Looking Good. Feeling it Correctly

You have heard the saying, “If you can feel it you can fix it.” Sometimes you are not sure if you are feeling the right things.

You can purchase a lot of sophisticated hardware and software to give you great feedback. The problem is that you do not see the results until after the pitch, so the feeling has already slipped away from you. If only there was a way to feel it as you see it. There are some very inexpensive ways to do just that.

Several years ago I was working with our younger daughter at a field. She was struggling to feel a very specific movement. The sun was casting a shadow directly toward the plate, so she simply watched her shadow as she pitched, quickly identifying the problem.

At night, she used her reflection in one of our very large windows to practice the movement at home. When we went to the cage, I purchase one of those full-length mirrors that you hang on the back of a door. It cost me a grand total of six bucks. We fastened the mirror to a wall, several feet behind the net. She could throw right at herself, seeing every move as it happened, feeling each part of the sequence.

If you do not have a net where you need it, you can also place an L-Screen or other type of net in front of the mirror. Just allow enough space so that, when the net absorbs the energy of the ball, it will not allow the ball to reach the mirror.

Immediate feedback can give you much more immediate results, enhance body awareness, and begin to make the right feelings permanent. Remember, practice does not make perfect. Practice makes permanent. Make sure you are seeing the right things and allow yourself to feel them, making them a permanent part of your motion.