Quest for pitching knowledge

[Dabears17]

Would love to hear more about your impressions of the Wasserman's high level pitching material. I haven't been able to find a lot of information on it.

I’ll see if I can get access still. From what remember is it’s basically the Tincher method with Austin’s arm care and throwing workouts. I knew a pitcher with great spins, but who was on the slow side, looking for ways to increase her velocity.

 

[sprtfan]

I’ll see if I can get access still. From what remember is it’s basically the Tincher method with Austin’s arm care and throwing workouts. I knew a pitcher with great spins, but who was on the slow side, looking for ways to increase her velocity.

I heard great things about Austin's HLT for overhand but not much about how well it worked for softball pitching. I actually purchased the program in Sept, but my daughter had some arm issues before we started it. (TOS and Cubical tunnel syndrome) Finished PT and is back to throwing again. With limited time before the season starts, trying to determine what would be best to spend our time on.

 

[Ken B]

You see John Gay was open at all cost. He taught my niece to turn the back foot to open. He was adamant that the hips did nothing. That pivoting the back foot open was a leg drive killer. The butt went out as opening was the most important.

Most of the girls that did well with him had long arms and legs like John. The things they did were a little strange at times. Some of them suffered from shoulder injuries. One of his star students shoulder went bad in college. I’ll show you a couple, one leaping (which is legal now) and one crow hoping. The leaper suffered many injuries, through HS and College. Which she did attend UCLA, saw her get a little mop up work where they talked about her struggles with injuries.

Don’t get me wrong John was a great guy. He was teaching what he thought was correct.

Not long before he passed, John talked about his observations of elite pitchers and said he recognized that 45ish degrees was probably a better place to train at. As much as he was a master teacher, he was always striving to learn and grow. He is greatly missed…

 

[coach james]

So, I’m going to go through my pitching material. I have a book, Rick Pauly’s complete program, Amanda’s programs. Going to read all the stickies. Just starting Pauly’s stuff. I don’t know how I missed how much of an open style he teaches. So far everything, the backwards chaining has all been done completely sideways. Shoulders and hips constantly facing 3B, all four points completely sideways. He talks about the hips rotating and the stopping, focusing on stopping them. I don’t want to jump ahead, the technical material I have some of that also. He talks about hip rotation in that material also. Ricks material is the same as John Gay taught. So far everything I’ve seen is completely sideways. I’m only at beginner course 2 basic fastball.

As someone who has both been a student and now a colleague of Rick Pauly, I think you are sadly mistaken and couldn't be more wrong about Rick's instructions to be at a 45° angle. In the 14 years experience I have a long side him, I can't remember one single time he has ever instructed anyone to remain completely open...
Please do a little more research on people before you make public slanderous posts about them.

 

[Hillhouse]

As someone who has both been a student and now a colleague of Rick Pauly, I think you are sadly mistaken and couldn't be more wrong about Rick's instructions to be at a 45° angle. In the 14 years experience I have a long side him, I can't remember one single time he has ever instructed anyone to remain completely open...
Please do a little more research on people before you make public slanderous posts about them.

Hmm. I read the same message as you but, I didn't take it as slander. It can be easy to read things in a tone that is completely unintended. This happens a lot in emails and texts, we read a tone that is completely unintended and not what the person writing was trying to convey. I'd like to think that is what has happened here, it doesn't seem to be in most of this board's regular people to attack someone or one another. Lively debates happen but, that too is different from being a attacking someone.

That said, maybe I don't know the full story. It's entirely possible that I missed previous posts, messages, or something where there was something mean spirited behind it. I probably only read 1/100th of the posts on this forum. So, I truly don't know. All I'm saying is, I didn't get a mean tone from the original post when I read it. Maybe there's more to the story or history here than I know about.

Now, personally, I believe when someone makes a statement such as the original post that it's their job to explain their position, not my job to prove them wrong. I took this, and another very valuable lesson from a guy by the name of Dr. Frank Turek, who is a Christian apologist and travels around to colleges and churches doing presentations. His seminar called "I don't have enough faith to be an athiest" includes a Q/A session after where some people question and challenge him on his beliefs and thoughts. Dr. Turek says when someone takes a position you disagree with on a subject, there's 3 questions to ask:

1. What did you mean by that? Make sure you understand where the person is coming from: "Dad, I won't make it home by my 11 o'clock curfew"

2. How did you come to that conclusion? Let them explain their thought process: "The party at John's house is running later than I thought so I will be leaving later than expected."

3. Have you ever considered...? Give them an alternate perspective that they may have overlooked: "Ok, if you're not here by 11, you're grounded for 3 weeks" (Ok, Dad... I'll be right home!!!!)

 

[Ken Krause]

Rick does not advocate being completely open. Far from it, in fact. In the videos you were watching the pitcher starts and finishes at 45 degrees.

In his clinics he stresses that you don't want the hips fully open and the arm coming through space. He is a huge advocate of brush trigger. To get it you have to have your hips around 45 degrees. Same in the videos for the certification program.

 

[Hillhouse]

Rick does not advocate being completely open. Far from it, in fact. In the videos you were watching the pitcher starts and finishes at 45 degrees.

In his clinics he stresses that you don't want the hips fully open and the arm coming through space. He is a huge advocate of brush trigger. To get it you have to have your hips around 45 degrees. Same in the videos for the certification program.

This is another example of where I somewhat disagree with Rick. But in this case, I only 1/2 disagree. What I mean is, I believe in teaching kids to exaggerate a lot of the movements used in pitching. Exaggerating something like getting completely open is a great way for a kid to get used to going THROUGH the hips, and not around them per/most HE coaches. I kind of few this similar to the follow through of the pitch: quite often we can tell a lot about what was done right or wrong by the follow through. And by exaggerating the follow through, it would promote and encourage the most whip. Personally I don't know what angle or degree the hips should be, most pitchers will start to cheat the older they get. But as long as the muscle memory is in tact to go THROUGH the hips, all is fine in my book.

 

[Shawn]

As someone who has both been a student and now a colleague of Rick Pauly, I think you are sadly mistaken and couldn't be more wrong about Rick's instructions to be at a 45° angle. In the 14 years experience I have a long side him, I can't remember one single time he has ever instructed anyone to remain completely open...
Please do a little more research on people before you make public slanderous posts about them.

I’m still working on going through the material again. It’s the backwards chaining instructions where the students are mostly open. If I remember correctly in lessons he really doesn’t discuss what the hips do or don’t do or their position. Take his daughter for example, very open shown at the beginning of every lesson. Tall pitcher mechanics. John Gay was tall.

I’m not trying to slander Rick or Sarah. Just looking to increase my knowledge on pitching and styles.

Rick discusses hip rotation in the elite/4D stuff.

I can watch any game on YouTube and see different styles. Oklahoma State always have lefty’s that throw very open. Good leg drive and then throw very open. Different styles.

The question is can you break the motion into two part. Rick says you can throw 90% of your total speed from the half way point. I believe what happens before that is important to what actually happens in the second half. I’m not sure anymore if backwards chaining is all that great. Ever since we started with pitching everything was taught with backwards training. Nothing new.

 

[Shawn]

Rick does not advocate being completely open. Far from it, in fact. In the videos you were watching the pitcher starts and finishes at 45 degrees.

In his clinics he stresses that you don't want the hips fully open and the arm coming through space. He is a huge advocate of brush trigger. To get it you have to have your hips around 45 degrees. Same in the videos for the certification program.

I’ll look for it in up coming lessons. I think the hips mostly stay at a 45 degree angle throughout the motion. The opening is brief and the hips return to 45 degrees.

 

[Northball]

I’ll look for it in up coming lessons. I think the hips mostly stay at a 45 degree angle throughout the motion. The opening is brief and the hips return to 45 degrees.

I don't think emphasizing the angle of the hips is the correct approach. I don't tell my students to "rotate your hips to 45 degrees. I teach them how to get a good forward stride leading with the knee, and following with the back leg not turning the back foot sideways. When you do that, the hips can't help but rotate to 45 as the front leg leads outward. Hip rotation is just something that happens, not something to focus on. It is a symptom, not a cause of good mechanics.