“Practice to get better.”

“Be mentally tough.”

Sometimes I take all the things I learned for the mental game of softball for granted. I think they are very obvious, but did you know they came from somewhere? Actual psychologists throughout history introduced and studied these concepts. They came to evidence-based conclusions about what works and what doesn’t. Their conclusions were so influential, in fact, that they were woven into the foundation of all our sports so much so that we don't even notice them!

In 2017 we were holding our summer camp in Forest Park on the soccer field turf. One of my uncle's students came. Uncle John has been a pitching coach for 30 years and taught me and many of the Practice Pro instructors how to pitch, along with probably thousands of other players from this area. He still coaches, and that year he sent one of his 9-year-olds to my camp. We had each player throw a few pitches at the beginning to see where they were at, and lo and behold this kid could pitch the drop, rise, curve and screw with perfect spin! They weren't moving, but having control over different rotations at that age was amazing to me. The body awareness and athleticism this girl had was incredible.

I had always taught 9 and 10 year old's how to spin movement pitches (from standing at the release position), and was able to get a few players to execute one or two of them. But seeing that young player at camp made me have more confidence in their potential and in myself as a coach. If Uncle John could teach it, so could I.

From the age of birth through the age of 31, everyone told me I was a slow runner. My dad and uncle said I ran like I had a piano on my back. I’m pretty sure I stole less than 10 bases in 7 years. I didn’t even get enough momentum to slide. It was true, I wasn’t quick with my footwork.

The peculiar thing, though, was that when I was the ripe-old age of 31 I got a trainer who used to be a sprinter in college. In a short period of time he taught me how to run fast. Within a year I was able to run 3 one-mile repeats on the treadmill each under 6 minutes at 168 pounds, and could run multiple one-minute repeats at 14 mph. I was squatting double what I did in college and deadlifting close to 300 pounds. Twice I jumped up five stairs starting from both feet on the ground.

How could that be?

Because many young pitchers get discouraged when they don't pitch 100% strikes, not realizing that the excellent players at their age only pitch 40% strikes, we made our guesses on appropriate goals. They will be able to set reasonable goals and methodically tackle one at a time.

You need to put your body in a position that allows you to be explosive. You also need to harness that explosiveness. Here's a question. When you hit are you standing with your legs bent, weight slightly back? Or is your weight on your front leg? They are bent with your weight back!

You have a choice: make practicing painfully boring and unproductive, or make it fun. One of our values at Practice Pro is “hard work.” In saying that, we don’t mean you must suffer through doing things you don’t want to do. We also don’t mean to push yourself to your physical and mental limit every single practice. It’s necessary to do that sometimes, of course, but when we say to do “hard work” we mean two things.

Here are six games we play at pitching school. I encourage you to incorporate them into your personal pitching practices. If you are taking our lessons, we send you recaps weekly of games, drills and tools of what we did during class. You’ll have tons of resources to make practice fun.

We need to teach pitchers what words mean - especially those we adults take for granted. At the 2019 National Fastpitch Coaches Association national convention, I heard Kai Correa talk about infield defense. He's the infield/baserunning instructor of the San Francisco Giants. He  explained to us what the word “athletic” means. When we see someone who is “athletic” she has a penchant for being 1) bent at the knees, 2) bent at the waist, and 3) light on her feet. That got me thinking.

 My story starts at just eleven years old. At this point, I had been pitching for a year or two.

By no means was I the best in my rec ball program but I was not the worst at this point either. My team and I were playing in a playoff game. I came in to relieve our ace pitcher. As I threw my first few pitches I heard the other team’s coach tell his team, “Wait on it! She is as slow as tee ball.” Thinking back on that now, that comment does not even make sense. Surely my ball was moving a little faster than one just sitting still on a tee, but at that point, it was the end of the world to my young mind. I finished out the inning but afterward, I was devastated.

I told my parents and my private coach about what I had heard with tears streaming down my face. From that point on I was more motivated than ever to prove that coach wrong. That one comment, some random coach made, to motivate his team drove me to work harder than ever and to truly want to prove him and anyone else who doubted me wrong.

When you feel like you throw accurately in practices, but then in games it’s wild, it might be less about a feeling or nerves and more about your stats. Tracking your numbers in games and practices gives you a clear picture of reality. It can help you form your practice plan. Without this knowledge, you’ll be a servant to your emotions and whims.

Below is a chart we use in pitching school. All ages can use this, but adjustments for skill-level are included in the video. Make observations about your improvement over short and long periods of time. If you have a bad day compared to yesterday, shake it off and move on. If you are not getting more accurate over a three to six-month span, re-evaluate your practice plan or mechanics.

Your team coach and pitching coaches always come prepared with a plan to your practices and lessons. So, why not do the same for yourself? As we learned last week in pitching school, the equation for luck is:

Luck = Preparation + Opportunity.

Without proper preparation, you won't be able to capitalize on the opportunities that come your way during games.

By pre-planning your solo pitching practices, you can turn them into a more engaging experience. You'll be more likely to follow through, feel a sense of accomplishment upon completion, improve your time-management skills, and most importantly, expedite your progress. The more organized you are, the fewer wasted pitches there will be, the less time wasted on distractions, and the less monotonous your practices will become.

“More is better” - When it comes to training in any sport, more is often thought to be best practice. Don’t get me wrong, without a consistent work ethic at any skill, especially pitching, there will be a limit to improvement. However, most players and parents think about going out to practice pitching between lessons or games as a chore. And the reason for that is because we have been trained to believe more is better in most everything. So when we go out to practice, we spend at least an hour, sometimes more, between driving to and from a location to train, warming up our bodies, warming up our mechanics of each pitch, and then actually throwing each pitch.

There are three main types of pre-motions: dropping one hand back, dropping both hands back, and rolling the hands. There has also been a recent trend of pitchers eliminating the pre-motion altogether. Let's take a look at examples of pitchers from the current world series employing each of these take-aways: