=== Ichiro ===

On Brian's Ichiro Contact 2 -- Ichiro's power swing -- notice how quiet Ichiro's hands and head are before the bat launch.  You can see the powerful load in his front shoulder, despite the fact that his shoulder doesn't actually travel far.  This is the Japanese-aiki "moving without motion" concept -- certain muscles tense but your movement stays very compact.

Ichiro has commented that, even if an enemy hitter detects (on video) that he is moving a knee differently, he won't know why this movement is occurring...

In Ichiro's power swing, the head stays back and the centifigual power stays behind the fulcrum, as in golf.  The hip load is massive, as the foot picks up off the ground, and the shoulder is powerful, even as the heads and hands stay super quiet.  Few hitters turn their numbers to the pitcher in their backswings.  The load for most hitters involves taking the hands rearward, not the torso circularly.

People wonder why Ichiro can hit the ball 400 feet despite being one of the smallest men in baseball.  This spring training, Niehaus was opining that Ichiro could win the Home Run Derby.   Ichiro applies more centrifugality, pound-for-pound, than any hitter in baseball.

I wonder if this would have been true for Mays and Aaron, who also weighed well under 200 lbs.

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Brian's Ichiro Contact 1 is one of Ichiro's contact swings.

Notice how the head and CG glide forward a long way and the followthrough is very short.  From start to finish, Ichiro's intent is to keep the bat in the strike zone as long as possible.

Ever hit a 3-foot putt by shoving the ball along with your putter, making contact three or four times?   You cannot miss. That's what Ichiro is doing with the pitch in this vid.  It's the same idea as "carrying" in volleyball.  In terms of ki, Ichiro is cheating by "carrying" the pitch.

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Sometimes scouts praise a hitter by saying "he keeps the bat in the strike zone a long time" or "he keeps the bat on the plane of the pitch a long time."  Not like Ichiro, they don't :- )

Notice that the head starts forward from the very outset.  Ichiro decided on this swing before the pitch was thrown.  As he tennis-volleys the pitch, there is no question whether he'll hit it squarely.  The only question is whether the ball will hit a fielder.

After the ball goes into play, Ichiro brings the rear foot up reflexively, so that with his feet closed, he has a large, explosive step available as he tears out of the batter's box like a sprinter.

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:golfclap:,

Dr D