Suzy Willemssen: Hi! I'm Suzy Willemssen. I am a travel ball and high school softball coach. Christie is going to be here helping me demonstrate some basic Fastpitch softball skills. This one particularly, we're going to be reviewing is the grip for the Fastball. Again, the basic pitch, the first pitch any young pitcher should learn when they're interested and learning how to pitch a Fastpitch softball. Christie is going to be using a three-finger grip and so again, she is going to be starting on the mount, both feet need to be on the rubber and as you see, Christie will be pushing off with a good leg drive and then she gets herself in the K position once you go ahead and just stop at that point. Christie, she has got the three-finger grip, pushes off using the legs. In fact, the legs are essential, huge, the biggest part of learning how to pitch using our lower body and so once we get everything set then she allows as she can see the hips are cleared, she can bring the arm through and actually allow the whipping action in the final snap of the wrist.

So, again, Christie, why don't you just go slow showing the three-finger grip coming through power line and then the release. You also notice on Christie's front side how she had the gloves, again everything pointed towards the target home plate. So, Fastball, number one pitch, you need to learn in fact it's a good idea. Naturally, master anything else so you can pitch at seven, eight out of ten times. The next foundation pitch is going to be the change-up. As we talked before, hitting is all about timing and the change-up is the best way to mess up a hitters timing. Christie is going to demonstrate the grip when using a circle change-up. So, as you can see, she has got a circle using her index and thumb around the side and everything is going to be the same. What's also essential when throwing the change-up is that you disguise it. Everything looks identical to the Fastball except as the ball is coming to the plate, it's going at least 10 to 15 miles slower.

So, again here's Christie demonstrating how the circles change. As you can see everything is coming off her presentation on the mount, both feet, getting her power line, glove, everything looks identical to the Fastball except that it's going to come out around 10 to 15 miles an hour slower, again messing up the hitters timing. Now I'll say it again, hitting is all about timing. So, learn the Fastball, learn the change-up and master those two, you can create havoc when that batter is in the batters box.