Suzy Willemssen: Hi! I'm Suzy Willemssen. I am a Travel ball and high school softball coach. I have Aaron here helping me and we're going to be discussing some basic fastpitch Softball skills. In this segment, we're going to be discussing fielding and in particular backhands and some of the footwork that you want to do, when you're doing a backhand. I'm going to start though by kind of reviewing, a little bit what we're looking for when we're fielding the ball out in front and then you'll be able to see how we're going to a little different when we go to our backhands.
So, kind as a review, remember when you're fielding the ball out in front, we'll have out back flat, our bottom is down, our knees are nice and flexed, we have the glove out in front and Aaron has her hands to the side, which is fine or some people like it in front; just make sure your fingers are up if you have it out in front. So, that way it's going directly towards the ball. Now the difference with the backhand and when you don't have time to use some of that other footwork we showed is, you can get it two ways. The first way will demonstrate with Aaron is going to be getting the ball off her left foot. In this case, she is going to be down and she is going to have again the glove out in front and what's going to happen is her arm is going to kind of act like a hinge as well. So, she has the glove out in front. She is down on the left leg and now what she is going to do to be able to get her feet pointed and ready to make the throw, as she is going to step through, again the hands to the glove, gets her feet lined up and she makes the throw to the appropriate base.
So again, that's if we have to get the ball off the left foot. If you're attacking the ball and you get it off your right foot, same thing you want to get in front. Your elbow kind of acts as a little hinge here and with this you're going to almost kind of rock and fire. So, she is going to plan on her right foot, come back through, and make the throw to first base. So, that is some basic footwork when you're doing a backhand.
Also something you want to be aware of is, talking about what kind of hops and how, why we want to be aggressive when we're fielding ground balls. If you have short hop, you always want to attack a short hop. So, you can keep it a short hop. So, you wanted to be aggressive, attack a short hop, get that ball out in front. Otherwise, you want to have the ball kind of take a it's last bounce and be in essence a long hop and with that you kind of give a little bit as if you're catching an egg. So, either when you get the ball, on its short hop or its long hop, you don't want to try to get it in between because I guaranty you'll get eaten up.
So, again attack the short hop or it can be back a little bit on the long hop and treat it like as if you're trying to catch an egg. So, there are some basic elements for backhands and how to attack the different kinds of hops you'll encounter when fielding a ground ball.
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