What Should I Do During Practice, Exactly?

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What Should I Do During Practice, Exactly?

Depending upon the season, the percentage break-down of maintenance, game prep and future practice differs. The closer a pitcher is  to the season, the more game prep and the less future learning she should do. The offseason is great for learning new things.

When you ask, “How much time do I spend teaching my daughter all of these new movement pitches when she can’t even throw a strike?” look to the chart below for the answer. Apply this formula to a day or week of practice, depending on how you like to schedule it out. 

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Why Doesn’t My Daughter Throw Strikes?

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Why Doesn’t My Daughter Throw Strikes?

One way I like to explain it is through Martin M. Broadwell’s work. He was a management trainer in the 60’s. He wrote a famous article called Teaching for Learning in which he described the four stages of competence. I thought it would be fun to apply this not only to a pitcher’s experience, but also to a parent’s experience of getting his or her kid involved in pitching.

We want to reach “unconscious competence” in pitching and parenting. It’s when a skill can be performed easily without thinking about it. Here are the four phases, the first three leading up to our goal of “unconscious competence.”

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Are You Getting the Most Out of Your Motion?

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Are You Getting the Most Out of Your Motion?

She unwittingly adds complexity to her motion, misdiagnosing the cause of poor accuracy, thus contributing more to superstitions than to good fundamentals. If you know anything about softball and baseball, you know that once a pitcher thinks luck is on her side, she’ll do anything to keep it.

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Learn Movement Pitches Before You are 12 Years Old

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Learn Movement Pitches Before You are 12 Years Old

As the season is underway pitchers everywhere stand on the mound hoping to throw a strike. There is a special group of pitchers that aren’t just hoping to throw strikes. Those are the ones you’ll be watching on TV. Right now top teams are battling for the NCAA World Series title. Those pitchers aren’t just hoping to throw strikes with a really quick fastball. They are fooling the batter by moving the ball almost every pitch.

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5 Things Pitchers Need to Be Great

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5 Things Pitchers Need to Be Great

As the DI NCAA Softball Championship tournament begins, you’ll see amazing pitchers firing the ball the upper 60’s, low 70’s with extreme movement and devastating change of speed. How do they get to this level? Each began where many of you are today and slowly put in the work to be great. Here are five things it takes for you to do the same.

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