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I Skyped with Kyle and his dad Eric (ersmith) yesterday and had a productive session.
Here is Kyle's previous thread.
http://www.hittingillustrated.com/fo...highlight=kyle
Whenever I work with someone for the first time, I have to go though a series trial and error cues, to try to get him to find either the hand pivot point or the rear hip pivot point. If I can get the hitter to do one of them, I can usually get him to improve the other because they are so interrelated to the overall move. I usually start with the hand pivot point.
So, I first had Kyle turn the barrel with his hands while trying to 'hold' the shoulders and hips square.....keep them from moving....to introduce the hand pivot point. I wasn't having much success with that. So, I went to the lower body and tried to have him 'shift and swing' instead of 'shift then swing'. Still no success. In fact, some of the resulting movements were completely whacky....no offense to Kyle....they were just a result of my cue being interpreted by his overall body pattern and they simply weren't compatible. Both HG and jbooth have been through this.
I finally had to go 'big'....I had to go to a 'full body move'.....a 'full body cue'....to get him to change his overall pattern. The 'small cues'....hands....hips....were being 'blocked' by his concept of what the overall move was. His overall body move was a swing down with shoulder rotation. And no matter what cue I offered....the shoulder rotation would dominate.
So....the full body cue I offered was 'show me the most ridiculous uppercut you can'.
And he immediately fell into the pattern. The result is a 'big' version of the pattern. It's a little sloppy. It needs to be tightened up. But, when you get a hitter into the 'big' version of the pattern, tighening is relatively easy....especially easy when compared to breaking down his overall guardrails. I've posted before how when working with hitters they try to 'add' what I'm cueing to their existing swing....instead of changing their existing swing. This was another example of that. The guard rails had to be broken down.
The comparison videos above are by no means perfect. But, I'd like to point out the improvements.
Neither the hand pivot point nor the rear hip pivot point are perfect. Each are a little sloppy. They both will be improved. BUT....the exceptional thing that came out of the 'overall body cue'....the uppercut cue.....was.....is.....the overlap We talk a lot about the rear hip turning in front of the hands. Notice in the 'before' clip how his rear hip 'pushes' his hands instead of pulls them....because it never gets in front. This may be a difficult thing for many of you to 'see'. It is more easily 'felt'. You may have to feel it before you see it. But once you 'get it' it just jumps out at you every time you see a clip. Basically the rear hip moves in front and turns from in front of the hands...thereby 'pulling' the hands....instead of pushing them....and this leads to the whip/cusp.
Kyle 'found' the overlap today. Hopefully he will develop an understanding of that and build his swing based on that underlying move that 'just happened' as a result of changing his overall body cue.
Where do we go from here? Well....you can still see a hint of shoulder rotation in his swing. This means he isn't truly 'bypassing' the shoulders. He isn't truly 'resisting' rotation of the shoulders. He's trying....but it's sloppy. When we can get a more solid platform from the torso.....by resisting shoulder rotation....he'll be able to turn the handle better....tigher.....before the hands move....they are being moved too early by the shoulder rotation now....AND.....he'll get a tighter more sudden cusp as the hips 'win' the tug of war. That resistance will also help him control his weight....and keep it back a little longer.
I jump for joy when I see a large change like this. I guess I'm the eternal optimist. It is from here that he can improve. It took me and my son about 5 years to 'find' this position....then a few weeks to improve it and he had almost immediate game results. Of course....there is still work to do. Finding and tightening a swing is one thing. Hitting with that swing is another thing. But.....the 'learning to hit with that swing' is a whole lot more fun.....than the constant trial and error involved in searching for the pattern. And he can be productive as he learns to hit with that swing.
These things will take reps. Lots of reps. Learning to create resistance and use it effectively is where we go from here.
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