Recent Pitching Clinic - why do them?

[Classof2020]

So last week I took DD to a clinic from one of our largest state D1 programs. She was pretty nervous from prior clinic experience and as we were pulling into the parking lot she said "why do we come to these things if we know they are just going to spend 2 hours trying to get me to do old K drills and H/E?" and for just a second I got that feeling in the pit of my stomach like I just flushed money down the toilet . . . why did I sign her up for this?

And of course first thing out of the block the pitching coach shows the girls how to do wrist snaps and sends them off to work on them. We were off to one side so we basically just did the 9:00 drill and I gave her a signal by touching my nose if the coach was coming so she could switch to what she remembers of wrist snaps.

Next we moved onto K drills. This one easily translates to Show it and Throw it, or Liberty from a distance so once again we did our standard warm ups. What was funny about this one is that when she came to watch her technique she didn't even notice, or didn't bother to change the fact that she was doing the K drill incorrectly.

From there I think they moved onto a drill or two for leg drive and then into full motion. Although they demonstrated H/E there was no one on one pressure at least for the girls with stronger mechanics to copy that (side note: of the 3 college pitchers we watched one definitely had a tacked on h/e the other two had definitely typical i/r follow throughs).

At the end of the day she left feeling very encouraged from this particular camp. The coach had a couple of pieces of input that we are taking into consideration and plan to talk with our pitching coach (Ken) when we see him next week, concerning her glove arm and body positioning. She was encouraging and the college catcher she got to throw to made her feel like she had a lot of potential with her words of encouragement too.

So I guess those are the reasons you splurge and drive a couple hours each way. Encouragement, great female role models, possible advice, a fun day together . . . and the dream of wearing the school colors some day. Oh and she can't wait to go see those ladies play this season.

 

[corlay]

Glad you were able to take away some positives.

I just posted on this very topic a few weeks ago:
http://www.discussfastpitch.com/softball-pitching/21943-group-instruction.html

 

[Classof2020]

Glad you were able to take away some positives.

I just posted on this very topic a few weeks ago:
http://www.discussfastpitch.com/softball-pitching/21943-group-instruction.html

I just went and read through that thread. I missed a few days of DFP doing silly family stuff and holidays and such end of December

I generally agree with what you guys are saying over there. I definitely didn't go into it looking for instruction and just hope that maybe we hear something during the time that might be useful. I wouldn't do this more then a couple times a year - we don't have $$ for that either. I think I really went into it for the things we got out of it. Meeting the college players, maybe getting a gauge of her progress against other gals her age, seeing the facility, pushing her out of her comfort zone . . . and pumping her up. Winter training in the NW can be BORING indoors while it rains and the wind blows incessantly outdoors. She was definitely fired up and nothing gets my girls trying to throw hard like having a room full of new people around watching or semi-competing next to her (although they might not know they are competing with her haha).

 

[InsidePitch]

I find these things to be a waste of time and money if you are looking for instruction. That said, if your DD is old enough and performs well at these things it is a way to get on the coaches radar. I tell DD to do what they ask simply to show she is coachable. DD was catching for a friend at one of these when the coaches first started to take notice of her. It was kind of cool to watch transpire from a high five from the pitching coach to the HC and PC talking and then the HC and some players gunning her and talking about her form.

I find the outdoor camps with scrimmages where the coaches are teaching during game time to be a better investmenet. Riseball does this well.

 

[Jojo]

I've never encouraged mine to attend these. The ones that do always say they don't get much out of it, especially due to the HE instruction and all.

But I have had a couple invited to a camp, and then I encourage them to attend.

Insidepitch mentioned those that do scrimmages, and I've had one attend one of those, and she enjoyed that much better. I believe most of the invitational camps are set up like those.

 

[wafastpitch]

We are lucky to have some local, or fairly local college clinics that believe more in I/R even if they don't call it that. Dd has taken quite a bit of good info from some of her favorite coaches and players. One of her favorite PCs from a D1 school is now HC at a local D3 that she's liked too. Before her injury we saw him at his new gig closer to home. Some of these camps have been invaluable to dd. Hopefully this summer she'll check out some of her other favorite coaches.

 

[slingnit]

In our experiences there are only a few reasons to fork over $$$ for these things. 1. If you have a young kid and they want to meet coaches of their favorite team. Not much coaching value but the kids think it's cool. 2. It is an invite by coaches and they have interest in
dd possibly playing for them. 3. Your dd has talent to play at school hosting clinic and may not have gotten the exposure needed to be recruited. So you are taking her in hopes she outshines kids they already have interest in.

 

[JJS]

Another good reason to go to the more inexpensive ones is to get a younger DD performing in front of talent evaluators. Our PC told us to bring our 13 yo to as many of the local ones as possible so that she can be comfortable with the process if/when she is actually invited to one.