How To Play Baseball: Stance & Steps Drill

(Music Playing) This is the stance and steps drill, we like to do this drill earlier on without the others to teach them how to move their feet and how to set themselves up properly. It is a great benefit to young outfielder to learn the correct way to step and how to cut out excess steps that are not necessary. One key point that I always try to give to our outfielders, is that every time you take an unnecessary, the base who is in full stride takes two. So every time you make a mistake with any type of footwork, whether it is what we are going to do now or what we will see later on, he is gaining at least six feet every time you make a single mistake, so it is imperative that we know how to move. As we go through the 5 parts of the stance and steps drill, you will be able to see the crossover step, the drop step and the angle drop step that we use in teaching our outfielders how to go after a fly ball. Creep, creep, notice how he gets his body turn and set to be able to catch the ball and also to be able to get rid of it very rapidly. If you set yourself up with your chest facing the arrival of the ball, all we have done at that point is put ourselves in a position where he is going to take his next step to get rid of it. Creep, okay now we can alter it, go the other direction, creep. Same technique, just the other direction, you may notice that Bryan is calling the ball, we like to call the ball mine, mine, mine three times, creep We feel like that if we call the ball three times, there is a better chance for an outfielder that is next to you will hear you on one or three attempts as supposed you are just calling it once. [Music playing] This is a stance and steps drill. We like to do this drill early on with outfielders to teach them how to move their feet and how to set themselves up properly. It is of great benefit to young outfielder to learn the correct way to step and how to cut out excess steps that are not necessary. One key point that I was trying to give to our outfielders is every time you take an unnecessary step, the base runner that is in full stride takes two. So every time you make a mistake with any type of footwork, whether it is what we are going to do now or what we will see later on, he is gaining at least six feet every time you make a single mistake. So it is imperative that we know how to move. As we go through the five parts of the stance and steps drill, you will be able to see the cross over step, the drop step and the angle drop step that we use in teaching our outfielders how to go after a fly ball. Creep, notice how he gets his body turn and set to be able to catch the ball and also to be able to be able to get rid off it very rapidly. If you set yourself up with your chest facing the arrival of the ball, all you have done at that point is put ourselves in a position where it is going to take us an extra step to get rid off it. Creep, now we can all turn, go to the other direction, creep, same technique, just the other direction. You may notice that Bryan is calling the ball, we like the ball mine, mine, mine, three times, creep. We feel like that if we call the ball three times, there is a better chance that an outfielder that is next to you will hear you on one or three attempts as opposed to just calling it once. Creep. Make the catch eye level throwing side with two hands, runs back through the ball. Creep. Now we are going to take our angle drop step. The important part of this drill is to make sure that whichever direction I go with the ball, he takes the same step with that same side foot. So if I go this direction with the ball to my right, it will be his left. He is going to take his first step with his left foot. If he takes the first step with his right foot, he is causing himself time and his ability to get to the ball. Creep. See he is going to catch his angle, try to be firm when the ball is coming down, making sure he is behind the ball so we can run back through it. Creep. Creep. Want to try to eliminate any small steps that do not get you anywhere when you take them. Bryan is taking just a little bit of a small step in the same place he is already at so if we can get that first move in just to his left foot, we are going to get on to the ball that much faster. Creep. Little bit bigger step with the left foot. Okay we are going to switch and go the other direction. Creep. Right foot creep. For most right handed outfielders, it is a little easier to go to the right than it is to the left. Creep. And you may notice that in the fact that he is taking a little bit bigger step with the right foot than he is with his left foot when he went to the left. Creep. Now we go drop step straight back. We always instruct our outfielders on the drop step to make sure that they go straight back and we always drop at the throwing hand side. Creep. We want to drop with the throwing hand side so if they come in contact with the outfielder fence, they have got something to caution their arrival. Drop step straight back with the right foot. We want to make sure that we are going a straight line. The shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Creep. Straight back, good first step. In stance and steps, repetition is the name of the game. If you precede each practice either an individual workout or team workout. With the stance and step drill, it is just another factor that we are going to teach a young player how to move his feet correctly as it becomes a habit. [Music playing]