Neutral Bat Position

Rick August Asked 2 weeks ago

I’ve been working on my ready position and my neutral bat position to be ready for the next shot. I tried using a completely vertical bat for my ready position, but I find it more comfortable to have more of a forehand oriented bat rotation. The bat is still in front but slightly rotated counterclockwise from my viewpoint. The orientation is about 10:30-11 o'clock.  I find this more comfortable and natural. This definitely is easier to go to a forehand stroke but is still easy to go to my backhand because as I move my arm to my backhand, I drop my wrist which tends to rotate and close the bat face anyway. I’ll continue to experiment with this and see how it goes. Any thoughts on this?

Alois Rosario Answered 2 weeks ago

Hi Rick,

It sounds like you're making some thoughtful adjustments to your neutral bat position, and that's great to hear.

Finding a comfortable and effective ready position is crucial as it sets you up to respond quickly and effectively to incoming balls. Your adjustment to have the bat slightly rotated towards a forehand orientation is a common approach among many players. This position can make it easier to initiate forehand strokes, which are often more dominant in a player's game. It also sounds like you've found a natural way to transition to your backhand by dropping and rotating your wrist, which is excellent.

Just make sure that this bat angle doesn't slow down your ability to move to wide forehand or backhand shots. Sometimes, a preference for one side can slightly delay reaction times to the other. It sounds like you have this under control. Keep an eye on how smoothly you can switch especially to your backhand from this bat position. It’s good to practise drills that force you to make a decision between forehand and backhand to test and refine your readiness and bat angle.

Keep refining your position based on your comfort and effectiveness, and don't hesitate to tweak things as you gain more experience and feedback from actual match play. Keep up the great work, and let me know how your adjustments progress in your future games.