some tips for beginning softball pitching instructors with beginning pitchers

[Ashleysara]

I want to start working with beginning softball pitchers at the age of like 7-10. I/m a pitcher for my high school softball team so I'm still learning myself but I know what I need to work on and how to fix it. So I'll be able to help them a lot. What are some drills or fun things to do with them that will make it more enjoyable for them to learn? Also, what are some things to watch for in their motion?

 

[GunnerShotgun]

Figure out if you were taught best practices and compare your stlye to those of high level pitchers. Don't pass on bad lessons even if that was the way you were taught.

Good luck!

 

[Rocketech1]

I admire you for wanting to work with beginning pitchers. Some suggestions for you would be to question what you have been taught and determine whether or not you should be teaching these pitching mechanics to your students just because you were taught them as a beginning pitcher? For example, isolated wrist snap drills are useless and a waste of time. Also, I would video myself pitching and see if what I want to teach my students is what I am actually doing when pitching the full windmill motion. Read as much as you can on this site about Internal Rotation and the dreaded hello elbow follow through. Don't introduce new pitches unless your student has good solid mechanics with the fast ball. Fight the urge to have your students learn 5 pitches by the time they are 10 years old. Keep the lessons fun, encouraging, and praise them often, and keep the lessons to 30 mins otherwise you will lose their attention. Lastly, I think it's great you have come here for advice, continue to educate yourself with so we have a new generation of pitching instructors who will understand and teach modern pitching mechanics to our youth. Good luck.

 

[CoachBroker]

I am far from having the knowledge to teach someone how to pitch however I have spend a lot of time the last 12 months researching the subject so that when my daughter finishes up her last year of coach pitch ball, I will have a better understanding of softball pitching (since she wants to learn to pitch). Learning the mechanics of windmill pitching was a foriegn thing to me however after watching a seminar by Bill Hillhouse on Fastpitch Illustrated (Ipad magazine) and then finding the entire thing on Youtube, I realized he was the first instructor (whom I had watched) who actually made since to me. Like these others said, make sure your not passing on useless parts of your pitching that you may have been taught that actually where not needed or actually may have hindered success. All that being said, with the age group you are looking at, you just need to stick with the basics anyhow to get them started and having fun with it. Good luck to you.

 

[quincy]

I have only worked with DD but if I would have a do over I would have started from her feet and worked our way up instead of starting from the arm circle and kind of going from there.