Thursday, November 05, 2009

Teaching how to throw a baseball

I need to teach Roark and Cole how to throw a baseball. Sure, they're only four, but they've started t-ball and watching them practice it was obvious. Cole usually steps with the wrong foot, creating a very awkward, unbalanced motion. When one of the coaches tried to get him to step with the right foot, he threw the ball straight into the ground. Over and over. Roark was his usual wonderfully oblivious self, throwing the ball however he felt like, including once throwing it with his glove hand, which didn't really work so well.

So how do you teach a four year old to throw? I'd say keep it simple, don't overdo it because they'll end up thinking too much. So I did a Google search on "how to throw a baseball". Here's the first couple of lines from the first one that came up: "When kids are taught to throw, often the instruction is watered down into just a couple of steps. The act of throwing a baseball is not that simple. Throwing requires the entire body to work together in order to throw the ball accurately and to put something on it." Sure, maybe to perfect the throw, but I don't think we want to start there.

I plan to start with simply getting them both to turn so their shoulder opposite the throwing arm is pointed at the target, then stepping and throwing. Three fairly simple steps (I hope). We'll see how that goes before worrying about the getting the entire body working together for four-year-olds who fall over while standing still .

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