Mound time

[Fitz1210]

I have a 10 year old and she has finally grasped the concept of I/R. She looks good all through her warm-ups until she gets to walk throughs. At this point, she does H/E sometimes and looks very stiff....this is not every pitch.
With the season growing near, I am concerned with her being comfortable on the mound. Should I let her do full motion on the mound and hope I/R will come along?? Or should I have her keep doing the I/R drills only until she has perfected them. Or anything in between???

Thanks

 

[James Smith]

Let her pitch.

It sounds like she is working hard at it so give her some circle time, hopefully she will get a little better every week.

 

[teamM]

My 2 cents is that you and her have to understand that if you wait till its perfect to pitch you will never pitch. You will teach her to not to do things in life until you got everything together. She is working on her mechanics and will continue. If my daughter couldn't compete in gymnastics till she had a certain move she would lose her fire to compete. I have found with my girls that the more they pitch the more fire in the belly they have to practice. We want girls who will fight and give their best even when they don't have their best. I have seen many good golf swings that cant break 80, but I have also seen swings that are so bad that I had to look away from but they will beat your brains out. Work for excellence not perfection. In my opinion if you have this mindset you and daughter will enjoy the game more.

 

[sluggers]

There is more to pitching than just throwing the ball. Some kids love pitching, some don't. She will never know what it is like until she is out there.

 

[JJsqueeze]

what the most interesting man in softball said. A lot can happen in the circle to transform her. Once it is "REAL" she may be able to improve and start eliminating the occasional HE pitches. Once she starts pitching for real you will get a better sense of whether or not she is a PITCHER or a thrower.

 

[02Crush]

I have seen many kids between age 7-8 who started pitching and LOVED it. Then as they aged up to 9-11 and went into Travel Ball....They had NO IDEA how tough mentally it could be on them and changed their mind. It is not for everyone.

 

[marriard]

Until they go out and throw in real games with real batters in the box you just never know if you have a pitcher on your hands or not. So let her throw and find out.

It takes a different mindset to pitch. It is not even balls and strikes - it is how do they react after they hit a batter, or get hit out of the park, or if their fielders don't make a play, or the umpire has a weird strike zone, or etc, etc... On top of this, in a game they are the center of everything happening - and some players can't handle this. You can have the best SS in the world, but if the pitcher can't throw a strike it means nothing. Some girls don't like this - some do.

As they get older it gets harder. It takes guts to throw slow change ups to great hitters - or to challenge a batter in the strike zone with a fast ball. Or in some cases to intentionally throw a ball (after the development years of just being happy to throw a strike).