Recap Show: Kevin Wilson
Welcome to The Baseball Awakening Podcast where we dive into the raw, unfiltered, unsexy side of player development.
Summary:
On this episode, Host, Geoff Rottmayer, Tulsa Hitting Lessons, recaps his conversation with Kevin Wilson of KWBaseball.com. The biggest takeaways that he discussed on this show are:
- Coaching the person first, which coaches the hitter automatically.
- Since we tend to take this approach at Atheltic Mission, our focus is to be even better at it, and we will do so by caring more, believing more, and asking better questions such as, instead of saying John, How are you doing? We are going to ask, John what’s on your mind.
- Willing to make adjustments.
- We recognize that everyone is different, we need to acknowledge this and recognized this with every hitter we have coming in forward.
- Break season down into weeks – Monday through Sunday
- We developed a hitting journal which you can access here.
- We will have our players go through this journal and review it week after week.
- We will be process focused.
- Have a routine
- We have all of our guys on a routine, but we are going to spend more time ensuring everyone understands why we are doing what we are doing. Have a purpose for everything.
- You can find a section in this is our journal which you can access here.
- Sit at end of the dugout and help hitters prepare for at-bats.
- We will sit at the end of the dugout and we will coach our hitters into getting ready for their at-bat and tell us what their approach and plan will be.
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Email Address:geoff@baseballawakening.com
Transcribe:
Hey guys welcome to the recap sure where I share with you the biggest Takeaway Tulsa Hitting Lessons I got from my conversation yesterday with Kevin Wilson and not only that but how I plan to implement it with the player that I have that train with me here in my Academy in Tulsa Oklahoma.
Before I get started, one thing i want you to know is that I want to hear from you guys because thing things mean different things to different people so it would be interesting to see how you guys interpreted something Kevin said or something I am going to say here today. I will make a show reading off your email because we can all learn something from it, so my email is going to be geoff@baseballawakening.com – so send me your thoughts, comment or feedback.
In our talk, first thing first, what I got from Kevin was Coaching the person first and the hitter will come out automatically. I love that, because I tend to take that approach as well, and yes we talk with our guys on mechanics and helping them reach their potential mechanically but it the coaching the person part that we focus on – listening to the person, believing in the person, caring about the person goes along ways in the development as a player. There is a lot of responsibility being a coach. Here is a NOTABLE QUOTABLE by Billy Graham – Tulsa Hitting Lessons he said A coach will impact more people in one year than the average person will in an entire lifetime. So our focus and goals should be to develop rockstar people. Because when I first started out, and I still do from time to time, I am not perfect, but when I first started out, I wanted to make everyone a rockstar baseball player and I would get frustrated because I wanted it more than them, which isn’t a fair assessment. But what I found out as I continue to work with players is that they want to make you proud and they are working hard and things click at different times for different people.
So since I tend to already take this approach, my goal and my take away from this conversation is I need to do better at it, and I will do this by asking better questions, listening more, and caring more. So the question will shift from, How are you doing, to Whats on your mind? and I got this from Kevin.
I would like your thoughts, so again email geoff@baseballawakening.com.
The next thing from Kevin conversation, He is willing to make adjustments if things aren’t working out. This is huge because everyone is different and different things work for different people. Instead of continuing to push that square peg into a round hole, find something that works for the individual. We live in a time where there are so many different ways of doing things. A lot of great people are doing great work, it amazing how smart people are, but somethings works for some people and other don’t work for others. If something doesn’t work for a guy then you need to make Tulsa Hitting Lessons adjustments or tell you your aren’t for them, and its ok. Its ok if people do not agree with you, its healthy. I wish more would focus on the people who believe in your message instead of bashing other and trying to convert every everyone into believing what you believe. When the time is right and if the time ever comes they will seek you out. But be willing to make adjustment is huge. Learn how they learn and learn how they move.
I would like to hear your thoughts, email me at geoff@baseballawakening.com
The next things that I really love form my conversation was breaking the season down into weeks – Monday through Sunday. At the end of the year you can add up the weeks and get a good understanding of how the season went. But just focus a week at a time. AT the end of the week reflect on the week, and try and understand what went good and what went bad. I cant find the quote, but Hank Aaron is on record talking about the biggest mistakes hitters make is not reflecting on what went good and what went bad. Understanding why you are playing well and not playing well will tremendously help you as a hitter so you need to reflect over the past week. So I created a hitting journal, you can find a link in the show notes that will give you access to the hitting journal that i put together, and I am going to have our guys fill this out and we are going to go over it every single week when they come in. We will use the information to figure out what needs to be the focus at practice and then what needs to be the focus next game. Be sure to check out the journal pdf in show notes section. I would love to hear your feedback on it.
The nice things about having a journal if you do not have access to data is that you have information so now you can come up with a game day strategy. I can talk difference between game plan vs game strategy another time.
Again, I would like to hear your thoughts, email me at Geoff@baseballawakening.com
The next thing we talked about, was routines. You just need one, if it is a bad one, just have one, Just get started. You need consistency. You need to find things that you do every day and check in boxes. If you stay consistent and keep checking in boxes the results will be more consistent. The guys that are really good, and I mean really good, they do the same things for years, they are not into the latest and greatest stuff, they do the same thing over and over because it works for them and it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks, they don’t care. Tulsa Hitting Lessons I see a lot of younger guys constantly changing things up and constantly trying the latest and greatest and the problem with it, is you never stick through anything long enough to know if is going to work. You need to measure and make adjustments but you need to give things time. Part of the journal that I talked about earlier, which you can find the link for the pdf in the show notes has a part where you are to write down your routine. And give it time and to make sure you do not get bored with routines because it can get boring, is you need to tie a purpose to everything you are doing. If you know why you do what you are doing then its easier to work through it. But if you have no clue why you are doing it and you go through the motions and it can be boring. At my facility, we are all about routines – but we can do a better job having these guys tie a purpose and understand why they are doing what they are doing and that is something I am going to spend more time on.
I would like to hear your thoughts, email me at geoff@baseballawakening.com
The last thing I got away from the conversation that I want to share with you, Kevin shared with us when he was the hitting coach for the USA Team, he would sit at the end of the dugout and ensure that every hitter stood next to him as they were getting ready to go to the plate and they would tell him what their approach or plan was for that at bat. Tulsa Hitting Lessons And it was a way to get them ready for their at bat and a way for him to hold them accountable. I love it – I would encourage coaches to take this approach and help these guys understand what they need to be watching and help them start thinking about their at bat and what they want to do. While I do not have teams, I will be helping a team out this year in this part. Getting each individual to learn how to watch the game, because most don’t know how to watch the game and it because they have never been taught.
I would like to hear your thoughts on that, email me at geoff@baseballawakening.com
Folks, the whole conversation was great, these were the biggest takeaways I Tulsa Hitting Lessons got from it and what we plan to do to implement. I have said it throughout the show, but I would love to hear from you on your thoughts about yesterday’s conversation with Kevin Wilson of KWBaseball.com and on what I covered today on this recap show.
Thanks
