To indoor nets last Sunday – my first time as a player for two or three years, and hopefully a preliminary to playing a few games in the summer.
Remembering the tenets of “purposeful practice”, and everything I say to our Colts when I am coaching, I set myself a couple of very specific goals for my first batting practice.
- Play myself in, and adopt a very deliberate structure to the session
- 10 balls played with a dead bat, or left alone completely;
- 10 balls “looking for singles”, manipulating the ball into imagined gaps;
- pick up the pace;
- hit anything in sight (it always degenerates to this, in the end – but now I can call it “20/20 practice”).
- Try out the “action position” – this sounds like good advice, but I wanted to try it for myself before I suggested that any of the Colts start moving their feet before the ball is released…
I think I managed my second goal (more on this later).
But…the second ball I received was full, and slow, and pitched around leg, leg-and-middle. Did I play the dead bat, as per the session goals? (more…)
The Teesra 