This is Stance and Balance Drill. It is another dry mirror drill that we use to check out a hitter’s stance. He can visually see his stance in the mirror and we are looking at his eyes level, his shoulders level, hips level, knees level, and is he in a good flex position with his knees and a balance position with his feet at least shoulder width apart. You can see Taylor’s are slightly more than shoulder width apart and that is a very comfortable position for him. His back is either upright or around 45-degree angle with the elbows on a 45-degree angle. He has the bat resting in his fingers as opposed to too deep back into his hands. Taylor also has excellent vertical balance in that he is working ball of foot to ball of foot and his head is over top of his bellybutton, controlling the center of gravity.
To practice this drill, you would step away from the plate then approach the plate and step back into the batters box as though you were assuming your stance once again. Every time you stepped in, you are making sure that you are going through the check points of your stance.
Before Taylor moves into a stance, he is actually going through his pre-hit routine each time. Steps away from the plate, looks down and gets a sign, places his left foot down, right foot, taps the outside part of the plate to make sure he has plate coverage and then taps the inside part of the plate.
Taping the inside part of the plate is merely a part of Taylor’s own personal hit routine. Having a pre-hit routine is a very important part of the mental approach to hitting. It helps us to relieve ourselves of distractions and to concentrate solely on hitting the baseball. Upon the completion of our pre hit routine, we are thinking hit, hit, hit.
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