- Mar 31, 2024
- 5
- 1
Hello,
I started working a few weeks ago with a brand new pitcher who is in 10u. So far things have progressed fairly well seeing as she's going from completely wrong mechanics throwing in her backyard to using proper form about 75% of the time. She's very clearly starting to understand how her body affects the ball and can often tell me what she did wrong with her mechanics during any given pitch when the ball ends up going wacky. My biggest issue here is that although she's still struggling with some of the mechanics (already learned some bad habits on her own), I feel as though she's very timid with the ball. I've gone to some of her rec league games the last few weeks to see her play other positions since she isn't pitching in game yet and to also see some of the other local pitchers for comparison and she's really on par with most of them with the exception of one girl who is clearly a standout who has been working for probably years already. Seasoned girl aside, they're all quite slow with their movements and it's probably just due to focusing on the outcome; however, it seems she's still a little slower than her peers. I've tried to break things down and isolate explosive movements of the arms and legs but she seems either to not understand what I'm asking of her or to just be maybe afraid to mess up.
Has anyone else had any success breaking through this "I don't want to mess up" wall? My dad suggested having her throw into the backstop to eliminate worrying about where the ball ends up as far as location which I am thinking of trying next session along with some arm speed drills and launch drills. I'm not sure after seeing her play other positions with the same timidness (note: she's tough, just slow and unsure) so I can't really tell if it's personality or just simply being new to it all and learning. She's also quite tall for her age so I'm wondering if maybe that has a part in it, as well.
I obviously do not expect her to be leaping from the mound or anything within a month of beginning, but I do want to start working on speeding up her movement once we have a better grasp on the mechanics in preparation for middle school tryouts a year from now. Any advice would be welcomed!
I started working a few weeks ago with a brand new pitcher who is in 10u. So far things have progressed fairly well seeing as she's going from completely wrong mechanics throwing in her backyard to using proper form about 75% of the time. She's very clearly starting to understand how her body affects the ball and can often tell me what she did wrong with her mechanics during any given pitch when the ball ends up going wacky. My biggest issue here is that although she's still struggling with some of the mechanics (already learned some bad habits on her own), I feel as though she's very timid with the ball. I've gone to some of her rec league games the last few weeks to see her play other positions since she isn't pitching in game yet and to also see some of the other local pitchers for comparison and she's really on par with most of them with the exception of one girl who is clearly a standout who has been working for probably years already. Seasoned girl aside, they're all quite slow with their movements and it's probably just due to focusing on the outcome; however, it seems she's still a little slower than her peers. I've tried to break things down and isolate explosive movements of the arms and legs but she seems either to not understand what I'm asking of her or to just be maybe afraid to mess up.
Has anyone else had any success breaking through this "I don't want to mess up" wall? My dad suggested having her throw into the backstop to eliminate worrying about where the ball ends up as far as location which I am thinking of trying next session along with some arm speed drills and launch drills. I'm not sure after seeing her play other positions with the same timidness (note: she's tough, just slow and unsure) so I can't really tell if it's personality or just simply being new to it all and learning. She's also quite tall for her age so I'm wondering if maybe that has a part in it, as well.
I obviously do not expect her to be leaping from the mound or anything within a month of beginning, but I do want to start working on speeding up her movement once we have a better grasp on the mechanics in preparation for middle school tryouts a year from now. Any advice would be welcomed!