Practicing to throw a softball

I don’t know much about softball but I have learned that knowing how to throw the ball is one of the key things to learn right away. My team has placed me as back catcher which means I get lots of practice throwing each game. But, being a perfectionist, that’s not enough for me. I’ve made a goal to practice at least once a week in addition to my team’s game.

Tom, my fiancée, is a great resource of information. He casually asked me if I wanted to “throw the ball around” and the next thing I knew, he had me doing what Tom called “Russian drills”! Sounds intense? Yeah, it was. But I’ll admit it was really good practice too. Tom would throw me the ball, I had to catch it, drop it, pick it up and throw it back to him as quickly as I could. This approach is how the Russian hockey team would practice – at great speed until they basically fell over. That’s why Tom calls it “Russian drills.” This helped me to learn how to throw when I feel a little bit of panic and because I’m not confident on the field yet, I feel panic whenever the ball comes my way. Ha! I just don’t want to let my team down so these drills are great for me to gain a bit of confidence and speed with my throw.

Another drill Tom and I practiced is throwing the ball with one knee on the ground. Sound strange? I agree! Tom noticed that as I was throwing sometimes I wouldn’t let go of the ball quickly enough which would cause the ball to fall downwards and not get as far as I intended it to go. By getting on one knee and throwing you learn really quickly not to hang on to the ball because it goes immediately towards the floor since you’re so much closer to the ground. This helps to learn the right release point as you throw. After doing this for a while I really felt better about my throw.

Here’s a great website that describes many of the drills I’ve talked about here: http://www.mysoftballcoach.com/throwing.html

Anyone else learning softball this season? What are your strengths and weaknesses with the game?