Decision training is the future of sport performance!
Did you know that most parents, coaches and instructors, despite all the best intentions in the world, are actually hurting the development of their kids/athletes?
You see, young softball players need to have good technical skills and know how to play the game to be successful on the field and develop as talented softball players. That's the job of parents (in the early stages), coaches and instructors to help them learn the skills and how to play the game.
Most will teach skills by demonstrating how to do it, emphasizing key elements, and help the kids learn and refine the skill by giving feedback and "telling" them what isn't correct and what to change.
That's this way of giving feedback that's the problem. Unfortunately, most parents, coaches, and instructors are giving feedback that way - mostly because that's how they also received feedback in their life. However, excellent studies in sports pedagogy has shown that this method of giving feedback (direct telling of what's wrong or needs to be changed) is actually detrimental to the long-term development of athletes (i.e. they never reach their full potential).
Speed is the most talked about in the pitching circles. But we need not to forget that you need to throw strikes (or something that looks like a strike to fool the batter) to get outs and be successful.
Do you or your pitcher sometimes struggle to put the ball where you want it?
If so, I got two great accuracy drills for you.
Hit the Box. This drill is a great way to improve accuracy and ball control for pitchers. Throw uphill or a slight incline, this forces players to keep the ball down. Use a computer paper box that holds 8.5 X 11 in paper (although, any small box will work as a target). Place it on a small stool or short chair about 12 to 14 inches off the ground. Have the pitcher at the regulation distance or just slightly more and throw the ball and try to hit the box consistently. The box provides a visual "strike zone" to aim at and since this box is both narrower and smaller than the normal players’ strike zone. In addition the player can move to the right or the left a step and simulate pitching from the sides of the rubber. Have the player see if she can "strike out the batter" by hitting the box 3 out of 6 times (a full count and a 3rd strike). Any contact with the box is a strike.
I just came accross an amazing ESPN article on Mike Candrea and the passing of his wife 4 years ago a few weeks before the Olympics. It's definitely worth the read…
That was exactly 10 years ago. I was coaching a competitive 16U and it was probably one of the best offensive teams I've ever coached.
It was a well-balanced team with the unique characteristic of having the same number of lefties and righties.
At the beginning of the season, the team was composed of 9 girls that could hit (contributing offensively) and 3 girls who were struggling to put the ball in play.
These 3 girls were very frustrated and didn't feel they were contributing to the success of the team. Their confidence and self-esteem were low.
One thing I learned very early as a coach is that confidence and "the feeling at the plate" are everything when it comes to softball hitting.
I made it my goal to have all 12 of my players being an offensive threat by the end of the summer.
So, I went to work. I started to spend a lot of extra time with these 3 girls doing individual practices.
Anybody that has ever walked or driven by a local softball field during a girls' fastpitch softball game has noticed all these funny softball cheers. These softball cheers are a big part of the game for these girls. It brings them together and they use it cheers themselves up or to tease the opposite team sometimes.
It's not something you see much in baseball. Actually, in baseball, there is a negative image associated with cheering, especially as the boys get a little older and out of childhood.
But why are girls cheering so much? Well I have my little theory on that. Check my youtube video below to see what I think.
In this podcast, Marc Dagenais discusses how to effectively teach softball skills. He talks about how coaching softball requires great teaching skills; he also discusses the 3 types of learning styles and a unique characteristic of today's youth before sharing his winning recipe for teching softball skills - a step-by-step method to make you a much more effective teacher of the game.
This morning I received this great list from Cindy Bristow of Softball Excellence through her great newsletter Softball Excellence Insiders. I thought I would share it with you. Cindy is an internationally recognized softball clinician. You should definitely check her great resources.
Here's Cindy's top 10 things she learned watching the Women's College World Series:
1. Outfielders Matter - There were quite a lot of key plays in the outfield that weren't necessarily hard, but that were vital to the outcome of many of the games.
2. When Your Turn Comes, Be Ready - Megan Gibson, the pitcher from Texas A & M was living proof that when your turn comes you better be ready as she went from sharing pitching duties early in the year to pitching with a record of 41-4, and getting her team all the way to the National Championship game.
3. Find Your Role and Fill It - Amanda Scarborough from Texas A & M went from being their marquee pitcher in January to being injured and out for the year. And instead of pouting about being injured and isolating herself from the team Amanda found a new role and a new way to help her team win by doing everything possible to help the remaining pitcher, Megan Gibson, be as successful as possible! That takes a very team-oriented and unselfish player!
This weekend, I was sitting in the bleachers watching a softball game during a tournament and a man came over and introduced himself.
He recognized the logo of my website on my jacket because he`s an avid reader of this newsletter.
He told me all about his daughter - 5'6, 15 years old, lefty, throws 54-56 mph, has a decent change, trying to master the drop and the rise, practices 3 times per week for about an hour - and he said that he didn't think she had progressed over the last couple months.
I suggested to him that they should go to a pitching coach. He said that they can`t really afford it since the season cost so much so he is sorta becoming a pitching instructor for his daughter reading books and watching tapes on pitching.
After talking to him for a while and questioning him on what he was doing with his daughter, it became clear that he wasn't doing enough spin work.
I told him that I was pretty sure that's the reason he wasn't seeing much progresses lately.
