My Hitting Philosophy

How a coach describes their hitting philosophy will tell you a lot about what they can teach you and how far they can take you. Many coaches can't even articulate what they do to teach a person how to hit or how they can hit better and hit harder.

I keep mine easy. So anyone can tell what we are going to be doing over the course of lessons or training with me.

Keep it Simple

I wanted to break down hitting so that it would be so easy to translate to kids, but be advanced enough and technically accurate enough for kids wanting to get college scholarships.

I broke down the best advice from the top hitting coaches in the country and based on my 30 years of coaching and came up with 7 easy steps that have simple names to remember.

I can teach you these steps in 1/2 hour. (Of course, it will take years of practice, to perfect it.)

Click Here for the Keys to Great Hitting and the core of my hitting philosophy.

I even elaborate on those 7 simple steps by giving away a hitting lesson a day via e-mail,

It's been said that hitting a baseball (softball) is the singular most difficult thing to do in all of sport.

So then the next key in my hitting philosophy is ...

Tee - Toss - Throw

If you can't hit something perfectly that isn't moving, that's right in the middle of the plate, how will you ever be able to hit one that is coming in fast and maybe moves in or out and hits the corners (not to mention with lots of noise and distractions going on)?

The great players all practice with a batting tee to perfect their stroke. Tony Gwynn talks about using a tee in his book on hitting. Kim Maher told me she hit 120 whiffle balls off a tee every day from the time she was 12. That works out to about 1/2 million swings before she got her college scholarship and launched her all the way to be the #4 batter for America's first Gold Medal winning softball team. She has been the hitting coach for the Cal Berkley Bears, who won the NCAA championships in 2002 and the head coach for the Purdue Boilermakers for 7 years. She owns 14 batting tees! Can you guess what her hitting philosophy about using batting tees with her elite level athlete is?

From the tee we add soft toss, to introduce motion slowly, while we're still working on getting the swing perfected. A great toss device can be found here.

Each step is monitored to get it right before moving on to the next step which is thrown (or pitched) balls.

Don't Fix Errors -

Get Back to Perfect

If you're coaching yourself, your child or another player, and you see something they're doing wrong, please avoid the temptation to over compensate to fix the error.

For example, if they keep stepping out, you might be tempted to have them start with a closed stance. This technique is not right for good batting in general, so don't do it. Just get them to have enough good practices hitting correctly. See my views on hitting practice here. If you agree with my hitting philosophy and I can help you in any way, please give me a call - 805-642-5827 or e-mail me. Click Here to e-mail for help.

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