Coaching Youth Softball - 6 Tips for Teaching Skills

This past weekend, Cindy Bristow of Softball Excellence was in town to conduct a coaching clinic on hitting and pitching with coaches of our program and a few others from around Montreal.

It was a great clinic. In addition to knowing the game very well, Cindy is first and foremost an awesome educator. She knows pedagogy and understands very well the learning process.

During the clinic, she talked about key points when it comes to coaching youth softball especially teaching skills to young softball players.

Here are some of the key points she discussed:

1) Get simple - don't make things complicated even if you know a lot of things.

2) Become a master communicator - what you say and especially how you say it matters a lot. Knowing the game is easy. Knowing how to teach it quickly and effectively is the hard part and what you say and how you say it is a big part of teaching it.

3) Use "image" words - the brain thinks in images, not in words. Plus, young softball players will get an instant mental picture of what you mean speeding the learning process. For example, when talking about the hitting stance for the lower body, talk about "getting ready to jump" rather than telling your kids to have their weight on the balls of your feet, their knees bent, and so on.

4) Don't overload them with information. Only emphasize one or two key things at a time.

5) Use "instant feedback" drills - There are a lot of drills out there. The best ones are the ones that will tell the athletes right away whether or not they are doing it correctly and it will help them right away make an adjustment so that they closer to what they should be doing. They are what drills that encourage self-correcting.

6) Use a global approach - don't teach a skill by "dissecting" every single part of it but rather emphasize what the overall skill should look and feel like. Look at the skill as a whole rather than bunch of different things put together.

Implement these teaching tips into your coaching and you will be much more effective at coaching youth softball.