Posted by: skip (piks5@sbcglobal.nt) on Wed Apr 4 08:57:12 2007

.What I'm going to tell you is going to sound nuts. One and a half year olds learn to walk-- a very complex biomechanic-- with no instruction, but lots of motivation-- they see everybody else doing it. Ditto, you move to France, your kids learn French AND English.
Through the years the approach to curing swing flaws was to do repetiive drills, to "burn" a new instinct into the muscles/nuerons/whatever.
Over the yrs. I have of course done this, with spotty success. With an extremely motivated pupil and lots of reps, these "burning" drills can work.
But for the great mass of kids, and even kids who have knowledgable dedicated dads guiding them, the large nos. of perfect reps. req'd just never get done. With fathers/sons, it can create a "practice your piano" dynamic that takes fun out of the game and out of the father/son relationship.
So my mind is always hunting for shortcuts. And takes me back to learning to walk: Motivation.

This is going to sound nuts, but here's what I may do with my 12u son: like you typical kid, he'd love to hit the ball harder, but in the back of his mind is thinking he'll "will himself" to use the new rot. swing when the time comes to use it. His daily swings at the bag are becoming somewhat perfuntory.

I've never used money to motivate my kids..not for getting good grades, or emptying the dishwasher, or mowing the lawn. But I'm going to have a wad of 5 dolloar bills in my pocket, and tell him, give me everything you've got for 20 min. on the heavy bag, etc., and when the bell rings I hand you 5 dollars. We'll mark it on a chart. Go spend it on whatever (candy?) But save some of it. Because this yr. the first time you hit a ball to the 210' fence, ground or air, you've got to give me back half of it.
I believe this will give him the motivation of a 2 yr old learning to walk. And give us the multiple perfect reps we need. And, because I'm acting like I expect half of it back, show him the confidence I have in him and in the value of the rot. swing.

This sounds nuts, probably is. But why not have you or your wife tape his at bats from a good vantage point. Replay them in slo-mo at home. For every time he lets the ball come to him before he puts it in play, put $5 in his own cookie jar, max $100 limit for the season, to be spent taking him and his friends out for a pizza party at the end of the season. If I'm right, without any verbal instruction or technique, his brain/body will figure a way to get it done.
I've never tried this, it's speculative, maybe crazy. But I'm going to do it with my son. I just hope he doesn't mention it to his friends.(my dad, the mad scientist/psychologist coach). I'll report back.
Skip