Suzy Willemssen: Hi! I'm Suzy Willemssen. I'm a Travel Ball and high school softball coach. I've got Aaron here helping me. We're going over some basic fastpitch softball skills. We've been talking about hitting, we've talked about the grip, bat selection, things we want to look for in our stance. Now we're going to talk a little bit about the actual swing itself and some key elements, principles that you want to make sure you have began to give to you that nice, good, powerful, and quick swing.
Aaron is already a bit in her stance, so she has a good two-eyed look and the bat is at 45. Now what she needs to do is; what she does in her case to get things going to load her body, so she can get her weight shifted and get a good firm front side and then she will actually initiate the swing. Aaron does not pick her foot up. She does it more of like an internal way shift, so she'll come back a negative move, but then she comes forward from front side. You'll notice she kept her hands back. What this does is it creates a good stretch. So, now everything is tight, locked and now I'd like to say that she's got a good stretch. Now, its time for fire and now she is actually going to be swinging the bat. So, she's got again her good firm at front side, that's pretty much where we want our center of pressure to be, we don't want it left on the back, we don't want it to be squishing the bug, anything of that nature that can cause some problems that I'll discuss later on. But she's got a good firm at front side. Her bat still at the 45-degree angle, now Aaron would be starting to a rotational part of her swing. You can see she is maintaining her connection and she is making sure that her elbow is getting inside her body. This allows for a couple of things you know, as she is coming through the bat will stay in a good part of her hitting zone and it is also is very important that she is maintaining her wrist in a cocked position.
She wants to maintain this position until finally -- her body decides it to release and whip the bat ahead into the ball; she had extension and then follow-through. So, we'll go one more time with Aaron kind of showing how she has her dance in her stance, gets herself going and then we'll bring in Christie because she has a little different way of doing that. In fact, this is a trial in her process. You got to find out as a hitter what's going to get you in the best position to allow for bat quickness and bat speed to get that stretch and fire so you consistently hit the ball hard and you can consistently hit the ball square. So, again Aaron is ready to go, she's got her good stance, a good two-eyed look. Now she is thinking okay, I got to get things going, I got to get myself good stretch, so she does her weight shift in front side, that bat is coming around, she is keeping connected her hands are still staying back. She is not pushing them forward, that's very important and her elbows there getting in and she is coming through, coming through and then now it's time to wrist her cock now, it's time to release, bat ahead whips in, she's got extension. Now, her wrist will roll and there is her follow-through.
Okay. Christie, why don't you come in, you have a little different way of getting things going. This is where people think its style, but I look at more that's the way this person is found out to get things going for them. So, here is Christie. Her stance is a little different than you can see from Aaron's, but again she still got the good two-eyed look. She is a little more upright. Now, as Christie gets going -- go in slow motion, but she actually takes her step. She comes forward, same thing, connected, wrist cocked, bat whips through, contact, extension and follow-through. Both players very important are getting to their front side and this is where the center of pressure kind of the weight should be, you want to be hitting against a firm front side. I'll use Christie and I'll show some things that happen and that are flaws that I see quite often when I'm working with students. If they don't have any movement and they're just going to try to just turn and swing as quick as possible or try to overcome inertia, often the player will do it by dropping their hands and that's going to cause some problems or they'll take the bat and they'll get it flat. When you get the bat too flat, it would also often occurs that this elbow doesn't get where it needs to be and then it end up swinging around the ball, so doesn't it matter where the ball is pitched. Everything is going to be going towards the left side. Pitching tip: pitch that girl some inside heat and she'll never get it.
Another thing, I'll see players do is, that they un-cock their wrist too soon. So, right here again, we want to make sure we keep this cocked all the way. Often the player -- when they start to swing, the release that way back here and again you can see what kind of problems that cause for swinging around the ball. Again, we want to keep this 45, some people have it a little higher, that's fine, but keep it cocked as you're coming to the zone. Now, ready to go. This in fact will allow you to get about any type of pitch. If it's a little lower, your hands will go down a little bit, but you're still connected and then you release down here.
On an inside pitch, you keeping cocked, cocked, cocked coming holding, holding it and then you'll be able to take that inside pitch and actually drive it fair. Be careful about the old adage about squishing the bug, if you tip your weight on your backside and you try to swing, often it what will happen is, in that's when you get that huge, big, upper cut and that causes problems as well. So, hopefully those are some tips that'll help you, some flaws and then kind of a emphasizing points of getting little dance, getting a little rhythm and just some basic principles as you want to do when you want to start forming a powerful, quick softball swing.
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