We had a tremendous two sessions. Lots of progress was being made out on the field. We did a solid amount of throwing technique, blocking and tag plays with both groups, but the strongest emphasis was on blocking balls in the dirt in each lateral direction.
The theme of the day for blocking was on softening the impact and hustling up off our knees, using our body’s momentum rather than pushing off with the hands.
We mixed in three drills with progressive difficulty and caped it off by video and timing one block, recover and throw to each base. We timed the blocks from the moment the ball hit the dirt to the moment of impact on the glove at the arriving base. We added this as another element to video, and will also send the video via email (with analysis attached) as we do with the throwing videos.
The Catcher’s showed great effort and solid application. It is very difficult for newly learned techniques to become habit or instinct in one session. It takes desire and focused repetition, and even mental repetitions to gradually implement the techniques we are teaching to our Catcher’s. Continue to make it happen.
