Footwork Driving Off the Mound

Transcription:

They make it look easy. How do you start a kid off learning how to leap and drag? We're going to do left side glides, and the lefty does right side glides. Okay. Get rid of your gloves. Face each other. Toes touch the power line. Okay, barely touch it. All right, let's pick up our stride leg. Jump straight up in the air, as high as you can go. Jump up. Do it again. As high as you go, the arms up. There you go. You look to see if kids are springy. If they're not springy, you teach them how to jump off that foot more, okay? They actually have to bend the ankle and explode up. 

Now, we take that same spring and we spring to the side. So from the front view, what it looks like is spring. From the side, it looks like spring. Let's do a few. Ready, glide. All right, do it again. And let's do it without the kick, because we haven't covered that yet. I want you all just to stop right here. Go. Perfect. Do it again. Stay open. Don't push back at home. Go. Very good. Something I made up to get people to learn how to spring off the mound. 

Now, a couple of the details that are going on that you need to teach right away. Stay on the power line. When Casey lands...stride out. Just stride out. All right, touch the power line, there she is, she fixed it. She is touching that power line. She did not jump off of it side to side. Back foot, drag directly for me. On the line. You're just dragging. She drags down the power line, does not kick to the right, for her, too early. The back foot is called the power foot and it drags on the side of the big toe. Side of the big left toe, side of the big right toe. Shoelaces point at first, our shoelaces, as righties, point at third. All right. 

Other points that are going on. We said that foot touches the power line. Well, our stride foot lands toe, heel. So both show me that. Stride foot out, toe, heel, land, pick it up, toe, heel, land and go left through power-line, not on top of it. There you go. Toe, heel. The angle is a 45 degree angle. I would rather have a strong angle than a weak angle. Weak angle means pointing too much at home. The turning of the feet is what naturally turns the hips. We do not have to teach kids to turn their hips, boom! Off the mound, that is not graceful. Our hips are straight ahead, that's called closed. We when come out our feet turn naturally. Well, we've got to make our feet turn, our hips turn naturally. My belly button's at third, Casey's is at first. Do not have to teach kids how to rotate open. Teach the feet how to turn, okay? The pieces of tape should tell their brain to tell their foot, to land your foot on top of it at that angle.