Mini Update

[Teacherman]

Torsion Spring Levers Working Against Each Other

[jryan15]

That's great news, thanks sir. I'll continue working.

When I go through the mechanic in slow motion, I feel like I get stuck in this position. Maybe my feet are anchors, maybe I didn't get the slack out, but for whatever the reason, I feel stuck. DD seems to get stuck too, but for other reasons. This is why I ask about turning the barrel. You and Manny clearly get through. Manny appears to have a lot of wrist movement into contact, but I feel weak when I try and mimick that movement. DD says her wrists hurt when she tries, but by the picture, she is doing something wrong. The bat is falling out of the top hand. Maybe too passive with the wrists or something.

Getting stuck.JPG

[Al Oha]

What you have demonstrated is exactly what almost all of us will do. And I am with you because we all have been there. But there is a fundamental lesson to be taught here, if SnF is our goal.


This will sound foreign to you, but this is a concept you must try to understand. We are all here to learn and assist:

You cannot have stacked pivot points in both the rear hip and hands along SCIP axis , if the the hip socket rotates with the driving leg. This is what is shown in your demo. The outcome is a back pull with a bend at the waist, and not the hip socket. The waist is not a pivot point. Therefore, the swing degrades into a linkage system where one pivot point fires in sequence after the other. Your rear hip and and hand pivot points play out typical double pendulum mechanics.

Here is the detail, if interested:

Set your rear cheek on the corner of a swivel chair adjusted to about the height of your coil. The high level hitter will be able to turn his/her knee inward, right or left depending on handedness, and pull back (lean) against the backrest, without the swivel chair ever swiveling. Simultaneous launches in opposing and mutually perpendicular planes "freezes" the hip socket point. The pivot points are "stacked" so the hitter "sits". The hip socket (the butt) is the "bottom of the top". The top refers to the upper torso. The rear leg and thigh ("the bottom") are allowed to drive and rotate freely from under the chair but they do not cause it to swivel.

In your case as in everyone else's, you drive your leg, but your chair will swivel obediently towards the incoming ball. It swivels because your hip socket is naturally linked to your driving leg. This is what characterizes us as bipedal organisms. The pivot points become "unstacked': You can pull back, but you do so at the waist, and not the hip socket. When you lean back, you will miss the back rest because it had already been rotated out directly from behind: In the amateur, the hip socket is the "top of the bottom" the "bottom" referring to the rear knee, leg and thigh.

In all of the hitting world except at HI, you will see the rear hip socket become the slave of the rear leg, if not worst, the front, or somewhere in between. In the high level swing, the hip socket is only slave to the back and upper torso.

[LITHTHUNDER]

Put your hands to your sides and keep them there. Have both scapulae meet at the middle to "kiss": No hands, no arms. This is called scapular adduction because of the contraction of the rhomboid muscles.

When the medial aspect of either scapula meets the spine, two tectonic plates meet. The "bend in the sheet metal" Teach alludes to is the way the Himalayas were formed in creating Mount Everest: In SnF the rear scapula loads to jam the spine and hold throughout launch. It only gets released and unloads for the extension OPPO, following the launch rearward when the swing is spent and done with.

Thank you Al Oha!! That makes sense.. Would you say that Craig elevates his scap prior to adduction?

[jryan15]

This will sound foreign to you, but this is a concept you must try to understand. We are all here to learn and assist:

You cannot have stacked pivot points in both the rear hip and hands along SCIP axis , if the the hip socket rotates with the driving leg. This is what is shown in your demo. The outcome is a back pull with a bend at the waist, and not the hip socket. The waist is not a pivot point. Therefore, the swing degrades into a linkage system where one pivot point fires in sequence after the other. Your rear hip and and hand pivot points play out typical double pendulum mechanics.

Thank you for the explanation. That is a lot to understand... Admittedly I had to dig around just to be sure of what the SCIP axis means (scap and rearhip axis).

Please correct me as I try and dig through this... Because I take out the slack between my rear leg and the hip socket, my hip will turn when my rear leg IR's. While my leg IR's, I should be fighting it from turning. In my example I seem to have allowed my lower back to "let go" of my hips thus creating a pivot point which allowed my hips to turn while my upper back did not turn. I was not fused.

What I should have been doing when fighting was to keep a fused upper torso (upper torso = hip all the way up to scap). Do not disconnect at the lower back which allowed my hips to turn underneath my shoulders. Again please correct me if I've missed the mark.

As is evident in my posts, I've been struggling with what is making the rear elbow lower. I am especially focused on it because it seems like an easy target to cheat the system and manually lower it. I have been lost trying to determine what movements are a natural result of resistance and what movements happen because the operator is manually turning the barrel.

In my video, my elbow lowered automatically as I resisted turning. This was the point of the exercise which was to teach me(us) that the elbow will lower without being told to do so. I am currently caged up at work and am not able to try again, but should I expect that in my next attempt when I fuse my upper torso (hip to scap), my rear elbow will still lower automatically?

Thanks again everyone!

[Al Oha]

Thank you for the explanation. That is a lot to understand... Admittedly I had to dig around just to be sure of what the SCIP axis means (scap and rearhip axis).

Please correct me as I try and dig through this... Because I take out the slack between my rear leg and the hip socket, my hip will turn when my rear leg IR's. While my leg IR's, I should be fighting it from turning. In my example I seem to have allowed my lower back to "let go" of my hips thus creating a pivot point which allowed my hips to turn while my upper back did not turn. I was not fused.

What I should have been doing when fighting was to keep a fused upper torso (upper torso = hip all the way up to scap). Do not disconnect at the lower back which allowed my hips to turn underneath my shoulders. Again please correct me if I've missed the mark.

You are on "mark". The rear hip is not allowed to turn with the internally rotating rear leg and thigh, because your lower back won't let it.

....I've been struggling with what is making the rear elbow lower.

In my video, my elbow lowered automatically as I resisted turning. This was the point of the exercise which was to teach me(us) that the elbow will lower without being told to do so. I am currently caged up at work and am not able to try again, but should I expect that in my next attempt when I fuse my upper torso (hip to scap), my rear elbow will still lower automatically?

Continue your efforts with the conceptual understanding. The rear elbow lowers because the lower back pulls the locked scapula rearward, against the force and direction the driving rear leg wants to command. The leg eventually wins.

[Stealth]

Ryan's first college home run today vs the USC Trojans!

[mikecon]

Ryan's first college home run today vs the USC Trojans!

Niiiiiiiiice!!!

So great for you both -- congrats!... One of many to come...

[Pronk]

Nice...... Dang how cool is that.

[Pronk]

If someone can make a gif if this I'd like to see it. My download is coming out grainy, and I don't know if it's the video from far away and my rules are making the file size too large or just my download helper settings are all screwed up.

[Teacherman]

What I hear in that voice at the end gives me goose bumps.

[Teacherman]

What everyone else sees.....



What I see.....

[ropes]

Nice! Early success is huge.

[Stealth]

What everyone else sees.....



What I see.....

The take was a 1-1 curve ball off a 3/4 arm lefty. The next pitch was another curve ball..........oops!

[LITHTHUNDER]

That's awesome, how exciting!! Congrats Stealth.