- May 1, 2011
- 350
- 28
IMHO
I wouldn't be too concerned with the drift. She's not on her front leg yet and it's her way of timing the pitch. Consider it her "leg kick". Once she plants her front heel, the drift stops, head movement stops, and her swing starts.
If I'm seeing it correctly, she's better on pitches that are up because she gets her bat on plane early. She hits down on the lower pitches...she doesn't get the head of the bat into the ball path until contact.
Stretch a twine with a bungie cord at the end (for forgiveness) between two points to simulate the pitch plane. Make it a low and away pitch. Have her match her bat path to the twine (pitch plane). Swing away! When she's on it correctly, the twine will hardly bounce.
Works good for all pitch locations.
I'm in agreement that once the heel plants the head stops. The issue with the drift is when she drifts too far...which always creeps it's head in at some point, and we have to fight it for a couple of weeks. Really going to try and get away from it. She DESTROYS pitches up in the zone. But, we were working last summer on getting to balls down in the zone with a little more consistency. Here are a couple of swings from the summer right before it kinda went to hell. One of them up in the zone and one of them down. I feel like she got on plane much better on these swings.