I don’t know how old some of you are, but I’m 54 years old. Growing up, we did EVERYTHING. I played baseball, basketball, tennis and ice hockey. We went skating every Friday night. I started lifting weights at 17 and still lift today. I boxed and kickboxed for six years. I started playing golf around 20. Was I great at everything? Hell no. But I worked my ass off trying to get better at everything I did. Looking back now, I realize how important all of those different movement experiences were. Throwing, swinging, skating, punching, kicking, jumping, changing direction, rotating, balancing, producing force and learning how to control my body. That background is a huge part of why I can study movement today and better help my athletes. I had thousands and thousands of reps across completely different activities before I ever knew the terminology behind what the body was doing. We learned movement by MOVING. That’s what worries me about where youth development has gone. Kids are being taught pictures and poses of what great hitters do instead of being given opportunities to develop the movement capabilities that allowed those great hitters to get there in the first place. They see Aaron Judge at a certain point in his swing and somebody says, “Get here.” No. What MOVEMENT got him there? What happened before that frame? What did his body organize naturally because of the athlete he spent his entire life becoming? You cannot manufacture somebody else’s movement by copying their position. And there are lessons to learn from baseball cultures throughout Latin America as well. Watch how many young players grow up throwing, competing, playing freely and swinging with intent. There’s rhythm. There’s aggression. There’s athleticism. They’re encouraged to throw it hard and swing it hard. That doesn’t mean every development system there is identical or perfect, but there is something valuable in allowing athletes to explore movement instead of constantly putting them into manufactured positions. Sometimes I think we have become so obsessed with teaching kids HOW they should look that we’ve forgotten to let them learn how to MOVE. Build the athlete first. Let them throw. Let them run. Let them jump. Let them rotate. Let them play different sports. Let them swing hard. Let them fail and figure things out. Then, as coaches, help organize and refine what their body already knows how to do. Movement creates the position. The position should never be used to manufacture the movement.

If you only teach “up” without first teaching how to control “down,” you create a limited swing. “Down” is not chopping the ball. It is a feel that helps organize the body at foot down: shoulders controlled, hands above the ball, barrel saved, and the lower half able to create pressure into the ground. That organization creates options. It allows the barrel to work through the ball with adjustability for pitch height, location, count, game situation, and conditions. A rise-ball pitcher and a 20+ mph wind blowing in immediately expose a one-option, lift-only approach. You need to be able to control the barrel through the ball, produce hard line drives, use the entire field, move runners, and compete when the ball is not in your preferred window. Power is not removed by learning down. The down becomes the up when the body turns, the front side accepts force, and the barrel releases through the ball. OPTIONS are built from the DOWN!