical assessments by NASM standards. I really think DD2 has some mobility limitations and some hyper mobility issues that could hinder her progress if all we do is put her through the motions and drills. The assessment and 4D analysis are very detailed.

So as it turns out, Rick's partner is only a couple hours from me. She and I both happen to have the day off tomorrow, so I got with him today and am taking her over there for a full work-up. He does all the assessment and analysis, then builds a program with exercises and drills for strength and mobility correction. I'm really hoping to find out more about her seemingly being unable to keep bend in her arm. Even from a K it seems like she can't do it. Regardless, it'll be nice to have a high-level coach take a look at her and give me some pointers. I'm really looking forward to it. I'm not sure about her, but she's always up for ways to get better. Plus she has to do what I say anyway. ; )

View attachment 26661
and when you get done, you can go to the zoo.
 
Jan 25, 2022
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So yesterday, DD2 and I made the 2.5 hour trek to see a high level coach to get an assessment. I'm still going to handle her work, but I really wanted someone with a lot of experience to see what we were working with and provide general direction so we aren't wasting precious time trying to fix things by the wrong methods, or in some cases...trying to fix things that really aren't a big deal.

It was a nice, albeit curvy drive. DD2 loves to point out houses or farms she thinks are pretty, and will do it right in the middle of an unrelated sentence, similar to Dug, the dog in the movie "Up" when a squirrel is in sight. There was a lot of that going on. Between softball and traveling for archery, she and I have a ton of windshield time in together so we know how to break the monotony of these trips. It basically involves me having to listen to her music, but I'll occasionally interject with a song I think she'll like. Her taste in music is actually pretty good, but I was pleasantly surprised to find yesterday that she likes Deftones. There is hope for this generation.

The coach has a really nice facility, in a non-descript brick building in a small town much like ours. We warmed up while he watched, then he tossed her a few pointers for creating arm whip. He changed the plan some when he realized we had only switched to it a month or so ago. The radar is always running there, and from a typical two-step passing motion she hit 47mph. A 2mph gain already, and I'm pretty much most of it was just him pushing her to go harder. A gain is gain, though.

Next she threw some pitches, which actually came in halfway decently, although flying off low and to the right was almost preferred since it meant she was getting whip. That happened some as well. She was consistently throwing 45-46 with the mechanics she walked in the door with.

One thing will be really helpful for me as an instructor is that he put her manually into a position that forces the hips to be exactly where they should be at the point of release, which also allowed her to turn the shoulders correctly. That will be really helpful for her, and any other kid I work with going forward. You can tell them over and over to do this or that, but when you can get them contorted into the position and "stuck" there it can really drive the point home.

I inquired about the position of the hand at release. I've been struggling to understand where it is in relation to the hip when we're still trying to get the hip in the right place as well. And I wanted to know if the release BEGINS there, or if the ball should be completely free by that point. I got the best answer I could have hoped for, which was "don't worry too much. that usually works itself out on its own."

I've tried to be careful not to focus on things that either aren't a big deal, or that I shouldn't be concerned about YET since other things need fixed first. My two priorities had been glove swim and posture, but in the past couple weeks I haven't focused much on swim. It improved some, and I see a lot of high level throwers who do it about the same as she does now.

Posture, though. It was killing me. When I started doing slo-mo at her previous coach's lessons, what I saw was almost depressing. I couldn't believe it looked that bad. In a typical pitch for her, everything looks good until the arm gets to 9:00, at which point it locks out, the shoulder dips down, and out from the body almost farther out than the ball. Then she's leaning over and has internal rotation but no real whip. She's not full-on bowling like a lot of kids do, but I knew getting that fixed was critical. In our sessions together since then, it was slowly improving, but I figured there had to be something else contributing to it that I wasn't aware of and that would be a hard sticking point in getting it all fixed.

So he takes slo-mo of a few pitches, and immediately points to her stride leg. I've always thought her stride was pretty good considering she only started doing it in the summer, and he did say right away that it's not too bad. But she wasn't getting out far/fast enough, so when her stride ran out of gas her knee/lowe leg dropped straight down. So she lands, dips, and the back half hadn't caught up enough yet. The drag foot went from toe, to side, and back to toe, and I know it needed to stay on the toe so the back knee could get up there fast enough to put her in the stacked position at release. Essentially the momentum she created in her lower half was gone. He said "let's fix that and the posture should improve."

Typically, the pitcher needs to start in a sprinter's stance...just like preparing to take off in a race. I believe the stat from Rick's training says something like, the drive leg knee should be about 3 inches ahead of the toe and the chin should be about 3 inches ahead of the knee...something like that. And for the most part that's what she's been doing. And I know the back line from heel to hips to the back of the head should be a straight line. I can't swear it was all perfect, but it was close-ish. I watch a lot of video, and pitchers start in all sorts of ways, but when the forward motion hits the point of drive, the good ones have reached the right spots.

In hindsight, what I hadn't given enough consideration to was her arc. Her knee was driving forward well, but what was the rest of the leg looking like? That's where the straight drop comes in.

So he had her put more forward lean into her drive, then put a Queen of the Hill device under her stride foot for the takeoff. It literally took maybe 5 attempts, and the look of the stride had changed drastically. When she produced enough power for the stride foot to land with the momentum still moving forward, everything else went right where it should be. Toe drag was perfect, the knee caught up, the energy was moving forward, she was upright at release, and even managed to keep some bend in her arm.

It was so freakin simple, and that alone was worth the price of admission.

He said the 4D motion capture wasn't really necessary in her case, but he did the overhead squat assessment and saw the knees are moving out a bit, plus some upper body imbalance. He sent me a youtube playlist of exercises and stretches to work on this stuff and gave her some numbers to hit on her drills. 75 drives off the rubber per day, 500 elbow whips per week. The chances of me convincing her to do 75 strides a day five times a week is pretty slim, but I think we can get in three for sure. The whips she can do at practice, in her room, in the dugout, or in the middle of math class for all I care. We'll get those in.

For the exercises, I'll do the same as I did for her sister when she had shoulder PT to do. I used a QR code generator to link her to each video and printed it out. So she can just scan with her phone and it'll take her right to what she needs to do. I intend to do this with my pitching students if/when the day comes that I decide to teach lessons. I've done this for fundraisers, little league signups, etc. It's super simple, and giving a kid their homework on paper but in a way that interacts with the phone IMO is a great balance. Just sending them links to the phone directly lets them fall into the abyss of other texts and notifications they're getting. In DD2's case I'll print it all, have her tape it to the wall, and go through them.

I do think she'll be on this pretty solidly. She was and still is very excited about how things went yesterday. I inquired about how to teach her spots as well, which was also less complex than I expected. Our realistic goal was 50mph with decent placement and a reliable change-up. If she's passing with me at 47 now I have no doubt she can pitch at 50 after a couple thousand arm whips and several hundred strides.

I'm thrilled with how this all turned out. That one visit yesterday probably saved us 2 months of fooling with posture. It also showed me how much more I have to learn about mechanics and ways to teach.
 
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Jan 25, 2022
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Putting the remainder of the 2022 aside for now, I'll continue to chronicle DD2's pitching progress after last week's assessment.

I can't say we've worked diligently, but we've worked. I know from past experience that it'll take some time for DD2 to get in the groove of putting in this new work. I'm easing her into it and laying some guilt trips on her. She knows what she should be doing, but sometimes I have to push her in the right direction before she locks into it.

For the past couple months, we've started every workout by tossing the Spin-Right spinner. It's basically a rubber disc, representing a 1/2" slice down the center of a regulation ball. I'm not positive of the weight of it, but it has the same pieces of threads you would have if you cut a real chunk from a ball. The purpose is to teach spins (which we aren't doing yet), but we primarily use it to get her hand going the right direction at release. It's instant feedback for me AND her. It's made a real difference in her ball throwing. I know a lot of pitching coaches don't get too worked up if there's some variation in the fastball spin, but my thought is that if we get her consistently going end over end, then she'll have a solid foundation for future spin pitches. I must say, after watching almost two years of half her throws coming in like a hypnotist's disc, seeing one coming at me nearly perfectly end over end is really exciting for both of us.

Wiz' daughter is also learning to pitch. She threw some last year with some youtube and a bit of instruction from me prior to me knowing much, and she's had a very deliberate side release. Most of her throws looked like a planet revolving around the sun, and until a few months ago I wouldn't have understood how to fix it. The Spin-Right has really cleaned it up. She's hardly throwing Jupiter spin now, and probably 1/3 of her pitches come in nice and tight, even if they aren't on target. She has good natural bend and whip as well, so we're working on getting brush contact. Last night we had the wrist band squeaker out while throwing from K at about 35ft, and just about every pitch that squeaked ended up right down the middle. If you aren't familiar with them, they're pretty beneficial. Rick mentioned someone that sells them, but I just ordered a dozen cheap wrist bands and a box of pet toy squeakers. Literally, you can buy just the squeaker. I think I got like 80 of them for maybe $12, and the wrist bands cost about 50 cents a piece. I'm gonna get DD2 using one now.

A big thing with the girls, even if they don't realize it, is that they develop the "bowling" or "ninja pose" position and release because they're trying not to hit themselves in the leg. Apparently it really hurts...or so I'm told. I watch a lot of videos on various facebook pages from pitching lesson facilities, and it's such a common mechanical flaw that I pretty much expect to see it every time. I'm interested to see next season how many of our opponents' pitchers are doing this, along with zombie leg. The more I look into this stuff, the more I realize that even at a later age in a softball career, there is a lot of flawed mechanics going on everywhere. To think how driven some of the girls are, and how much work they put into those flawed mechanics, it kinda bothers me. There's probably a lot of talent out there that didn't reach its potential.
 
Dec 19, 2021
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Reaching full potential requires so many things to be in place. Physical talent, drive to work, time, a place to practice, money, finding the right coach, starting early enough but not so early as to cause burnout, no catastrophic injuries, yadda-yadda.

I think reaching 90% potential is a victory for most.
 
Jan 25, 2022
880
93
Reaching full potential requires so many things to be in place. Physical talent, drive to work, time, a place to practice, money, finding the right coach, starting early enough but not so early as to cause burnout, no catastrophic injuries, yadda-yadda.

I think reaching 90% potential is a victory for most.
Myself, I would happily settle for 72-73%. Maybe 74 if I'm feeling greedy.
 
Dec 19, 2021
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Myself, I would happily settle for 72-73%. Maybe 74 if I'm feeling greedy.
True enough. We have been unwilling to go full blast with lessons, practice sessions, etc. and it has showed, but there were plenty of good moments along the way.
 

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