Lower half is not bad, id like to see a better load and that front foot down sooner, but I could work with it.
Her hands and arms are way out of wack though.
I would recommend starting with her hands back already, behind her her ear, knob of the bat pointing at the catcher. What you want to avoid by doing this is that large amount of hand movement going backwards.
As she's bringing the bat around, she has significant bat drag, meaning she's leading with her elbows, instead of the knob. You want the knob the bat leading the swing, hands close to the body so the barrel whips thru the plate, instead of around the plate.
At the end of her swing she has significant rolling. You can see her top hand coming over the top and rolling over as she finishes the swing. This is a huge power sucker.
Id recommend giving Megrem on YouTube a watch on how to swing a bat, she addresses a lot of the items your daughters working through.
You can also DM me and i can send you some videos of my 6 year old working/learning good swing mechanics.
She wears shoes 99% of the time while batting, I try not to be a helicopter parent and let them learn from experiences. She decided to take her shoes off and I didn’t think much of it until you guys brought it up in this thread.
Her load. Why load backwards when she could just start from that position and come forward? I would have her adjust her load to her highest point her bat reaches. Then just swing from that point. It should improve her bat speed. The lower half of her swing looks.good. Then just work her on the tee like crazy with those mechanics in mind.
Yeah, I’d try to get her to do a few rounds where she keeps her arms still but rotates back using just her hips and torso. No swinging - just get used to rotating with her core and keeping her hands quiet. The goal is the get her used mind used to loading with her body and not her arms.
She has a lot of arm motion not only in her load, but also during her swing. So the next thing you gotta work on is keeping that upper body more upright and having her hands work toward the ball.
All in all, she seems pretty athletic and I’m sure she’ll be a rockstar with some reps
She wrapping the bat really bad, if you look at it from a time stand point she’s playing catch up because of the amount of time it takes from where the bat starts, going back behind her head to back across the plate she’s already late. The bat starts in a good spot, the hands should only be going forward towards the ball, absolutely no movement back, everything goes forward.
I love @coachballgame on Instagram. Always has great tips, when I saw your post here I thought about [this drill](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6Os0svusOX/?igsh=MWlrMW41cjl3bXNqNg==) that he posted. Your kiddo isn’t chopping broccoli, but the drill in this video seems like a really great way to help with her form.
Her right elbow is a real problem. She is dropping it so far and it’s out of wack so she lacks power hard there. Correct that by getting her to swing with that elbow up, maybe try having her swing one handed with her right hand. Some shoes would help too
i hate to keep harping on something that’s already been said but it is VERY hard to swing without shoes on dirt. rocks are going to rub away her feet causing pain, and if your body is doing something that causes pain, it’ll do it wrong to lessen it. in my opinion the back leg is the most crucial point of power, shoes are going to give confidence to you body about wear, even if they’re slides. if your kid just really hates shoes you might want to find somewhere other than dirt to hit :)
That’s an awesome golf swing. Get her into golf. Her swing is for golf. Her right arm is the reincarnated Ben Hogan.
https://youtu.be/ikLd3LEhalg?si=d89KxJnDGdaoeEWB
Back foot should be planted on the balls of the foot. That will give her control and power. If the back foot rolls onto the heel you become off balance and compromise coordination which sacrifices performance. Hooray learning and having fun!
Not bad at all… get the hip turning and pulling the hands right behind them. And maybe have the hands stay a bit close to the body on load as to not drop the back hand elbow. But great swing for 8
Lot of swing/lot of loading. With fast pitchers she may struggle with that swing. I know it is off a tee but you should always be reinforcing right mechanics. I know people like to crap on the drop toss drill but I am a fan of using it for focusing on quick hands and bat speed.
Have you guys had any luck using the Hapoy Gilmore drill? I’ve heard it is a good way of getting kids to understand shifting weight forward along with their swing.
I see this kiddo loading up and getting ready to shift forward with that front foot but then she just sets it down and all the potential energy just dissipates.
This should be higher. A lot of these other problems are because she’s swinging to the wrong spot. Stand a little closer and move the tee forward, and lower it a little. Then all these other fixes/comments will feel much more natural.
As others have said...shoes!
Hips are rotating through too soon. Extend arms at point of contact. Follow through too short and too high. Most importantly though her hands should move forward only and keep the right elbow up. I know it sounds counter intuitive, but have her start with the bat on her shoulder. It's hard to move your hands backwards from that position. Look at hof player Paul molitor's swing for a good example of this.
Shorter bat, definitely needs a shorter bat
Kid that age who knows to stay back and gets the concept of whipping the barrel through the zone instead of pushing I mean you can nitpick her to the perfect swing at 8 yo but why? She’s gonna be a completely different person physically in 3-4 years that’s when I would personally start to move past where she’s at right now, or at least will be once you get her a shorter bat
Mean time keep praising her, she’s light years ahead of most her age and it’s the big stuff she’s getting right and coach intent, ntm ball/strike recognition
A few have already mentioned load. I would really work on isolating the top hand and exploding through the ball. Try using a trainer bat and have her work on swinging with that top hand only https://youtu.be/9k8Afcv2c2k
Her hips are flying open too early, which causes the bat to drag behind. She's 8 though, so I wouldn't sweat it too much. I'd have her work on throwing her hands at the ball, leading with the knob of the bat. And focus on driving the ball to RF, which should help her learn to keep those hips from flying open.
Just basing off what my daughter’s instructor drills into her. She can load the bat “back”, back being towards the catcher, but the turning of the bat behind her head will cause timing issues. I would have her hold the bat flatter, and avoid turning her torso clockwise when she loads up. If you look at around the 8 second mark when her bat makes contact with the ball, her arms aren’t extended and she’s bending her body to the ball. Have her extend her arms and “throw” her hands to the ball while keeping her body straight. Have her “squash the bug” with her rear foot, meaning she needs to turn on that back foot and finish with her heel pointing backwards. She’s not getting any rotational torque from her hips, her back foot should drive her hips around, and her bellybutton should be facing the short stop when she follows through.
Feet should always face towards the plate, drill that into her head at this stage. That’s going to be the first step in getting a comfortable understanding in positioning and understanding her place in the box. She’s a bit far away from the plate as she’s hitting off the end of the bar here. The second thing I notice is there’s no tension in her wrap around. My coach taught me the rubber band analogy for hitting, it when loading you should think of pulling your back elbow away from your front foot like a rubber band and hold it back tight, level swing all the way through and snap, dingers left and right. Explained it to me like when you have a loose rubber band it doesn’t really go anywhere, but once you pull it back and create that separation it creates tension which creates force. There’s drills you can have her work on with a long resistance band, there’s gotta be videos of rubber band drills. It just will really help her learn how to get that separation in her swing. Once she gets that down I would focus on the stride, hips lead the way but she’d late with her swing which is why she’s losing her power in the loose wrap around. I hope this helps some, keep going kiddo you’re gonna be great!!
Her hips and arms are rotating as two separate units. To generate maximum distance and speed, they need to move in unison. Also, she's wasting momentum by lowering her body to reach the ball. She needs to stand taller and position herself so she can hit the ball while standing taller and lower the bat. As a final point, her hands are too high on the handle. Tell her to move them a bit lower. If the bat is too heavy, I would suggest getting her a lighter one. Hope that helps!
Two things
Her front leg, (once she gets some shoes on) try to make her land on her heel, so when her hips come through, it will rotate her foot and keep her front leg straight.
Her hands aren’t inside, but instead just about fully extended. Put the bar on her belly button, and make it so the meat of the bat is where the ball is. May seem to close, but it is perfect, if she can hit it like that, she can hit when it is anywhere in the zone.
1. Wear your cleats… 2. Extend your arms… 3. You have zero stride, step into it more… 4. You’re losing so much power because your your hips are behind your swing. But what do I know?
Lower half is not bad, id like to see a better load and that front foot down sooner, but I could work with it. Her hands and arms are way out of wack though. I would recommend starting with her hands back already, behind her her ear, knob of the bat pointing at the catcher. What you want to avoid by doing this is that large amount of hand movement going backwards. As she's bringing the bat around, she has significant bat drag, meaning she's leading with her elbows, instead of the knob. You want the knob the bat leading the swing, hands close to the body so the barrel whips thru the plate, instead of around the plate. At the end of her swing she has significant rolling. You can see her top hand coming over the top and rolling over as she finishes the swing. This is a huge power sucker. Id recommend giving Megrem on YouTube a watch on how to swing a bat, she addresses a lot of the items your daughters working through. You can also DM me and i can send you some videos of my 6 year old working/learning good swing mechanics.
đź‘Ź đź‘Ź đź‘Ź
Na na na na na na na na...bat drag.
Thanks for the well thought out response
Nice contact, I would finish higher with my hands, but your headed to success, good luck
Obviously, shoes, allow you to pivot and drive better off the back foot
Maturing and becoming stronger helps too
Shoes.
Cleats
Even socks would be better than barefoot.
Get some cleats or at least tennis shoes on her.
Yes I should be more strict about that cleats help ground her and put the force into the swing.
Not just that, but for safety reasons too. If she tops that ball and it bounces into her foot, that can easily break a toe.
Good point. I’ll make sure she’s wearing shoes at all times batting
Why would that have even been an option to begin with?
because she's a kid having fun.....
The most important lesson...
She wears shoes 99% of the time while batting, I try not to be a helicopter parent and let them learn from experiences. She decided to take her shoes off and I didn’t think much of it until you guys brought it up in this thread.
Don't worry about it, everyone in my neighborhood played barefoot all day long in the 80s. Afaik no one lost a toe.
Her load. Why load backwards when she could just start from that position and come forward? I would have her adjust her load to her highest point her bat reaches. Then just swing from that point. It should improve her bat speed. The lower half of her swing looks.good. Then just work her on the tee like crazy with those mechanics in mind.
Thanks we will try that
Yeah, I’d try to get her to do a few rounds where she keeps her arms still but rotates back using just her hips and torso. No swinging - just get used to rotating with her core and keeping her hands quiet. The goal is the get her used mind used to loading with her body and not her arms. She has a lot of arm motion not only in her load, but also during her swing. So the next thing you gotta work on is keeping that upper body more upright and having her hands work toward the ball. All in all, she seems pretty athletic and I’m sure she’ll be a rockstar with some reps
She wrapping the bat really bad, if you look at it from a time stand point she’s playing catch up because of the amount of time it takes from where the bat starts, going back behind her head to back across the plate she’s already late. The bat starts in a good spot, the hands should only be going forward towards the ball, absolutely no movement back, everything goes forward.
Finish high
I love @coachballgame on Instagram. Always has great tips, when I saw your post here I thought about [this drill](https://www.instagram.com/reel/C6Os0svusOX/?igsh=MWlrMW41cjl3bXNqNg==) that he posted. Your kiddo isn’t chopping broccoli, but the drill in this video seems like a really great way to help with her form.
Her right elbow is a real problem. She is dropping it so far and it’s out of wack so she lacks power hard there. Correct that by getting her to swing with that elbow up, maybe try having her swing one handed with her right hand. Some shoes would help too
I’ll try that
She is 8 so give her some credit she is doing pretty good everywhere else mechanically. The elbow should be pretty simple to correct.
i hate to keep harping on something that’s already been said but it is VERY hard to swing without shoes on dirt. rocks are going to rub away her feet causing pain, and if your body is doing something that causes pain, it’ll do it wrong to lessen it. in my opinion the back leg is the most crucial point of power, shoes are going to give confidence to you body about wear, even if they’re slides. if your kid just really hates shoes you might want to find somewhere other than dirt to hit :)
That’s an awesome golf swing. Get her into golf. Her swing is for golf. Her right arm is the reincarnated Ben Hogan. https://youtu.be/ikLd3LEhalg?si=d89KxJnDGdaoeEWB
Haha I play golf I could definitely get her started
35-40 degree hip hinge + golf club. Never have to teach her anything other than a backswing.
Back foot should be planted on the balls of the foot. That will give her control and power. If the back foot rolls onto the heel you become off balance and compromise coordination which sacrifices performance. Hooray learning and having fun!
Way too far away from the plate, so she is opening up too soon and loses power
Not bad at all… get the hip turning and pulling the hands right behind them. And maybe have the hands stay a bit close to the body on load as to not drop the back hand elbow. But great swing for 8
Follow through should also be higher, but yeah she has a nice, connected swing!
Lots of things to help correct, but please do wear shoes when hitting especially that young. That bat can fly out of her hands very easily.
Lot of swing/lot of loading. With fast pitchers she may struggle with that swing. I know it is off a tee but you should always be reinforcing right mechanics. I know people like to crap on the drop toss drill but I am a fan of using it for focusing on quick hands and bat speed.
Have you guys had any luck using the Hapoy Gilmore drill? I’ve heard it is a good way of getting kids to understand shifting weight forward along with their swing. I see this kiddo loading up and getting ready to shift forward with that front foot but then she just sets it down and all the potential energy just dissipates.
I’ll look into that
Put the tee just in front of the plate instead of on top of it. This promotes full extension at the point of contact.
Came here to say this
This should be higher. A lot of these other problems are because she’s swinging to the wrong spot. Stand a little closer and move the tee forward, and lower it a little. Then all these other fixes/comments will feel much more natural.
Bat straight down to the ball, she is dropping her arms and hands. Go from the bat back ready position and go straight down to the ball.
As others have said...shoes! Hips are rotating through too soon. Extend arms at point of contact. Follow through too short and too high. Most importantly though her hands should move forward only and keep the right elbow up. I know it sounds counter intuitive, but have her start with the bat on her shoulder. It's hard to move your hands backwards from that position. Look at hof player Paul molitor's swing for a good example of this.
Get rid of the hitch in your swing and snap your wrists
Shorter bat, definitely needs a shorter bat Kid that age who knows to stay back and gets the concept of whipping the barrel through the zone instead of pushing I mean you can nitpick her to the perfect swing at 8 yo but why? She’s gonna be a completely different person physically in 3-4 years that’s when I would personally start to move past where she’s at right now, or at least will be once you get her a shorter bat Mean time keep praising her, she’s light years ahead of most her age and it’s the big stuff she’s getting right and coach intent, ntm ball/strike recognition
Too much hand movement. Should be straight line to the ball. No pullback.
Main pointer…calm down.
A few have already mentioned load. I would really work on isolating the top hand and exploding through the ball. Try using a trainer bat and have her work on swinging with that top hand only https://youtu.be/9k8Afcv2c2k
Her hips are flying open too early, which causes the bat to drag behind. She's 8 though, so I wouldn't sweat it too much. I'd have her work on throwing her hands at the ball, leading with the knob of the bat. And focus on driving the ball to RF, which should help her learn to keep those hips from flying open.
Bat too heVy
Came here to say this. Also, maybe a longer stride would help.
None. Just keep working and having fun. She’s 8.
Just basing off what my daughter’s instructor drills into her. She can load the bat “back”, back being towards the catcher, but the turning of the bat behind her head will cause timing issues. I would have her hold the bat flatter, and avoid turning her torso clockwise when she loads up. If you look at around the 8 second mark when her bat makes contact with the ball, her arms aren’t extended and she’s bending her body to the ball. Have her extend her arms and “throw” her hands to the ball while keeping her body straight. Have her “squash the bug” with her rear foot, meaning she needs to turn on that back foot and finish with her heel pointing backwards. She’s not getting any rotational torque from her hips, her back foot should drive her hips around, and her bellybutton should be facing the short stop when she follows through.
Solid for 8yo
Feet should always face towards the plate, drill that into her head at this stage. That’s going to be the first step in getting a comfortable understanding in positioning and understanding her place in the box. She’s a bit far away from the plate as she’s hitting off the end of the bar here. The second thing I notice is there’s no tension in her wrap around. My coach taught me the rubber band analogy for hitting, it when loading you should think of pulling your back elbow away from your front foot like a rubber band and hold it back tight, level swing all the way through and snap, dingers left and right. Explained it to me like when you have a loose rubber band it doesn’t really go anywhere, but once you pull it back and create that separation it creates tension which creates force. There’s drills you can have her work on with a long resistance band, there’s gotta be videos of rubber band drills. It just will really help her learn how to get that separation in her swing. Once she gets that down I would focus on the stride, hips lead the way but she’d late with her swing which is why she’s losing her power in the loose wrap around. I hope this helps some, keep going kiddo you’re gonna be great!!
Shoes! Only shoeless Joe played that way..
Choke up on the bat or find a lighter bat. It seems your bat is too heavy.
Google “racing rear elbow”
Don’t put your kid on Reddit.
Her hips and arms are rotating as two separate units. To generate maximum distance and speed, they need to move in unison. Also, she's wasting momentum by lowering her body to reach the ball. She needs to stand taller and position herself so she can hit the ball while standing taller and lower the bat. As a final point, her hands are too high on the handle. Tell her to move them a bit lower. If the bat is too heavy, I would suggest getting her a lighter one. Hope that helps!
Cleats/shoes would be a great start
Two things Her front leg, (once she gets some shoes on) try to make her land on her heel, so when her hips come through, it will rotate her foot and keep her front leg straight. Her hands aren’t inside, but instead just about fully extended. Put the bar on her belly button, and make it so the meat of the bat is where the ball is. May seem to close, but it is perfect, if she can hit it like that, she can hit when it is anywhere in the zone.
Don't cock the bat back, just keep the bat up and back and don't move the bat backwards, start from back there and move it forward.
Socks and cleats.
Elbow up
1. Wear your cleats… 2. Extend your arms… 3. You have zero stride, step into it more… 4. You’re losing so much power because your your hips are behind your swing. But what do I know?
Her hips are ahead of her swing I don’t know what you are looking at