Discover simple timing and rhythm hitting tips from Matt Nokes to quickly improve and fix a too early or late swing for baseball and softball batters. Get the front foot down on time and in games.
I don’t give much of my time to others’ timing drills for hitting a softball. And it’s not because I think I’m God’s green gift to baseball and softball. Actually, since January of 2013, I took a needed break learning hitting mechanics from others in the field, no matter how popular. I wanted to shed the hitting “BEER GOGGLES” that have stubbornly held this industry back for decades.
People ask me if I know anything about Tewks, Epstein, “Teacher Man”, etc. I don’t. And that’s the honest truth. I see their posts on Twitter and Facebook, but don’t give them anymore thought. The main reason? I’m still learning my own system!!
Matt Nokes talking about “leaning in and compressing the ball”. Photo courtesy: Matt Nokes’s YouTube channel
Besides, everyone has a different approach, view, and style. As you probably know, the timing drills for hitting a softball language can get quite confusing.
Back in 2013, I decided to stick to resources on Bio-mechanics, Physics, Psychology, etc. Because THIS is where the answers are. It’s not opinion, or someone’s theory or philosophy based on playing or coaching experience.
My #1 rule is to digest information that is validated by science. Don’t seek the footsteps of others, but seek the resources the “others” sought. In other words, don’t just take my timing drills for hitting a softball word for it.
That being said, there are a couple hitting coaches I do listen to, and one is Matt Nokes. I think he has an unmatched passionate curiosity for hitting, authentically wants to help hitters, is open to new ideas (can’t say that for many online gurus), and gets dramatic results with his hitters in a reasonably short amount of time.
As always, I’ve taken video notes for you, so you can skip around to what interests you most. Some of the things you’ll learn in the video are:
Enjoy!
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If you remember one timing drills for hitting a softball thing from this video, it’s from the 21st minute on… 🙂 Golden.
Unlike most MLB players and coaches, Matt Nokes has an intuitive sense of the swing. He can explain it from a “real” point of view, and transition that into “feel”. His system seems to fill in the blanks that I’ve always had about the swing. The good news about his principles is they’re very simple and easy to implement. Matt has a very common sense approach to hitting.
Thanks Matt!
Djura, from my understanding, the main point Matt is trying to get across is getting the hitter to time up full linear momentum into impact. Stopping it takes away from overall distance. Directional force is key and you can’t get that without the “core motor” and linear momentum into the ball…if that stops, then the hitter is all arms, and this is the stop and quit he is referring to. That’s my understanding anyway. His knowledge is definitely a lighthouse in a thick fog 😉
At the 21 minute mark he tells the kid not to move backwards. Does this mean when “showing numbers” you are back far enough? I wasn’t sure what he meant.
Also, what does he mean technique wise when he says compress the ball and swing hard? Is that allowing for the back foot to skip forward for more Force?
Jonathon, great question. He did this video back in 2013, so he had zero knowledge of my system (we officially met in 2015 I believe). Now I don’t agree with cutting out the back motion because that is essential to all human movement, while changing directions. To be clear, you can ‘show numbers’ before the swing even starts. You don’t have to move into that movement, you can start in it.
The power in using “compress the ball” cue is it’s an external one. Lumberjacks in competitions don’t think about the mechanics of an “ax swing”, they’re thinking about burying the blade into the wood. In my opinion, compress the ball is to lean the hitters weight into impact and compress the ball with the bat like a pancake, or like I say drill the head of the nail (ball) flush into the wall. Matt is talking about directional force here, this is so important. 8000-lbs of force per square inch in one direction, is what it takes to hit a ball 400-feet. The keyword there is “in one direction”.
Joey… compress the ball is a que I like but still have a hard time getting some people to grasp…. For me, there are many things that are going on which makes “compress the ball” FEEL right… You say it’s an external que but for me it’s an external to internal que…
So what does than mean? For me, there is a pointing of the lead arm and a pressing in the rear arm or elbow that goes through… And a first feeling that should feel like you are pushing your hands together and at a moment later a 2nd feeling by taking all that energy and pushing your energy in opposite positions on top off each other…And while this is happening, the batter ought to feel the body, particularly the trunk, get tighter and tighter… And this energy is taken right to the ball….
One thing I like is finger tips to the trunk… or to the hips…than the hips or trunk back to the finger tips…
So compression is seen from the external and you match that with a feeling that is internal and transferred to the ball… So when I say “go to the ball” I added at some point and take your energy to the ball and compress it…. I’ve tried… hold your breath before you go to the ball… but now I’m opening a can here as this gets complicated… But what I like is the feeling that the batter is transferring his energy to the ball… if I think of transferring my energy to the ball it’s easy for me to get directional….
So if you think about what I said… you can expand it to … energy goes from the barrel to the hips and back from the hips to the barrel and transferred to the ball…
I love the “lean” term but trying to figure out the best way to include it with my “go to the ball”, “take your energy to the ball and compress it”, make sure to hit across your face…is difficult…
Also, being a Yankees fan I remember Nokes well… he approaches the ball well… But his coil was not completely tighten meaning his alignment could not have been in the most powerful position which was obvious because if he had that tight of a coil with his approach to the ball he would have been unstoppable in my view….
Good stuff… I still don’t like the stop and quit because to me and I may that understand it correctly is, if a batter stops and quit… They don’t understand the kinetic chain…Meaning they are cutting out a part of the chain so saying stop and quit shoukd just be replaced with the missing part…
I feel like it’s similar to ” stay inside” which basically means swing the right way… you have to stay inside the ball translates to…you have to swing correctly… which makes sense to me because when I ask how do we stay inside I get some really classic answers…
“Full linear momentum”… can you explain that to me a little bit more….Are you talking about the multiple transferring of energy???
Ok… I think the reason I don’t like the phrase stop and quit is it’s talking about 3-dimension move but putting it in terms of 1-dimension….
And this now even goes into the other comment I had in another article… regarding breathing and holding your breath… At some point you have to firm up and it LEADS to a holding of ones breath to a certain extent but it’s not like it exactly…So firming up is like bracing but yet again it depends on how we want to define these things as some of these things are preset in order to get the tightest coil possible which gives the batter full connection and more importantly let’s our nerves get engaged in the right way which leads to the right movements without resistance…And at the end it all ties together with your pelvic floor… I believe I once told you that if you hold your pee you may get what I’m saying….
Also I once said if your riding a bike after you peddle your legs still goes with your motion and you start using your quads or whatever muscle it is…
So do we stop… Well the chain goes from A to B to C… etc… but that doesn’t mean that only one chain is engaged… There are other chains balancing and others moving other things even in the same body parts…
And this is why I don’t like the linear to rotational to linear phrase.. it’s telling one chapter in a book with many chapters…
Please comment Joey as I’m not entirely sure myself…
~DM
Djura
I love his passion to teach… I feel like Matt was more excited than the hitter….I like how he teaches… I usually say ” Go to the ball” which I think but I’m not sure Matt expresses with lean…Joey can you discuss leaning for me please… The more I think about it the more I like that cue…
He teaches a lot of great things….I think I don’t understand his stop and quitting notion… As per my understanding, there has to be a stop to transfer but it’s not like a literal stop since our man I got parts have many slings… So for me, you have to stop some slings to transfer….Can you discuss his stop and quite notion he didn’t like…
I like how he presets his arms… you know I’m all about pre-setting….I really like how he thinks of the shoulder ceiling and not really the bat path….That is big time… Obviously compression is a great term… Many great things….
~DM