Softball Flaws and Fixes - Dropping the Hands

Suzy Willemssen: Hi, I am Suzy Willemssen and I am Head Coach of the Blue Jays Gold 18 and under girls Junior Olympic Fast Pitch Softball Team. Today, we are talking about common hitting flaws and their fixes. The softball drill I am going to show you now is for girls that like to drop their hands; in another drill we were talking the importance of getting some movement and any movement we want to make, we always want to be productive.

As we talked about in another drill, we said we don't want to be a statue. If your player is a statue, no movement, she is going to do something to try to get her body started and the very common hitting flaw is dropping of the hands. With this drill that we call High Tee, we are going to have tee setup for Megan, so it's almost going to be at her armpit level at about the strike zone at the highest level in the strike zone. So she is going to be hitting the ball off the tee; her hands aren't going to be moving, if they do move, she is going to bash the tee again instant feedback that she is dropping her hands.

So the ball should be coming straight off at the tee on the line, not high, not low; again on the line and that's a good indication that her hands has stayed right here and that she can take them back. Again we want to get some movement but we don't want to drop them. So coming back is great, that's going to give you a good stretch but anything down here is a no-no. So again, this is High Tee for those girls that drop their hands and again lots of times that's because they are being a statue and they are doing this to try to get their body in motion.

Again, you can see Megan has the ball at the top level there, strike zone, right where her hands should be. So she is going to be come straight across, hit some nice line drives. In fact, if you want to know a secret of hitting a raised ball, here you go. This is also a good indication of where your players should start their hands in their stance, in their swings as well. Right here about shoulder level, can you -- can play with a little bit? We don't want cookie-cutters for our hitters but just for those beginners and people starting out right here; it's a good indication and so set that. The tee up in this fashion, High Tee, it's going to re-emphasize that point where they want to start their swings. Making sure again that her hands aren't dropping. Alright, so there we go with the High Tee softball drill.