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Bryan is going to help me teach the Crow hop. Crow hop is an essential parts for any advance outfielders, ability to play that particular position. Crow hop is important for two reasons. Reason number one is it helps us gather ourselves after having run across the outfield to pick up the ground ball or catch a fly ball. It allows us to get rid of the ball very quickly. The second reason is it allows us to put something on it. You may have seen from time to time kids going after the ball and it seems like once they pick it up, they run forever before they let go of it or they let go of it off what seemingly is a wrong foot and they do not have anything on the ball and that just lack of preparation.
It is a fairly simple technique to teach a little bit harder to learn, but you can do it in the leaving room or anywhere with regards to technique. So, Brian is going to help me go through the technique of a Crow hop. Crow hop is nothing more than picking up the back foot and for a right handed layer, that is going to be Brian’s right foot picking up the back foot, getting the knee high in the air and allowing the front side or his left side to come around and getting in position to throw. So as we break it down with players, we do it this way first. Okay, Brian, if you would drop your glove to the ground, notice he has got the glove outside his left foot so he does not have to slow himself down. He has also got his head down, so it allows the glove to stay down, which means, we are going to get the ball up in left.
He is going to take that right leg and he is going to release it and comes straight up in the air. It is important to go straight, so his momentum goes straight. If he goes this way, his momentum is going here. So, so straight up in the air with his knee, now he is going to drop that foot to the ground and he is going to pick up the left foot, he is going to drop it to the ground, that squares his shoulders to destroying target, allows him to get on top of the ball and to make a good strong throw.
Now, from that point when we have gone through the actual technique and they know what it looks like and how to do it, then we back it up and go half speed and we will back it up and go full speed, so I will walk through. Do not anticipate trying this the first time and making it work. It is a fairly difficult thing for a player to master, but it is also something that can be worked on virtually anywhere to get better at it. Do it again, okay, knee up, go, knee up. We are going to send Bryan back a little bit and allow him to move through the ball half speed.
We tell our outfielders this; it should never you more that two and a half steps to get rid of the ball so the goal for Bryan, once he has learned the technique of how to move his legs, the goal for Bryan is to feel the ball and get rid of the ball within two and a half steps. Anything beyond that, you take an extra step, be sure to get two extra steps minimum, six feet that you have given him regardless to your arm strength, regardless of any technique that you have are gone, regardless of dropping your bobbling the ball, he gets an extra steps just because you took too many.
Okay when we are half speed, you are going to come right to the line Bryan, okay go through it, break down, knee up and over and you will notice that he took approximately two and a half steps in terms of getting rid of the ball. Let us do it again, ready, go, break down, up, and the way it goes.
We do not need to break down in to a Crow hop position the minute he feels the ball. Okay, if we do that, we are going to have nothing on it. He has got to have a couple of steps to gather himself to get himself in the throwing position before he makes that good strong throw. Okay again, break down, up and gone. Ready, go, break down, one, two and a half, there we go, good. Go, break down, very nice.
Okay Brian, if you would stay a foot for just a second. Not that we have gone through the technique, starting a player down, teaching it how to be done and we go half speed. Now we can come back and go full speed and when we go full speed, a lot of times that you noticed that we make some mistakes and that is just because the minds have an operate really fast here and you may not be used to doing that. So, if we have to repeat it everyday for two months, then we will repeat it everyday. If you have to go home and do it on the leaving room, five minutes a day, go home and do it in the leaving room. It will pay that type of dividend(ph) if you know how to do this right. Okay Brian, we will go on full speed ion my command. Ready, go, down, Crow hop, boom. Notice how he gathers himself.
He is able to get himself under control, pretty rapidly and he is also able to gather his strength. Go, break down, keep the head down, boom. Very nice. Go(ph) and make sure you got that right knee in the air, go up. There we go. And again, you can do this anywhere. You can do it in the back yard, you can do it in the front yard, in the leaving room, if you got enough room, and you can do it anywhere.
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