| SOFTBALL TIPS |
|
|
|
| SITE STUFF |
|
|
|
|
ARCHIVES
|
| • |
June 26, 2005 |
| • |
July 03, 2005 |
| • |
July 10, 2005 |
| • |
July 17, 2005 |
| • |
July 24, 2005 |
| • |
July 31, 2005 |
| • |
August 07, 2005 |
| • |
August 14, 2005 |
| • |
August 21, 2005 |
| • |
August 28, 2005 |
| • |
September 11, 2005 |
| • |
October 02, 2005 |
| • |
October 09, 2005 |
| • |
October 23, 2005 |
| • |
October 30, 2005 |
| • |
November 06, 2005 |
| • |
November 13, 2005 |
| • |
December 04, 2005 |
| • |
December 18, 2005 |
| • |
December 25, 2005 |
| • |
January 08, 2006 |
| • |
January 15, 2006 |
| • |
January 29, 2006 |
| • |
February 05, 2006 |
| • |
February 12, 2006 |
| • |
February 19, 2006 |
| • |
February 26, 2006 |
| • |
March 05, 2006 |
| • |
March 12, 2006 |
| • |
March 19, 2006 |
| • |
March 26, 2006 |
| • |
April 02, 2006 |
| • |
April 09, 2006 |
| • |
April 16, 2006 |
| • |
April 23, 2006 |
| • |
April 30, 2006 |
| • |
May 07, 2006 |
| • |
May 14, 2006 |
| • |
May 21, 2006 |
| • |
May 28, 2006 |
| • |
June 04, 2006 |
| • |
June 11, 2006 |
| • |
June 18, 2006 |
| • |
June 25, 2006 |
| • |
July 09, 2006 |
| • |
July 16, 2006 |
| • |
July 23, 2006 |
| • |
July 30, 2006 |
| • |
August 13, 2006 |
| • |
August 20, 2006 |
| • |
September 03, 2006 |
| • |
September 10, 2006 |
| • |
September 17, 2006 |
| • |
September 24, 2006 |
| • |
October 01, 2006 |
| • |
October 08, 2006 |
| • |
October 15, 2006 |
| • |
October 22, 2006 |
| • |
November 12, 2006 |
| • |
November 26, 2006 |
| • |
December 31, 2006 |
| • |
January 14, 2007 |
| • |
January 21, 2007 |
| • |
January 28, 2007 |
| • |
February 04, 2007 |
| • |
February 11, 2007 |
| • |
February 18, 2007 |
| • |
February 25, 2007 |
| • |
March 04, 2007 |
| • |
March 11, 2007 |
| • |
March 18, 2007 |
| • |
April 01, 2007 |
| • |
April 08, 2007 |
| • |
April 15, 2007 |
| • |
April 22, 2007 |
| • |
April 29, 2007 |
| • |
May 06, 2007 |
| • |
May 13, 2007 |
| • |
May 20, 2007 |
| • |
May 27, 2007 |
| • |
June 03, 2007 |
| • |
June 10, 2007 |
| • |
June 17, 2007 |
| • |
June 24, 2007 |
| • |
July 01, 2007 |
| • |
July 22, 2007 |
| • |
July 29, 2007 |
| • |
August 12, 2007 |
| • |
August 19, 2007 |
| • |
September 02, 2007 |
| • |
September 16, 2007 |
| • |
September 30, 2007 |
| • |
October 07, 2007 |
| • |
October 14, 2007 |
| • |
October 21, 2007 |
| • |
November 04, 2007 |
| • |
November 18, 2007 |
| • |
November 25, 2007 |
| • |
December 02, 2007 |
| • |
December 09, 2007 |
| • |
December 16, 2007 |
| • |
January 13, 2008 |
| • |
February 17, 2008 |
| • |
February 24, 2008 |
| • |
March 02, 2008 |
| • |
March 09, 2008 |
| • |
March 30, 2008 |
| • |
April 06, 2008 |
| • |
April 13, 2008 |
| • |
April 20, 2008 |
| • |
April 27, 2008 |
| • |
May 04, 2008 |
| • |
May 11, 2008 |
| • |
May 18, 2008 |
| • |
May 25, 2008 |
| • |
June 01, 2008 |
| • |
June 15, 2008 |
| • |
June 22, 2008 |
| • |
June 29, 2008 |
| • |
July 06, 2008 |
| • |
July 13, 2008 |
| • |
July 20, 2008 |
| • |
August 03, 2008 |
| • |
August 10, 2008 |
| • |
August 17, 2008 |
| • |
August 24, 2008 |
| • |
August 31, 2008 |
| • |
September 07, 2008 |
| • |
September 14, 2008 |
| • |
September 21, 2008 |
| • |
September 28, 2008 |
| • |
October 05, 2008 |
| • |
October 12, 2008 |
| • |
October 19, 2008 |
| • |
October 26, 2008 |
| • |
November 02, 2008 |
| • |
November 09, 2008 |
| • |
November 16, 2008 |
| • |
November 30, 2008 |
| • |
December 07, 2008 |
| • |
December 21, 2008 |
| • |
December 28, 2008 |
| • |
February 15, 2009 |
| • |
February 22, 2009 |
| • |
April 12, 2009 |
| • |
April 19, 2009 |
| • |
April 26, 2009 |
| • |
May 03, 2009 |
| • |
May 10, 2009 |
| • |
May 17, 2009 |
| • |
May 24, 2009 |
| • |
May 31, 2009 |
| • |
June 07, 2009 |
| • |
June 14, 2009 |
| • |
June 21, 2009 |
| • |
July 05, 2009 |
| • |
July 12, 2009 |
| • |
July 19, 2009 |
| • |
August 02, 2009 |
| • |
August 30, 2009 |
| • |
September 06, 2009 |
| • |
September 20, 2009 |
| • |
October 04, 2009 |
| • |
October 11, 2009 |
| • |
October 18, 2009 |
| • |
November 08, 2009 |
| • |
November 15, 2009 |
| • |
November 22, 2009 |
| • |
November 29, 2009 |
| • |
December 27, 2009 |
| • |
January 03, 2010 |
| • |
January 10, 2010 |
| • |
January 17, 2010 |
| • |
January 24, 2010 |
| • |
January 31, 2010 |
| • |
March 14, 2010 |
| • |
March 21, 2010 |
| • |
March 28, 2010 |
| • |
April 04, 2010 |
| • |
April 18, 2010 |
| • |
April 25, 2010 |
|
|
| SOFTBALL LINKS |
|
|
|
Difficult Issue
by Dave
Friday, January 18, 2008
I have something I need to talk to you about. This is a difficult, deeply emotional, personal subject. I'm not sure how to bring this up. As I say, it is a difficult topic. This has to do with perhaps the most personal issue on the softball diamond. What I'm talking about is, your choice of bat.
Many, many, far too many times, I hear the question posed. Which bat should I get for my daughter? The question should make anyone gasp. There is no good answer to it. And offering anything but sound advice can be potentially fatal.
I remember the first time I came into contact with these new-fangled, composite bats. I was filling out the uniform order form for our first travel team. After the shorts, jersey, sliders, socks, etc. was a line item for something called a "Catalyst." And the price near it was in the neighborhood of 200 bucks. I looked closer but did so with much trepidation.
To me, the uninitiated pafrent, this looked gimmicky. How could any bat be worth $200? I started asking questions. Before long, I got a lot of answers. The consensus was, these things were worth my consideration.
At some point my daughter must have tried one of those bats because she began asking for it. I gasped at the thought of spending that much for a bat. Then I began to think about what we had spent on hitting lessons and clinics, not to mention pitching lessons and cage rental for batting practices. I softened and began considering stepping into that ice cold water.
My daughter, for her part, really liked a particular bat. And she never let up on me. She began bargaining. At one point, she promised to not go to college; forget about the prom, or go to it in jeans; elope rather than get married at a formal wedding; skip her birthday and Christmas; etc. I figured it was time to reach into my pocket.
She told me what sort of bat she wanted and we bought one, I believe it was at full retail price. Of course, her first time up with that bat, she hit the ball about twice as well as she ever had before. It wasn't just the magic of the composite metal. Perhaps more importantly, the way the weight was situated in the bat actually improved her swing. You could see it very clearly from 15 or 1500 feet. She was simply more comfortable swinging this thing. She hit the ball well. And she's hit well ever since we bought that. Bats do make a difference. I'm a composite convert.
Recently a friend of mine had a very difficult day. He got in his mind that his daughter ought to finally get one of these bats and somebody gave him some advice about which one to get. He had a good week and made some extra money. So he arranged to meet an acqaintance at a sporting goods store who would cut him a deal and get him about a 20% discount off of retail. He showed up at the store but the acquaintance had left for the day and could not return. He wanted the bat and the money was burning a hole in his pocket so he paid full retail. This one was one of the most expensive bats on the market.
Later, the friend and his daughter took some batting practice. He took off the plastic sleeve and swung a few times. You could tell by the look in his eyes that he liked the feel of it. It reminded me of that Jean Shepherd movie, "A Christmas Story," in which the father wins a prize in some contest. The prize is a women's-leg-lamp and the father is incredibly proud of it. That's the way this guy looked at the bat he had bought his daughter. He handed the thing over to its new owner and she went inside the cage to take some swings with it.
On the first pitch, she timed it well and hit the ball pretty hard. In the next second, she dropped the bat and held her hands as if she had just been electrocuted. She proclaimed, "ow, it stings!" Then she took another swing and the same thing happened. She did not like this bat! The father's proud, happy contenance diminished quite a bit. He told her to get out of the cage and grabbed one of her friends to test it out. She stepped in and repeated the academy-award winning performance of the guy's daughter. So he grabbed another and another and the thing repeated itself in a horrible nightmarish version of "Groundhog Day." He said something to me along the lines of "maybe this one is defective." Finally, he found one girl who stood in there taking swing after swing without any complaints. He said, "maybe its not the bat." It was horrible to see the dream of this guy get crushed like that. He had spent more than he wanted to get this thing. And it looked as if his daughter was never going to use it.
There's a lesson in this. That's why I'm writing about it today. Ask me what kind of expensive composite bat to get your daughter and I'll tell you, "whichever one she likes." They all hit the ball about the same speed, at least in ASA testing. They are all different in terms of grips and weighting. And the single most important factor is the user's feeling about it. You've got to get a bat your daughter likes. And there's no way to tell without testing some. So try a bunch of them before you buy.
The girls on your daughter's team probably have several different composite bats, or at least one or two. Ask if you can borrow one. I keep all my old composite bats around just in case someone wants to test drive one. I've got various lengths/weights and a couple varieties. I would never again buy a composite bat again without my daughter test driving a comparable model.
Another piece of advice I have for you is to take a good look around to see if you can get a better price than the first one you see. I have bought numerous bats via e-bay for a significant discount off retail. When you go on ebay, you need to take a look at the seller's feedback. Stay away from anyone who has any dings against them. You ought to be able to find someone with a perfect record and get a reasonable price. But ebay is not the only place where you can get good value. And sometimes the shipping costs there can wipe out any discount. When you buy on ebay, take note not only of the cost of the item but the shipping too. Then compare that with what you can pay elsewhere. Many online stores will ship for free and offer very similar overall prices to those on the internet auction sites. Sometimes, not often, local stores might offer a good price.
It is important that wherever you get the bat from that it be NIW (new in wrapper) and come with the manufacturer's warranty. Most bat sellers on ebay do deal in NIW merchandise but there are a few people selling used bats. Stay away from those even if the seller is willing to give you an attestation, under oath, that the bat was only used by a grandmother in the Sunday slowpitch church league and she was a drag bunter. You are going to pay a lot for this and you want new. The only way I would buy used is from someone I know and at a drastically reduced price. That way, if it bresaks, I won;t be out that much and can buy a new one. You may be surprised just how valuable that warranty will prove to be. I know many people who have used them.
My advice is do get a composite bat. They are better than standard ones and your daughter's hitting will improve. Just make sure it is one that your daughter will love. Make her test out a few before committing to one. Buy it for the best price you can find whether that be on ebay (remember: cost plus shipping), online somewhere else or at a local store. Get a new one. Make sure it has the wrapper intact and it comes with a warranty.
Lest I forgot, don't use this bat in the cages with those machine balls. Use it only with real softballs. And keep batting practice down to a minimum. These things wear out pretty rapidly. Someday, a year or two later, you may buy another new bat. Keep the old one. Then you can use it for batting practice or let others take a couple swings with it to see if they like that kind.
The most personal issue in softball is the choice of bat. Get a good one. Get the right one. Don't share it very much.Labels: non-wood bats
Permanent Link: Difficult Issue
 
Drills Or Skills?
by Dave
Monday, January 14, 2008
Recently, I was asked by a coach for some drills (my best ones of course) to help him run his practices more effectively. I spent this entire weekend at practices and clinics, only a few of which was I personally involved in. That gave me a lot of time to think about the sort of drills I wanted to give to this fellow. What I came up with was none - no drills. Let me explain why that is.
A while ago I was involved in a practice as a helper. We came to a point at which the girls would be split up into stations and each of these helpers was given a particular station, say at a batting tee or some such. I was told, you run some sort of defensive drill over there. My first reaction was "what sort of defensive drill?" But I didn't bother to ask the question since everybody was headed in different directions. I have any number of drills in my head but none of them was suitable for the limited space I had been assigned. Three very young girls walked over to the space behind me and asked "so, what are we going to do?" I had to come up with something fast
I could have drawn a circle on the ground, handed out marbles and taught the girls how to shoot marbles while telling them that this is good for hand-eye coordination. They would never have questioned me and instead just dutifully complied. The other coaches wouldn't have cared what I was doing unless I failed to keep 3 girls out of trouble. I truly had free reign. But I didn't want to waste my time or anyone else's.
I looked into my bag of tricks and found a can of tennis balls and some cones. So I decided I would make use of them. One of the skills I had found lacking in the girls on this particular team was the ability to move side to side while tracking and fielding a ball. So I told one girl to step out between a couple cones about twnety feet apart and I bounced a ball to her side which she then fielded and tossed back to me. I showed the girls how I wanted them to move side to side - the footwork - and how I wanted them to keep their shoulders squared to me. I had two balls in my hands, bounced one to my right, then immediately as they caught the first, I bounced the second to my left. Back and forth each girl would go fielding these balls and huffing and puffing. Each girl took their turn and fielded I would guess about a dozen bounces before getting completely out of breath. When girls missed balls, I would explain to them why I thought they had missed it - typically mechanical failures,. poor footwork, or lack of balance. I made sure the girls moved properly in the manner I had instructed them,correcting each error I observed and praising each kid as they finished the drill. After a couple turns, I would send one or two of them off to the next station and then instruct my new girls who had rotated to me with the skills I wanted them to use.
The girls rotated through the various stations and after about a half hour to an hour, they had made their way around the whole thing. The first girl I had run the drill with came over and said "Can we do that again? That was fun. The other stations are boring." Obviously, I complied.
After a while, several parents found their way to my station and stood watching the drill. I got pretty sweaty and at some point, one parent offered to take it over. He didn't run it perfectly but he had been listening to me and did a fair job. What I think he lacked, and this was my fault, was a clear understanding of what I was trying to accomplish.
At a later practice session, we again broke up into stations. But this time I was given something more concrete to do. One of the other parents went digging through my bag and found the cones and tennis balls. He came out ostensibly to run the same drill I had used the week before. I was busy minding my own business but at one point I had a break in the action. So I turned to see how my invented drill was doing. I was shocked to see that it was being conducted completely wrong. I won't go into details but suffice it to say that there was nothing being gained by that particular drill as it was run by this other fellow.
I think you can see where I'm going with this discussion. It's hardly rocket science. Drills are not nearly as important as skills. Every drill which has ever been invented started with some idea about a skill which was lacking. From there, the coach taught the skill and then created the drill to fit his needs. But the teaching of the skill was more important than the drill itself.
I think sometimes we coaches fall into a trap when we observe other coaches' drills and then try to emulate them. This is not just a trap for the casual recreational coach or the inexperienced travel coach, but for all coaches at whatever level. I have heard professional coaches discuss this tendency.
I once had a discussion with a highly skilled professional coach (call him a "master coach") who noted that so and so (call him the "apprentice") once coached with him. This apprentice observed the master for a year or two and then decided to open his own school. The master told me he had often noticed the apprentice observing his lessons. After the split, if you attended both coaches' schools, you would be surprised at the apparent similarity of drills they ran. Yet the master continued to spit out very good players and the apprentice only occassionally did so.
What was lacking in the apprentice? The apprentice never got a full handle on the underlying skills the master was teaching. As the master put it, the apprentice was able to accurately copy his drills but because he lacked the knowledge of the foundations of them, he was not able to correct his students as well as he might have. Had he been humble and realized his shortcomings, he would have been a proper apprentice, learned the whole truth, and been just as successful as his master.
I know I have fallen into this trap on a couple occassions. I observed Howard Kobata running one of his excellent clinics. While there I jotted some notes for certain drills and later rewrote my notes so I would know the drills cold. Then I took a team I was managing and had them run a few of the drills. My experience was not quite what I was looking for. Later I observed these drills being run again and found that I had been running them perfectly. I wasn't getting something wrong or missing some aspect of the drill itself. What I had failed to fully appreciate, however, was the reason for the drill. Wihtout that knowledge, I had no hope of succeeding. Further to the point, I had also failed to recognize the skill progression which led up to the drill I wanted to copy. So my kids weren't even ready to run the drill I wanted to use.
So now I return to the coach who asked me for drills. For the sake of argument, that coach is anybodsy who has reached this point in this particular blog posting. If you've bothered to read this far, there's a decent chance you're hoping that I'll give you some drills. I will and I won't.
Ket's start at the start. I don't want to quivel over certain skills I see as fundamental or others which others do. When we're talking about hitting, maybe some of you are rotational mechanics fans, some others are linear advocates, and a few maybe go with Charley Lau's school. All of that is fine. It doesn't matter to me which style of hitting you advocate and teach. What matters to me, for purposes of this article, is that you start with some basic skills which lead up to the finished product - your desired swing. The same is true for defense though I doubt there is quite as much legitimate debate on those points.
When I think of defense, I think of throwing, fielding a grounder, line drive or pop-up, and the footwork with which each of these things is accomplished. But I don't think of them in that order. Obviously, we are all Earth-bound by gravity. The thing which adheres us to terra-firma is our feet. Because we are not able to twist 360 degrees via our necks or torsoes, our feet are the most important element of any athletic movement. So in any hierarchy of physical skills, I think you have to place footwork above all else. After that, there are certain issues of posture which come in second place, then come certain movements like the throwing mechanics which are evident above the feet, then above the legs, and finally, there is the mental aspect including knowing where to go with a throw, etc.
I want to point out a couple traps I see for coaches of teams. Often I hear parents and rec coaches talking about an aspect of the game which they think is very important, maybe the most important element. The way I have heard this is "I want my team to always know where to go with the ball. These girls should know this by now."
That phrase is often uttered by coaches of 10U rec teams! 0; I won't argue against the notion that 9 and 10 year old girls should know where to throw the ball except to say that I've yet to see the game in which even the best 10U team knew that every single time. By best I mean best in the country, not best within walking distance of my home. I'm sure that there is a 10U team out there which played a game in which they made not one single error and always knew where to throw the ball. Maybe it was the ASA or NSA national championship game. I missed that one. But I'm sure that even the national championship team had at least one instance in which a girl from their team fielded a ball cleanly and then looked to the wrong base before making a late throw to the right one. But I'm going to far afield.
If we go back to the coach who I heard utter the phrase, he was talkingabout rec players in their first or second year of play. I understand that the coach wanted the girl playing second to recognize she had an opportunity to throw to the SS covering second when she fielded a hard hit grounder. he taught those girls that. But what he failed to teach the 2B were:
1) how to field a grounder generally
2) how to field a grounder to your right,
3) how to field a grounder to your left,
4) how to throw properly generally,
5) how to throw to first from 2B,
6) how to throw to second from 2B,
7) how to throw to second from 2B when a ball is hit to your right,
8) how to throw to second from 2B when a ball is hit to your left,
9) what to do when the SS falls asleep and doesn't show up for the play because she is drawing daisies in the dirt,
10) etc., etc. and so forth.
His 2B knew exactly where to make a play and that's what he had taught her. Unfortunately, she was unable to make the play because she hadn't been taught how to do it. She hadn't been taught any of the skills necessary to make it. Let's be clear about something, she was able to make the out at second the majority of times ... at 10U ... but when she progressed, she wasn't able to get the out when the runner from first took off at release, reached second base in under 3 seconds, etc. Her skill set was not developed to make the play properly though she would always, for the rest of her life, recognize where the play should be made. Most likely, she's out there coaching youth sports now and teaching her charges where to make the play, though not how to make it.
Another trap I see coaches fall into is the "game" or "winning" trap. We want the kids to come together as a team and win. Heck, let's admit it. We don't ever engage in practice mrely with the idea that our team is going to eventually learn to play competitively against the monstrous team or the arch-nemesis across town. We want to win! We get halfway through winter workouts and start fantasizing that maybe this team can go far. Then we finally go outside and our opponent picks us apart in some fashion that we didn't foresee. They bunt and, for unknown reasons, we never got to bunt defense during the indoor workouts. They dothis and we're not prepared. We find ways to lose which the coaches never fathomed. Then we go back to practice and address all the things we did wrong. We skip all those skills drills and move right into game situations. Then we do hitting because we just didn't hit last game.
The reason I call this a trap is because when we begin trying to address all those stupid plays we made which caused us to lose, we forget about how important all the skills are. After a few weeks of practicing in this fashion, our girls will start playing better as a team. But their skills will no longer progress.
So to get back on track, the way I see any drills I might give to you involves a philosophical understanding. First off, no single drill is going to make your team better. Where we start is with a list of skills. And then, we design drills to fit those skills with an eye towards starting with the feet and then moving up the body. What I'm talking about today is a rational skill progression which yields a logical drill progression.
If you're not really getting what I'm talking about, I'm probably just not explaining it right. Go watch some professional coach with a tremendous reputation and see what he or she does. Almost invariably, the skilled coach will start with some incredibly basic aspect of the skill they are teaching. He or she will make sure the student is doing it right. Then and only then will he or she move on to more advanced skills.
I remember a discussion I had with a parent of a pitcher who was considered very good by many but unlikely to reach much higher. Her mechanics were off. The parent pointed out to me that her daughter threw in an orthodox manner. This parent had taken her daughter to see one of the finest pitching coaches in the country but that lesson had not progressed the way they had hoped. The fantastic pitching coach had failed to teach her any of the advanced skills they had wanted her to learn. He instead focused on a few very fundamental things. When the kid couldn't perform those, the coach stuck with ever more basic aspects of the pitching form. Rather than progress to higher level skills, he moved backwards into ever more simplistic things until the kid could perform something right. Then he moved back up the ladder to somehwat more advanced skills. And then the lesson was over.
So there I was watching some clinic while pondering what I would tell this coach who wanted me to give him some drills for his team. I was struggling. Then it finally occurred to me that what I needed to do was enter into a discussion with him about skills. Once we understood the same skill set, at least some partial aspect of overall softball skills, then I could begin discussing some drills for his team. My goal was not so much to give him a list of drills with charts explaining each one. Rather I hoped we could come to some sort of understanding about a skill and then work our way through a skill-drill progression.
We discussed the need for girls to field a grounder and make a quick throw to first. The team at issue was 14U and the girls were beginning to get out of the box quickly and make it down to first in a hurry. One of the things which was hurting his team was the number of times opponents would beat out routine grounders. So I figured this was as good a place to start as any.
We talked about the fact that he belived the girls all could adequately field a ground ball. He also felt that his infielders all had good arms. That's kind of what confounded him. How can a reasonably athletic girl with a good arm on more than one occassion during a game field a ball cleanly and not get the out at first. I watched some of these fielders run through basic ground ball drills. They did in fact field most balls cleanly. They did in fact possess reasonably strong throwing arms. But as I sat that watching, I noticed something. A girl got herself ready to field a grounder but her body posture was wrong. She charged a grounder but did so only about half the distance I would have expected. As she approached the ball, she seemed to be preparing herself to make a really good throw. Before the ball got to her, her body posture changed as she prepared to enter into a wind-up to make the absolutely strongest possible throw. She lost all her body's momentum. She stopped waited for the ball, fielded it,mwound up and whipped it to first.
The effect of what I observed was what appeared to me to be a slow motion replay. I'm sure not everyone sitting there could see what it was which made the play so slow. Some might have thought the coach hadn't hit the ball hard enough. Some might have said she didn;t charge enough because she lacks confidence in her ability to field. Some might have said that girl is just not athletic enough toplay infield or something along those lines. The truth is she had never been taught (or had never learned) the proper footwork to make the play. So, because she didn't know the footwork, she had become reliant on what she did know how to do - throw the ball hard. And in so doing, she had begun to actually slow down her approach to the ball in order to position herself to take advantage of her one best skill.
What this girl needed was to work on the most basic of all ground balls drills. She needed not top have balls hit hard at her and then make full distance throws. She needed grounders rolled to her, to make the play off the correct foot, and to throw a short distance very quickly.
As I watched the practice progress, I realized that this girl was certainly not alone. In fact most of the girls who played infield for this team made the same mistake. The fielded balls without properly charging them, often fielded off the wrong foot, and then wound up and threw as hard as they could to first. Those wind-ups alone accounted for a quarter to a half a second additional time and were most likely attributable to the number of grounders which had been beaten out against this team.
Let me detail that again just to be clear because I think this is the greatest weekness non-west coast kids exhibit in softball competitions. If you observe two girls field a grounder and make a throw to first, and one of those girls has an extraordinary throwing arm with poor footwork while the other possesses an inferior arm but great foot work, you will notice something. What you will notice is the throw from the girl with inferior arm gets there first. I wish I could demonstarte this on video tape as a side by side screenshot but I'm not set up for that. If I could, it would looke something like this:
Two girls go for the ball. The one on the right of the screen has a very good arm. The one on the left has good footwork. The girl on the left gets to the ball first, about .2 of a second sooner. She fields left of her center line, and pivots. The girl on the right has just reached the ball and she has no momentum with which to pivot. The girl on the left has now thrown the ball and her throw was accuratebuts takes its time getting there since she has a weak arm. As the girl on the left releases the ball, the girl on the right is hopping into throwing position. As the ball on the left hits the first baseman's glove, the girl on the right has reached the point at which she is stepping towards the target and she whips the ball to first. The ball reaches first a hald second after the one on the left did so.
You can question this if you like but I believe I have observed it many times. My kid was the one on the right, the slow one with poor footwork. But we're correcting that.
Moving back to drills for the coach. Of the entire conversation I had with the coach, we discussed the basic skills for about 25% of the time just to make sure we both believed in the samethings. Then we followed it up with about half our time spent discussing his team's evident shortcomings. Then we discussed the skills which needed to be improved in oder to address these issues. Then I said, "OK then. I hope I helped you somewhat." He looked at me with something close to horror and said, "but I though you were going to give me some drills!?"
The truth is I don't need to give him any drills. Thje truth is I don't need to give you any drills. I could list it out step by step and then give you some charts. You would then take that, study it, try it in practice, check it out again and then begin perfecting the drills. And it wouldn't do you much good if you didn't have a skill set in mind, mold the drills to develop those skills in your players, teach the skill, correct your players mistakes, adapt the drills to reinforce them, and demonstrate how they are used in games.
It isn't about drills. It's about skills. It isn't about individual drills. It is about drill progressions to teach and reinforce skill progressions. If you have the fundamentals in your head, you can come up with the drills. You need to get those fundamentals firmly set in your brain. Then you need to be able to explain/demostrate them in simple, easy to understand steps. Then you need to have your players do something using one such skill. Then you need to have a bridge by which your players can bring the skill into the more practical world. Finally, the end of the progression can bring the skill into an actual softball game setting.
This is all you really need to know to coach effectively, assuming you have your heart in the right place, you are reasonably patient, you are a humble student of the game, you are organized, yada, yada, yada. Well, at least if you know this, you can emulate other people's drills and you'll probably improve upon them rather than merely duplicating them. Good luck!Labels: coaching, defense
Permanent Link: Drills Or Skills?
|
|
|
