Grievance #4 – The Drive of My Teammate is Not There

A Pitcher’s Confidence – Innate or Learned?

A pitcher’s confidence is not black and white. That would be too easy. You all message me so often and I can feel your...

March 24, 2016

Dear Pitcher, You Are Not Alone

Dear Pitcher, I’ve been meaning to talk to you for a while now. I would say I can’t imagine what you are going through, but...

February 10, 2016

Coaching, Opinions, Pitching, Softball

The Power of Shaking Off

As a pitcher, I’ve never understood a coach’s philosophy of NOT allowing pitchers to shake off a called pitch. I...

February 2, 2016

Competition, Mental Game, Recruiting, Softball

10 Ways to Stand Out At A Softball Clinic

So you go to a clinic, there are a lot of other girls there, and that means you need to find a way to stand out of the crowd. It...

September 10, 2015

Coaching, College, Motivation, Recruiting

10 Ingredients to Succeed in Elite Softball

Lessons. Practice. Travel. Games. Recruiting. Repeat. The ingredients of elite softball are all in the air. Getting lost in...

My mission is to inspire softball girls to DREAM bigger, WORK harder, and SMILE more often. I look to not only help to improve their physical softball skills, but also show them the importance of confidence on AND off the field. Through my website you will find information on all things softball—motivation, inspiration, blogs, quotes, videos, tips, preparation, etc. The options are endless for us to explore…

4 Ways to be a Loyal Teammate and Be Bigger Than Team Drama

May 7, 2014

Motivation, Opinions, Softball

39 Comments

Last Thursday I had a chance to FaceTime and talk on the phone with a team from Trussville, AL, CLEAtS ‘02. These girls were SO sweet. Prior to our conversation, I told them to think of 5-6 questions they wanted to ask me. They all asked great questions. One of the questions was, “What was the biggest lesson I learned from playing college softball?” I had to think about this one for a few seconds. The first thing that came to my mind that I wanted to share with her was the concept of loyalty. I asked the young girl who asked the question, “Do you know what loyalty is?” And she replied back, “Yes.”

I told her the biggest thing I learned from college was how to be a loyal teammate and a loyal friend.

I told her it was very important to me to be a leader on my team and someone that my teammates and friends could go to. They could tell me things they were feeling, confide in me, and they could feel that whatever they told me was safe with me. I told her how important it was to be someone that her teammates could rely on and trust in. If you don’t have trust on a team, you don’t have anything. This is a quality that I still value very much in my every day life.

I don’t know if it’s the Taurus in me or something I learned from my parents or previous coaches, but if you know me, you know I am loyal. I hold that quality very dear to my heart, and I think that it’s a quality that can dictate a lot of decisions that we make in our lives on and off the field.

I disliked drama from a young age. I didn’t and don’t like the feeling of being in the middle of things. To me, it’s negative energy. I don’t like to have negative energy surrounding my life, I feel like it pulls me down and it weighs on me. I remember middle school not being very fun years of my life. I wasn’t the most popular or prettiest and I didn’t have the most friends. Middle school is hard! I learned what it was like to have people be DISloyal to me, and I hated the way it made me feel…so that made a lasting impression on me. I never wanted someone to have to feel that same feeling because of something that I did them.

I like the feeling of smiling and laughing 1000 times more than I like the feeling of talking about someone behind their back.

Along the way I have learned…

If someone confides in you, guard their secret.

It’s your duty as a friend that if someone chose you to tell something you, then they trust you. It is your job you to care so much about that person that that secret stays with you. If a teammate confides in you, that means they see you as a leader. It’s important as a leader to understand the types of things you and your teammates can handle on your own, and the types of things that are the big issues that the coach should get involved with. To understand what to go to an adult about, think about if you feel like your friend, team or the mission of your team could be severely hurt because of what was told to you. (Important note: If there is a secret that a friend or teammate tells you that could be harmful to that person, it is important to tell an adult.)

If someone is talking about someone else to you, don’t endorse it or repeat it.

The one thing about being on ANY team is that there WILL be teammates who talk about other teammates. So when that time comes, tell them you don’t want to hear it. Sometimes you may even have good friends who talks about other teammates, and it may be hard for you to tell them you don’t want to hear it or get involved, but if they don’t respect your decision for not wanting to hear it or talk about it, and they don’t really understand why, then that’s their problem. Whether you have the courage to stand up to your teammate to tell them not to talk about drama around you or not, don’t repeat what you hear. Don’t feed into the drama and into the gossip. Have the gossip stop with you. It might even get to a point where people stop gossiping to you…trust me, you want that! Stay far away from drama and the people who attract drama. Remember, when you repeat that gossip to someone else, even if you aren’t saying that they are YOUR feelings, you are endorsing whatever is coming out of your mouth to someone else, thus making it what YOU are thinking and feeling.

Always remember your own values.

To know your values, you must understand yourself and be comfortable with your own thoughts and feelings that you feel in your heart about the type of person you want to be. Close your eyes and think to the future. What do you want to be like? Think about what kind of friend you want to be known as and what kind of teammate you want to be viewed as. What do you see? If people who don’t understand those values, you’re better off without them. You will find those people who have the same values as you – those will be your forever friends. Sometimes, there might be only 1 or 2 of those friends and other people may have more friends than you. But who cares! I bet you will have way more fun with those 1 or 2 friends who hold the same values as you. Remember, you are never alone.

Have your teammates back, respect each other.

Your teammates should feel like you have their back and they have yours. This does not mean you have to be best friends off the field and do everything together outside of the field. That’s not what I’m saying. Sometimes you might not even agree with everything your teammate does outside of the field, and you can’t control that. What you can control is how you respect each other on the field with everything else put aside.

When it comes game time, and you and your teammates go into that dugout, they should feel undoubtedly that you have their back. True competitors and athletes leave everything but their sport outside of the field. Once you step onto that field, it’s go-time, and you compete together for the same goal. Because believe me, when you are out on the field with the lights on in the middle of the big game and you look to the person to your right or left on the field or in the dugout, you want to think, “I got you” – and not just think it, but MEAN it.

ANYONE can be on a team, but NOT just anyone can be a loyal leader who people look to and who rises above all the negativity and drama.

Through all of this, remember to be loyal and remember the mission of your team. Every team has a mission, no matter what sport. That mission is to win championships. (any championship: tournament championship, league championship, conference championship, district, etc). Do you REALLY want to win? If you are a true competitor and have visions of being great, all of your decisions you make should be based off the mission of the team; any other decision could be considered selfish and detrimental to the mission of what the team is trying to accomplish.

Remind your teammates the mission of the team when things get tough. Remember that mission is bigger than one person. Drama brings attention to the one person who is starting it. The mission of a team is bigger than drama, gossip or bullying. It’s never about just one person, it’s about the team. If everyone feels like they are on that mission together, united and loyal to each other, that is when that team will win championships. It all starts with being loyal. Be loyal in your every day life and to your teammates wearing the same uniform to accomplish big things on and off the field.

What is Beautiful Fastpitch

June 13, 2013

Motivation

Beautiful- 1) having beauty; possessing qualities that give great pleasure or satisfaction to see, hear, think about ; 2) of a very high standard; excellent.

Fastpitch players are beautiful. There…I said it. It’s true. “Beautiful” is a big word. It’s used limitedly because of the standard we have tied to it in our culture, and we know that something must be of upmost quality for us to tag that word on it. Because of its limited use, it is put on a pedestal and rarely pulled out of Webster’s to describe something or someone. But what if we used to describe the way a young girl played softball? The word “beautiful” is not a daily softball adjective used out on the field or at lessons like “attack” or “swing hard” or even “aggressive.” It’s a word people shy away from using because of the grandeur of the word and thinking that it only goes with a sunset in the afternoon or a model during a photo shoot. But “beautiful”, is a word that can be used to describe softball players and the standard our sport should hold.

Playing softball beautifully has nothing to do with physical looks (ie. eye color, weight, hair color). No – playing softball beautifully means playing it with poise, playing it with passion, playing it with positivity and calmness. It means slowing the game down in your mind, taking your time in your at bat, playing defense out on the field with head held high and excitement of anticipation for the ball to come to you. It’s being able to control your emotions during the game so that you have that ability to slow down in your mind the ground ball coming to you or how fast your at bat is going.

Softball has a fast pace to the game as it is. When you’re a player, the game speeds up 10x in your mind and everything seems faster than it really is. Ask anybody who has played – when you are out on the field, the game seems even faster because your mind is racing; there are a lot of unsure players, which makes the game go by faster and faster until before you know it, the game is over. A player who is focusing on playing beautifully slows her breathing down, slows her mind down and ultimately, the pace of the game slows down, thus, no matter what kind of mechanics you have, will yield more results because you can actually focus one pitch at a time, one step at a time.

Does playing softball beautifully mean that you’re always going to get a hit and never going to make an error? Not a chance. That’s our game. Our game was designed for you to fail, and if we didn’t fail, there would be no fun in it. However, it’s really when you fail, that your true beauty can actually be seen the most.

So how do we get our players to think this, feel this, believe this? It lies in our coaching and providing the information for them. Teaching them at a young age that they were made to play beautifully and having an understanding of what that looks like and what it feels like.

Can a hit be beautiful? Absolutely. Is a pitch with a lot of movement on it beautiful? You betcha. But those are things we cannot always control when we are playing. As a player, I can control my attitude during the game, my respect for my teammates and my approach at the plate during my at bat. I can control how fast thoughts are going through my head. THOSE are the real things that add beauty to this game. Taking pride in your uniform, taking pride in being a good teammate, and taking the responsibility to make adjustments at the plate or in the circle. Those are things of REAL beauty. Unfortunately, those are the things that don’t go I the scorebook or the news paper article, they aren’t the things of our game that gets all the hype.

Playing beautifully is something (like anything) that needs to be practiced. It will not just show up magically in the game. By being aware of what we look like on the field in between pitches when we are up to bat or on the field, we have a better understanding of what impressions we are giving off. I go around and watch a lot of softball through college and travel ball. The players who are fidgety, always messing with their uniforms, always touching their hair, having fast/quick movements up at the plate or on deck, those are the players I know will not remember the game and it will pass them by very fast. Those are the players, to me, who will actually end up beating themselves. The players who are playing beautifully have calm, slow movements. They are slowing down the game in their mind with these movements, and thus, slowing down the game for their team.

As coaches, we get so caught up in mechanics and fundamentals (which believe me, are very important and need to be practiced), but the idea of playing fastpitch beautifully needs to be discussed. For mechanics, every coach is going to coach something different – where to hold your hands, how to use your lower half, how to throw a rise ball. But with playing beautifully, I think there is a general consensus of what this looks like and what it should feel like to the players.

Most of you, I’m sure, have watched the Women’s College World Series and know who Lauren Chamberlain is. She is, in my opinion, the greatest hitter in our game right now, and maybe when she is done with her 4 years at Oklahoma, one of the greatest hitters to have ever play our game. When you watch her play, look at her approach and her confidence in between pitches. She has a routine in between pitches in her at bat. She’s calm, she is not constantly fidgeting, she is not constantly looking back at her coach and messing with her uniform. All of her movements have purpose and I guarantee she remembers everything about her at bat. She is letting the game come to her. Does Lauren Chamberlain have great hitting mechanics? Yes- without a doubt. But without her approach, poise, and routine at the plate, she would not be able to use those mechanics to their fullest potential. Chamberlain would be a good hitter without her calm approach, but WITH the calm approach, she becomes one of the best.

Playing beautifully takes your game to YOUR next level. It’s going to be different for everyone, and you can’t compare yourself and your results to the person sitting next to you. This idea of being a beautiful player comes with time, it comes with practice and it comes with experience – all of which the idea of “beautiful” is at the forefront of your mind. Act it. Feel it. Know it.

Beautiful – Don’t be scared to use the word, don’t be scared to try to be the word, and definitely don’t be scared to coach the word. All players have that beauty inside, it just needs to be brought out of each one in order for players across the country to play at their very highest ability. Through sports and coaching, lessons are learned – competitiveness, work ethic, determination. These are lessons that when softball is over, allows softball to still stay apart of you. Just like softball is a medium for life lessons, softball should be a medium to make girls feel good about themselves, to feel beautiful. The more beautiful you feel, the more confident you are, the more motivated you are to go out and achieve your dreams and think the sky is the limit. It all starts with an at bat or throwing a pitch, and noticing a different way of moving and holding yourself to resemble being the most beautiful player that you can be.

And that is beautiful fastptich.

A Day of a College Softball Freshman in the OffSeason

December 24, 2013

College, Preparation, Softball

The offseason for a college softball player is the fall semester August – December. When a freshman sets foot on campus, her life is about to greatly change when it comes to time management, responsibility and number of hours you are working out/playing softball. The different things you have to time manage for in the fall are:

Study hall hours
Lifting weights/conditioning
Hours you go to class
Hours you are studying on your own outside of study hall
Softball Practice
Social Time
Recruits coming in

Every university is different. I’ll give you a little insight as to what my schedule was like when I played at Texas A&M.

Coming into the fall season, right when school begins, most schools have a conditioning test to make sure that the players were doing work over the summertime. It’s usually a pretty big deal, as it’s the first glimpse at the team to see who put in time and effort over the summer to become better. I feel like during the conditioning test you learn a lot about your team; you even learn who are going to be the leaders. Not only did we have a conditioning test (ours was called the Gasser test), but we also had to get tested on our bench press max, vertical max, agility time, squat and deadliest. For the freshman, the first time you get all these numbers, it is used as a baseline. For the sophomores, juniors, and seniors, this number is used to monitor and compare to make sure you’re getting stronger, and once again, to make sure you worked out over the summer. For those sophs-seniors, if they did not come back in shape and pass all their tests, then they had to go to what we call Club Del Ray (our strength and conditioning coach’s name was Ray). CDR are extra workouts during the week first thing in the morning in the fall to get you BACK into shape…preparing you for season coming up in the spring.

As a freshman we were required 8 hours of study hall a week. This study hall takes place usually at night between the hours of 6-10. Those were the most popular hours athletes were getting in their study hall time. Athletes of all sports – football, basketball, volleyball, etc. You go, check in, get work done, check out and leave. The way you get out of study hall hours, is to keep a high enough GPA. At your freshman year, if your GPA is high enough, you will no longer be required to go to study hall on an hourly weekly basis. If your GPA drops at any time during your 4-5 years playing softball, then you’ll be required to go back.

As a freshman, we were required to live on campus. When I was there, we had to live with someone from a different sport; I lived with a golfer. Now, the girls at A&M generally live with another softball player their freshman year, and they still live on campus.

A typical “full time” course load is 12 hours. As a general rule, 3 hours = 1 class. So in any given semester, you’re taking at least 4 classes. Some players will take 15 hours (5 classes) depending upon how heavy the classes are and knowing how much required work will go into them.

Softball practice is a little different in the fall. During the fall, you will have about a month (the coach can decide when this takes place) of team practice. This means that the team will practice every week day from certain hours, say 3-6, and everyone gets to be out there together. Other than that month of team practice, you are doing what is called Individuals. Individuals are much more limited, as every player is allowed only 4 hours with the coaching staff per week. This is tough, especially for pitchers who hit, because you have to split up 3 things during that 4 hour week: hitting time with coaches, pitching time with coaches and defensive time. Now remember, the team practice time and individual time are limited based on the coach requiring you to be there. Outside of that required time, you can, and are encouraged, to get more work on your own.

Typical day of individuals:

6:30-7:00 – Wake up, eat breakfast

8:00-12:00 – Going to 2-3 different classes on campus, eat a snack before lift

12:30 – Weight room lift

Eat lunch

3:00-4:00 Individuals

5:00-6:00 Hit/Pitch on your own

Go home, regroup

6:00-8:00 Study hall

Home for dinner, then sleep

OR maybe it looks like this…

Typical day with Team Practice:

6:00 Team lift/Run

Grab breakfast

8:00-12:00 Class

Eat lunch, go home, relax, maybe study a little more, run any errands

3:00-6:00 (0r 7:00) – Team Practice

Go straight from team practice to study hall

7:00-9:00 Team Practice

So that is just a basic schedule for a freshman, and everyone’s will vary based on class times during the day. The weekends in the fall are generally reserved for recruits to be coming into town (you hang out with the recruits as a team) and also reserved for football games! In that 1 month I told you about in the fall where you have team practice, you will also played around 10 games. Could be a little less or more. These games could be against anybody – Blinn Junior College or Texas State University. They will vary. They generally will be games with teams that are from close by to limit travel since and also teams that are not in your conference.

What’s your biggest worry about playing softball in college? What do you get most excited about when it comes to playing softball in college? Do you have any questions for me? — go ahead, ask below!

YOU Are YOUR Best Pitching Coach

July 17, 2014

Often, I will use the phrase, “Be your own pitching coach.” You might not know exactly what that means or you might say, “But I have a pitching coach already…” and I would say that’s fine. BUT when it comes right down to it, and you’re in the middle of the circle with bases loaded and a full count on the hitter, that pitching coach can’t make the pitch happen FOR you. To “be your own pitching coach” means to learn to think for yourself, learn to FEEL for yourself and learn to make corrections on your own.

This just can’t magically happen in games, it has to be practiced at practice!

If you’ve taken lessons with me before, or come to one of my clinics, then you know one of my favorite things to ask is, “How did that FEEL?” I want a pitcher to slow her mind down, and actually have to take time to understand what her body just went through to create a certain pitch. In order to do that, you must take more time in between pitches to start to understand FEELING and let your brain figure out what exactly it did feel. Feel is such a big part of pitching.

To feel means to understand what every body part is doing from fingers, down to hips down to knees and toes.

It means that someone can tell you an adjustment to make and simply by words alone, it can create a feel to that body part of what that body part needs to do differently the next pitch in order to make an adjustment. This is THE biggest thing to have as a pitcher. If you aren’t feeling, then you aren’t pitching. A pitching coach who is just going to tell the pitcher everything to do after every single pitch isn’t helping to create that feel. That’s making a pitcher a robot. Robots don’t feel, they change on command. A pitching coach who tells his/her pitcher every single movement to make is not enabling that pitcher to think for herself

Being your own pitching coach is essentially like being your own boss.

How would you like it if your boss came into your office and said, “Do this…do that…no do is this way…no that’s not right…” Eventually, you would either get burnt out, or you would stop thinking for yourself. Then, when it came time for you to change jobs or “perform” on a big stage, you might freeze, and not be sure of yourself because previously, someone had told you every single move to make. Instead, I think it would feel more empowering to ask YOU, “What do you think about doing it this way?” or “How do YOU think we should do it?” Then you can answer, and think for yourself, and come up with an answer TOGETHER. It’s teaching someone and not just TELLING them. Teaching takes a little bit more time. Just telling someone something is a quick way to get it over with, but it doesn’t help out the other person as much. It’s the same way when a pitcher is learning not JUST what a pitching coach thinks, but also learning to form an opinion of her own about what she thinks works for HER. By talking about what you feel with your pitching mechanics and having to actually talk about out loud about them, you learn to have more confidence and truly understand what your body does in order to make a pitch happen. You’re learning. You’re making mistakes. You’re growing. Most importantly, you are learning to take responsibility for YOUR pitching craft. It may be uncomfortable at first, but it is SO good for you, and you will eventually get more and more used to it.

Be your own pitching coach means thinking for yourself and being able to come up with an answer on your own without someone telling you what to do. Come game time, your pitching coach may not be at warm ups with you and he/she definitely won’t be out on the field with you. So how are you going to handle your own thoughts? How are you going to make your own adjustments and even REALIZE that it’s time to have adjustments? THIS is what pitching is all about. You can’t look to your parents for answers you can’t always look to your coach for answers. A lot of times, you have to look deep inside yourself. Don’t be a robot out there in the pitching circle. Be you. Trust your thoughts in the game by learning to trust them in practice.

Look to yourself for the answers first.

Try new things. Be inventive. Something may work for you that a pitching coach didn’t TELL you to do, but if it WORKS (if it REALLY works), then you should be able to do it. I loved when I gave lessons and one of my girls would come up to me and say, “At practice, I was playing around with my curve ball, and I realized that when I throw it, if I put my hand HERE then it doesn’t work, but I slightly moved it back a little, and then it helped with the movement of it.” <— THIS IS AWESOME…AMAZING…INCREDIBLE. If you can do this, if you are willing to even try new things on your own, you are going to grow and grow and grow. Nothing will stop you. This means that you are truly feeling what you are doing and are taking the time to understand pitching mechanics, think for yourself and isolating different body parts to make small changes along the way that will pay off to be big changes down the road.

At your next practice, think on YOUR OWN and be your own pitching coach. Think about what you FEEL is going wrong with a certain pitch or your mechanics. Slow your mind down to think about what your adjustment is. This pays off down the road. We should be free thinkers, able to express ourselves and come up with our own solution. It’s good to ask people for help, but it’s not good to ask people for answers ALL the time. Figure out some things on your own, it will stay with you longer and make you feel like later on when you need an answer or a quick fix, that the answer is already inside of you….just have to think about it a little to pull it out!

Do you Have Short Term Memory Loss?

January 22, 2014

Before you get scared- NO, this is not a spam post ad for some overseas medicine coming to America to help with short term memory loss! In sports, a player NEEDS to have short term memory loss. What do I mean by that? I mean you have to forget mistakes you make in a game – quickly. Sports are filled with failures, but also filled with a lot of opportunity. How are you looking at your next at bat or your next pitch you throw after you make a mistake? Are you looking at it as an opportunity to succeed or as a chance you might fail?

We all are going to make mistakes throughout the game. It’s all about how we recover from that mistake that matters. We must understand that one play does not define you as a player – for better or for worse. We have to be able to move on from a play within SECONDS of it happening, in order to have full focus on what is still happening during that same play while it is being completed. Then, we must move on on to the next play, the next pitch, the next at bat. Sports like softball move very fast. The game will move on with or without you – hopefully, it’s with a fully focused, fully positive you – ready to make a new impact on the game when you have another opportunity.

If you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not doing anything. I’m positive that a doer makes mistakes. – John Wooden

A hitter might have 4 at bats in a game, an infielder might have 3-4 plays chances to make a play in a game, but a pitcher is touching the ball 80-130(ish) times a game. A pitcher has more opportunities to make a mistake than any other person on the field, but also more opportunities to rebound from a mistake…more opportunities to have a chance to shine. You have to be able to let things go. Forget about the last mistake you made. The game isn’t nearly as much fun when you are WORRIED about mistakes and hanging on to things that weren’t done “perfectly.” If you are worried about pitch number 24 you threw in the game, while you are throwing pitcher number 44, there is no way to throw pitch 44 to its highest ability.

It isn’t making mistakes that’s critical; it’s correcting them and getting on with the principal task. – Donald Rumsfeld

The best pitchers are going to be the pitchers who move on with a new, clear focus on the next pitch. After you throw a pitch, you CANNOT hang on to it. You have to accept the outcome, do not JUDGE it. It’s when we judge the outcome that we are more likely going to be hanging on to it and unable to move on. You have a chance the very next pitch to redeem yourself to your coaches, team, and to yourself. How are you going to rebound?

As athletes, we all want to be perfectionists. It’s impossible to be perfect in sports. We are trying to achieve perfection every time we take the field or the court, and perfection never going to be attainable. If you are a competitive athlete, you are always going to want to be better and better and better, and there never truly is perfection. Even if you throw a “perfect” game, it doesn’t mean that you threw 100% strikes and had 21 strike outs in a game. (If someone has had this, I applaud you, but I am not sure that this exists out there). Go into a game not EXPECTING to make mistakes, but understanding that they might happen. The best thing you can do is accept that you made a mistake, and move on. The ability to do this can make a good player a great player.

Once you accept that you’re imperfect and are ok with making mistakes, it’s the most liberating thing in the world. We are all perfectly imperfect.

Whether you are hitting or pitching, you must have the mindset of NEXT PITCH. You took a pitch that was right down the middle for the first strike of your at bat? So what, next pitch. In our game, you have the OPPORTUNITY to recover from a mistake within seconds of making that mistake. Think of the next pitch as an immediate opportunity to bounce back whether you are at the plate, in the field or in the circle. If you are still down when that next pitch is happening, your chances of having success aren’t going to be very high because you are still hanging on to the past. Let go of the past, focus on what you can do NOW.

The first step in this whole process of getting better at having short term memory loss is PRACTICING having short term memory loss at practice and at lessons, even throughout the day in regular, every day activities. If you cannot recover from a mistake in a lesson quickly, it’s going to be 1000 times harder to recover from a mistake in a game because a game moves faster and a game has more pressure.

Someone who does not have short term memory loss must first come to the realization that you are not good at letting go of mistakes before you can begin to change it. Once you realize it, you become aware of it, and you can actually make a change. If you never realize it, you are not going to change, and you will stay lost amongst the high percentage of players who hang on to the mistakes they make throughout a game and throughout a tournament. When you hang on to mistakes, it’s exhausting and the game doesn’t seem fun anymore. Practice having short term memory loss in your lessons.

Know you made a mistake, do NOT judge it, learn from it, and commit to the next pitch with a fresh mentality. By practicing it in lessons or at team practice, you will have a much better chance of putting into play your short term memory loss into a real game.

Don’t be so hard on yourself! Remember, sports should be fun! Even though you are intense, and expect to be great every time that you go out onto the field to play, you are GOING to make mistakes. The longer you hold on to that mistake, the less fun the game is going to be. We are all perfectly imperfect and are allowed to make mistakes! What is going to separate you from the rest of the players out there is how FAST you move on from mistakes!

Power Drive Photo Shoot

December 1, 2013

Uncategorized

About three years ago I was searching pitching and pitching tools, and I stumbled across the Softball Power Drive. I spent some time on their website truly studying the tool and soon realized that it was a tool that helped teach exactly how I taught my pitching students. Immediately I searched for a contact email and sent an email to Softball Power Drive explaining who I was, how much I loved their tool and if there was any way we could work together. I thought that email was going to go into a black hole, but it didn’t. I got contacted back a few weeks later by the inventor of the Softball Power Drive, John Miller, and his father Brad. After that conversation, we have worked together ever since.

We made this video in Indiana about 2 years ago with a high tech camera that shoots at 1000fps. What’s so cool about this video is that it shows how to use the Softball Power Drive while also showing fastpitch mechanics at a speed where you can actually see where the body is supposed to be.

I was very lucky growing up; I had tremendous pitching coaches who taught me solid mechanics and how to put my body into the most efficient spots to get the most out of my size and muscles. I stand at not even 5’6 but could touch 70mph. Think of the normal pitcher you see in college and most of them stand above 5’6, lots of them over 6′ tall. So I get asked where I got that power from a lot. My answer to them is: I used my lower half in the right way in order to get the most energy out of my frame.

This video has over 400,000 views on youtube and does not include the numbers of views it has had on the Softball Power Drive home page. I haven’t really found anything else out there on the internet that shows the fastpitch mechanics in slow motion at 1000fps like this video does. So please share or leave any comments and questions! Enjoy!

Top Five Q’s with A • I

September 22, 2014

Questions, Softball

Hey everyone, I constantly receive awesome questions from you guys and I wanted to share some of the ones that I think would benefit all of you. Keep them coming and know I will do the best that I can to get to as many of them as possible. If my responses benefit you, please show your support by liking the blog or sharing it with someone you think it could benefit! Thanks for all of your questions and trusting in me and my answers!

Benefits of 30 min Pitching Lessons

Q1: I have a question. My daughter is 9 and taking private pitching lessons from a girl in college. She charges $25 for 30 min. Is 30 min enough time for a lesson? We only get to see her once or twice a month. It just doesn’t seem like enough time. Thank you

A1: Yep! When I was giving lessons I did 30 min as well, ESPECIALLY for a 9 year old. BUT with that being said, I give a lot of detailed information within that 30 min….so it’s up to YOU and your daughter to go and work on the little things while you are on your own. So pick the 2-3 things in that 30 min that you can go and focus on at practice on your own, master then before your next lesson, learn a few more things at the next lesson, master them on your own, repeat. It’s a cycle and it’s how your young pitcher will get better instead of trying to learn 52 new things in an hour lesson and not know exactly what to work on. Also, that is a great price, I charge $45 for 30 min, so you’re getting a good deal. Don’t try to learn too much too fast! One step at a time.

Does pitching improve your hitting?

Q2: Question? When you started pitching did your hitting get better? After working with you that one day and her pitching coach this summer she is now “squashing” the bug with her back foot and driving balls deep into the outfield. Lexi made the U8 fall team, but want her there before or after practice for pitching so they can move her to U10. She really wants to work with you again so let me know the next mini camp in Houston.

A: Hey there! To be honest, at a younger age I was a better hitter than I was pitcher. Hitting came more naturally to me than pitching did. So I didn’t really connect them together at a younger age thinking that one affected the other! Maybe just overall she has gotten more excited about pitching and softball in general to get her more confidence and overall joy towards the game, which gives her more happiness to go out and play the game!

Amanda’s Training Availability

Q3: Hi Amanda! Where are you located and do you still do training?

A3: Hi! I am in Houston! At this time I am not taking on any private lessons since I am traveling around the country a lot during the year and cannot keep a regular lessons schedule! I will do clinics across the country with The Packaged Deal (www.packageddeal.com) and I also will throw together small clinics in the Houston area about once a month to try to reach out to our community!

Q4: Just a reaching out as a curious recreation director here in Darlington South Carolina. What could we possibly do to get a clinic here in our area. We are in somewhat of a hotbed for softball and I think we could possibly have a successful clinic here! What do we need to do?

A4: Hi Lee! All of my pitching clinics are being done through The Packaged Deal. The Packaged Deal is a group of 4 girls (including myself) who offer catching, pitching, infield, and hitting sessions at facilities and fields around the country. We have come together to travel around for different people to host us! You can find more information at http://www.packageddeal.com/who/ . There, if you click on “Book” on the Navigation Bar, you can look more into how to host us near you!

Strength Training for Softball

Q5: Hi Amanda! My name is Lane Welch and I coach high school football and head coach our HS softball team! I would first like to say how much I love seeing your post and reading about the passion you have for softball and teaching youth and coaches around the world the knowledge that you have! I have been fortunate to have been in strength and conditioning by some of the most knowledgable people in the world! I strength train my softball team and know that I have very positive results from it over the years. Some of my players don’t understand it and have parents tell them that it holds them back. I truly do not believe that, but would love to know your thoughts on strength training in softball as you have played on such a high level! I am from west monroe, LA and love reading all your postings. Please keep doing what you do.

Q5: I totally agree with it! Think it’s very important and I noticed a drastic difference when I was in college of overall strength I felt playing the game. We did EVERYTHING – bench press, dead lift, power cleans, conditioning, lots of core works, shoulder stability exercises, agilities, sprints. The one thing we did NOT do was long distance training, since softball is such a quick, explosive sport and you need to be fast on your first step (of fielding a ground ball, first step out of the box, big push step when pitching). I feel like some people complain because they don’t want to put in the extra work. Strength and conditioning can be built into your practices and overall weekly routine if you are wanting to become a better ATHLETE and softball player. When I think of S&C for softball players I think of strengthening the lower half, strengthening the core and working on explosiveness. The more time you want to sacrifice to put into your training, the better results you are going to see on the field!

Personal Branding

October 13, 2013

Branding

What is your personal brand saying about you through social media?

Definition: Personal branding is the process of developing a “mark” that is created around your personal name or your career. You use this “mark” to express and communicate your skills, personality and values. The end goal is that the personal brand that you develop will build your reputation and help you to grow your network in a way that interests others. They will then seek you out for your knowledge and expertise.

Personal brands affect each and every one of us daily. Few players realize that they are building their personal brands NOW, at age 12 or at age 17. This no longer applies to just famous celebrity adult athletes out in the “real world.” Social media, in my eyes, is affecting personal branding the most with young players. Every tweet, every picture, every post is defining how you want the world to view you and how you are making your own unique “mark” on the world. Young players are unaware that the image they are portraying now, even at as preteen, could be affecting where their career is headed when it comes to playing in college and also in post college careers past softball. Personal branding affects a player trying to play softball in college just as much as it affects the current college softball standout.

Why is this important when it comes to softball? A softball player’s brand is not simply built on batting average, ERA, or wins and losses. Though that is PART of a player’s brand, it truly is much more and deeper than just statistics and swag on the field. Every second of the day it’s either getting stronger or getting weaker. A player is not the only person who has a personal brand in our game – coaches and parents also have their personal brand which is being defined with every game, every win, every loss and every taught skill along the way….but a coaches and parents brand discussion will have to be discussed on a different date.

What players are putting out on social media is writing their personal brand through words and pictures that will live forever — Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Vine, etc. This is something that 10-15 years ago, players like myself did not have to worry about as much, as the concept of Personal Branding really started to come around in the late 90’s. It is through technology and apps that define your brand and really what you are all about on the inside. As I’ve watched and monitored over our own team’s tweets and posts, I’ve noticed some common themes along the way that need to be redirected and given better, more positive energy than some of the negativity I read.

Think of these things as you build YOUR brand before you post anything on any of your apps:

What is your vision and purpose?
What are your values and passions?
What are your goals? Long term and short term?
What makes you happy?

I’ve explained to our own Firecracker team before that Twitter should not be a medium to release any and all personal problems that vary between how you’re playing on the field to relationship problems to family problems. I totally understand 100% that players feel like these forms of social media is a way to express themselves…but there are some things that should be left to be expressed to your coach, friends or family in a one on one CONVERSATION, not a public conversation on the Internet. Remember that there are other ways to be heard and people who care about what you are feeling who are actually close to you – your friends and family.

If you’re not playing well on the field…why would you tweet about it? Do you want your competition to know that you’re not seeing the ball well or your change up is struggling? Instead of tweeting about it, go practice. Take that energy and use it towards something good. If you have time to tweet about it, usually you have time to go out and practice or get better at whatever it is you’re complaining about. The more your thoughts are negative, the longer you will struggle. Along those same lines, are your tweets helping your team or hurting your team? Handle team problems off the field not through social media.

When you’re tweeting, think about the language you are using. No curse words or putting other people down or bullying. Anything negative only brings other people down who are reading it and makes YOU look worse.

When you’re posting pictures, before you post, think about if that exact picture was on the front of USA Today, would you be ok with it? What would your parents think if they saw it on the front of the paper?

Don’t complain about relationship and friendship problems via social media. These problems fall under that personal umbrella that should not be shared with the world. Now don’t get me wrong, I know that there will be problems, we all have them. However, there is a place to talk about them, and it’s not over a social media medium. The negativity and complaining take away from your personal brand.

When you are tweeting and posting, think about posting things that shape YOU in the light that you want to be seen in and the characteristics that you want put next to your name. If you’re having a bad day, where you maybe can’t think of anything nice or positive to post, then just go ahead and don’t put anything that day. Putting nothing is better than putting something negative or sad. Nobody else defines you, YOU define you. Do you want to be seen as pessimistic, critical, a bad teammate, depressed and someone who has self pity? Or do you want to be seen as charismatic, happy, motivated, inspired, passionate? When you put yourself in a college coach’s shoes, which characteristics do you want your players to have and be around every day? What kind of energy are you giving off to the public with your posts?

Have an effect on others that is positive. Before you post, think is this helping or hurting my brand? It’s so important to realize that every day your image can be seen in a negative or positive light, which will have an effect on not only YOU but college coaches, tournament team coaches, opposing players and also your career once softball is finished. Right now, what kind of brand are you creating and what kind of “mark” are you leaving on the world? The brand you are creating on a daily basis now has an impact on your life years and years down the road. Make the most of it NOW, don’t start later.

~~~~

Personal branding is the practice of people marketing themselves and their careers as brands. The personal-branding concept suggests that success comes from self-packaging. Personal branding also involves creating an asset by defining an individual’s appearance and areas of knowledge in a way leading to a uniquely distinguishable, and ideally memorable, impression.

Same Game Different Stage

March 13, 2013

Motivation, Uncategorized

Add comment

softball same gam different stage - motivation

Well, televised games start THIS WEEKEND on the ESPN family of networks. The first game will be #7 Tennessee @ #3 Florida this Saturday, March 16 on ESPNU at 11am ET. These are two teams going up against each other who just this past week, both defeated Alabama, as Florida gave Alabama their first loss over a week ago in a mid week Wednesday game, and Tennessee beat Alabama 2/3 in their series this past weekend in Knoxville. Before last week, Alabama was ranked #2 in the nation and was undefeated. So far there has been some great matchups and upsets along the way and it’s only going to continue as we move through the season. If you know me at all, you know this is my favorite time of year. I love being able to follow the teams, the players, the seniors, the freshmen and seeing which teams are living up to expectations, and which teams are falling short. It’s so interesting to see when different teams will peak in the season, each team trying not to hit their peak too early in the year.

ESPN is putting more regular season games on TV than they ever have in the past. Year after year the amount of televised collegiate games is growing across all networks, and it’s really cool to see. This year in the booth for ESPN during the regular season you will be able to catch 6 softball analysts calling the games at any given time: Myself, Jessica Mendoza, Michele Smith, Jennie Finch, Cheri Kempf & Garland Cooper. For a complete game schedule of ALL televised games on the ESPN Family of Networks: CLICK HERE

Other sites I use for good college softball info:

ESPN W Graham Hays Blog

Great week by week information of who is hot and which teams are playing best. Graham Hays is someone who knows his stuff, always enjoy reading about what he has to say and he covers which teams week by week are playing best.

USA Softball College Corner

This is where you can find the college polls (rankings) and also who is the National Player of the Week. Every week there is a new National Player of the Week and a new top 25 Poll.

NCAA Statistics

Want to know where your team or favorite player ranks statistically in the nation? Click there. Individual statistical rankings (ex. Lauren Chamberlain’s batting average) and team statistical rankings (ex. Oklahoma’s team batting average.) There are all kinds of stats you can see ERA, home runs per game, batting average, stolen bases, walks, on base %). The first rankings for this season just came out this week, and they will update weekly.

Some fun stats for this week:

The highest on base % in the nation goes to Devon Wallace, who plays for Arkansas. She gets on base almost 7/10 times with an OB % of .691.

The lowest team ERA goes to Oklahoma, whose team ERA is .80. With the amount of great competition and the amount of top 25 teams Oklahoma has faced this year, that is a an amazingly low ERA. And it does not just have to do with senior All American pitcher, Kelani Ricketts. She is ranked 5th in the country with an ERA of .87 in 80 Innings Pitched , however, Oklahoma has another senior left handed pitcher, Michelle Gascoigne who actually is leading the entire country with a .70 ERA in almost 60 Innings Pitched.

So why should you watch softball on TV?

Being able to watch college softball on TV can be used as a valuable learning experience in so many different ways for players and for families. Below are 3 reasons if you’re a young player or a softball family, you should watch as many collegiate games on TV as you possibly can.

1. Create goals, inspire dreams

With the amount of college softball games on TV, young players are able to see role models right before their eyes playing the game they love at a higher level. Being able to watch it on TV can put the dream right in front of them that they, too, one day, may be able to make it to that level and be able to compete at the game they love. Our game of softball has come so far, and a major reason is the amount of games that are now being televised. By watching these games, young players can be inspired to create a goal in their mind of a future level they want to compete at. It’s so important to have these futuristic dreams to have something to work towards and look forward to. It’s the dreams and goals that push you every time you go out to practice to become better. Every day at practice you are either becoming better or worse. By watching these collegiate games, players are able to visually see other who have achieved their dreams, and make goals to some day be playing on that same field.

2. Learn about colleges who are recruiting you or colleges you think you have an interest in dreaming of playing at.

I personally love being able to be a part of these televised games becuase I get to learn so much about different programs from across the country. I get to meet with their coaches, somtimes even their players and ask them a lot of questions and really try to dig deep to learn about their programs and what kind of program the coach is trying to build or has already built.

Watching two teams go up against each other in a televised game is a great way for YOU to learn about a school’s program, too. You get to watch the coaches, you get to watch how the players swing & pitch, you get to watch how the teams act in the dugout and how they take the field. There are so many different variables that define a program other than their wins & losses record. If you’re REALLY watching a game, you can pick up on a lot by the attitudes and body languages of a team. Things to look at:

– How do the players wear their uniform (is it wrinkly? is the shirt untucked? is it sloppy looking?)

– When the team gets down, do they fight until the end of the 7th inning, or do they give up once they got down?

– How do the players interact with each other?

– How does the coach interact with the team?

– What is their energy like throughout the entire game?

Who is your favorite team? What do they LOOK like on the field?

These might seem like small things, but it’s all the small things that add up to big things and really characterize a school’s program. When you are actually playing college softball, it becomes less about the statistical numbers that make you a player and a team, but more about what is going on outside of those things that make the heartbeat of a team and program. By watching as many games as you can, you’re able to get an understanding of each team you watch simply by paying attention to the energy of the players and the energy of the coaches. Also, not to mention, during the broadcasts, there are usually stories about the team and their coaches, maybe even possible human interest stories that can also help you get to know a team. If you are getting recruited by different colleges across the country, try to watch them as much as possible in person and/or on TV if you get the chance. If you do not know where you are wanting to go to college, watch different games and see if you can get the “feel” of a team through the TV screen to see if they gain your interest in the way that they are playing the game. Watch the games on TV for more than just balls and strikes. Look deeper and you can learn.

3. Same Game, Different Stage – They make mistakes too (good for players AND parents to realize this)

When you’re a young player, an error or giving up a homerun feels like the end of the world. – It feels the same the exact same way for a college player, trust me. You struck out looking? – College players do that too…but instead of never hearing the end of it from their parents, it’s their coach who gives them an evil eye as they run back to the dugout. Same feeling, different authority. You have players on your team who sometimes don’t run a fly ball out? – SAME THING still happens in college! (maybe just not as much)

You see, this game…is the exact same…just with bigger girls, further homeruns and smaller strikezones. By young players being able to see these televised games, they can see that even the college players are human and make mistakes, too. Young players, especially young girls, feel like they get people down when they are not absolutely perfect on the playing field. If they are able to see their role models make mistakes on the same field, it makes them better, and puts less pressure on them the next time they are going out to go play a game. Less pressure on yourself = more fun = better results = more wins.

When I say that this is the same game, I mean to the “t” this is the exact same game no matter if you are in a rec league, on a tournament team or play in college. A leadoff walk more times than not, will lead to a run. A pitcher falling behind in the count means a hitter will be more aggressive on a 2-0/2-1 count. A ball missed down the middle of the plate will get hit well.

….and parents….

More importantly than the young girls being able to watch these players make mistakes, is the importance of the parents being able to see an All American hitter strike out and a Player of the Year have a homerun hit off of her. In being around this game at so many different levels, parents get so ashamed of their kids when they are in the stands if they make an error or do something that is not actually benefitting the team. Remember as a parent, these older girls are making the exact same mistakes – and it will never go away for as long as you’re around the game. Remember that when something happens in a negative light to your daughter, it’s not a reflection on YOU at all, unless you make it about you with the way that you react. Take the attention off of you in the stands and put that energy into how you are going to make your daughter feel better about herself by the words you say after the game, the body language you have during the game and the efforts you are going to take with her AFTER the game to make her a better player and to make her feel better about herself.

Watch these games to dream. Watch these games to learn. Watch these games to take pressure off of yourself. Enjoy getting to learn about the NCAA Division 1 college season and have favorite players and teams to root them on. All of the girls on the field have been in the same position as all of you young players and they worked their tail off to make it to this collegiate level. They, too, had a goal of playing at the next level. They also are just like you and have parents who are just like yours. THe games you are watching through the television screen is the same game you are playing in all different aspects.

High School Softball Season Survivor Guide – Grievance 4: Teammate’s Drive Not There

February 17, 2015

Competition, High School, Mental Game, Softball