Mental Tips

Hey all, I have been lurking on this site for some time and have benifitted from all of the knowledge out there. I could use a little help.

My DD is a senior in HS with a scholarship to play in college. In the first half of the season she hit very well, average of .550 (21/38) for the first 11 games.

In her last 9 games she has fallen off considerably, batting .176 (6/34). What is more concerning is that she is not herself, ie her mechanics are totally different and she has really lost confidence in herself. She swings at bad pitches and is striking out quite a bit as opposed to making decent contact and just having bad luck finding a hole.

As parents, we are not yelling or screaming and I am more than happy to pitch to her so she can gain confidence (we do so pretty regularly). She does great with me, but just "loses it" in a game. The HS coach is reasonable, but she is feeling pressure from that end too.

Our biggest concern is that she must learn how to overcome these bumps by relaxing or using other mental tricks as opposed to tensing up or putting more pressure on herself due to her own and the teams expectations. This is pretty hard to watch and we feel pretty helpless - we realize that softball is not the end of the world, but we want to use this as a teaching tool for other aspects of her life. She is also taking it pretty hard and is finding this difficult to reverse. In college she will need to do this for herself.

Any good suggestions that can help us or others out there like us????

thanks

 

Wow-- Sounds Familiar !!!

Mechanics can be taught, but confidence has to be gained by the individual..I'm not the best teacher for this one ,because I have a kid that takes the game very serious,and gets down when she doesn't perform well. This is a tough one....Ask Abbeyfan, he may have some good tips !!

Guru

 

simplify....


all three of mine play ball and this is what i have done when their hitting goes south and it comes from one of the best who ever stepped into a batter's box:

Ty Cobb whenever he got into a slump would take BP and start out by bunting the ball back to the pitcher then we would start pokeing it back up the middle and finally taking full swings with the goal still of taking the ball back up the middle.

In the game choke up a bit.. SEE the ball (no concentration on mechanics while in the box) ... and make it your goal to put the ball in play somewhere between second and short. Just like Cobb it will not take long to get her stroke back

 

Wow...this brings back memories. I was always a good hitter, but there were times I turned to a catcher and said, "Here's the bat, you hit it". You could have put it on a tee and it would not have made much difference.

Unfortunately, when this happened, you try to make adjustments and you change your mechanics. So, instead of the game "slowing down", it seems to speed up.

What worked for me is to get back to the basics. Return to your mechanics, hit off tees, mucho BP and one day you hit the ball hard and it all comes back. There is no "magic" to it. If you were a good hitter before, you will be again. You can't press, you have to believe in your swing and you must try to get into hitter's counts. A hitting approach is always important and sometimes is forgotten when battling the "slump demon" and you end up swinging at bad pitches.

Because it is a mental thing and confidence is what you are striving for, sometimes doing something "superstitious" like wearing same socks, uniform number, putting shoes on differently, putting something "lucky" in your pocket, shoes or hat or using a "lucky" bat can make all the difference. Remember, it is confidence you are trying to achieve.

 

Hey Coach May - any advice on what a good hitting approach may be??

I.E. take till you get a strike???

thanks

 

I'll get Coach May to answer you

 

No magic..

I agree with everything here. Almost all of the time, slumps are mental. The hitters loses confidence for whatever reason. Other times, they 'think' they need more power (trying to keep up with the big hitters on the team) so they try to tweak their own swing.

What I have done (have had mixed results - mostly positive) with hitters on our team is to make a very minor adjustment but talk it up like it is THE thing that is causing them problems. Sometimes I tell them something they were already doing they just didn't know it. I am talking little things like flatten their knuckles, line up their knuckles, put bat on your shoulder then grip it, pull it back a little further, etc. The point is to get them to stop thinking about the slump and just swing the bat. All they need to do is hit one ball solid, then they will hit another, and another while you sit back and watch the smile return to their face as their confidence grows.

 

Memory Swipe?

She has already proven to be a good contact hitter. Sounds like sha is putting pressure on herself remembering the last ## times at bat she did not get on base. My daughter would pick up a handfull of dirt and rub it between both hands. Then she would "brush it off" and also brush off any thoughts about previous at bats. She needs to think about the next pitch, not the last pitch.
Video tape her at practice and game situations. Let her analyze what she is doing different. I believe strongly in "Muscle Memory" and been told it takes 300 reps to make muscles remember which one does what when. So like the others, lots of repetitions(the right way) and create that lasting memory.

 

You're right. Too many times the hitter is flooded,mentally, with everything someone is telling them. Sometimes it is a matter of the KISS theory(keep it simple, stupid)..see it, hit it

 

Simple...

Natural is better than Nervous!

You could maybe put her in a situation, where she practices with a rec ball team, or such, that she is above their level, this will give her the opportunity to regain her confidence with out even knowing that it is happening! For example she could volunteer to be a camp counselor at a softball camp, where she is working with kids younger than her, this gives her a chance to show her stuff! Sometimes it works and they did it theirselves! Which in turn teaches them that they can depend on themselves to fix a problem!
Just a thought!