What's up Dan Blewett here and I want to give you some quick context on the video
and the course you're about to watch so this video is the cornerstone of my how
to throw a hammer curveball course which I have released here on YouTube for free
so I wanted to give this out so I could translate into other languages number
one and just because I wanted to share with you all I've got great viewers and
I appreciate you watching number two a couple things to quickly know in the
description there are links to number one this whole course so if you're
finding just this video you'll find the whole playlist in the description and
too there's a PDF that accompanies this that it gives you learning objectives it
gives you a big checklist of things you should know and should be able to do to
have the best curveball possible it also gives you a download for a 14 page PDF
that will guide you through this whole process in addition there's also another
secret playlist of pitching drills which are what I recommend to take all these
lessons and grips and different variations and stuff you're going to
learn in the course a way to assemble that into a throwing progression so if
you want more throwing drills and you want this PDF that accompanies the
course you can find that in the description below alright I hope you
enjoyed this video and I hope this course helps you have the best season
ever hey Dan blue here let's go over curveball grips is gonna be a fun
chapter to kind of go over here so number one we got five grips standard
knuckle curve the finger pointing up fingers crossed over and the fingernail
dig those are just five different sort of placeholders for your index finger so
let's just jump right into this so the standard grip so you can see here this
big photo it is just it's just honestly like a fastball grip slightly offset to
the side so let's pan to me big here so you can see so basically if you're
looking at the baseball I got my thumb underneath the index or the the seam
here my middle finger is right along the edge so I'm holding that with a
horseshoe like this and my middle finger slides in just like that
my thumbs underneath and these two fingers just like that so this is the
core these four are pretty much unchanging in all these grips alright so
here with the standard grip this fingers just hanging out here and then as you
throw it that finger is going to stay relaxed and not put pressure through the
center so the thing this index finger cannot do is put pressure into the
center of the ball if we do that it's gonna reduce the amount of pressure we
get as we catch the baseball like this this finger should do nothing this
finger should catch the baseball really well and the thumb sort of comes up to
assist it like that that's how we're helping to align spin as we get forward
to the front of the ball and understand you can't actually get out in front like
this your fingers will sneak to the side of the baseball and then they'll try to
their best to sort of a-line the spin as you come back through
so the standard grip is just this and this is actually the same grip as as you
throw a slider and it's it's not really the same as you throw a cutter but it's
really only a little bit different than a fastball but again the hand action is
what makes the most difference you can pick any grip that a big leaguer throws
and you're not just gonna automatically a throw like he does but all these
different grips just tinker with them a little bit so you have five choices here
today really and it's up to you to kinda figure out which one produces the best
results and that's gonna be a combination of your feel for it and what
you're throwing partner says like hey that one's sharper like maybe you do the
knuckle curve grip and it's a sharper pitch but the grip doesn't make the
pitch by any means a knuckle curve is no better it's no worse than any other
curveball grip when someone says oh I he's there's a wicked knuckle curve it's
just the way you holds his fingers it's not a different pitch a curve ball is a
curve ball and it's really a curve ball because of the spin so the next grip
again we cover this again the constant here is the middle finger placement so
remember if all these grips middle finger placement is critical and then
here's the knuckle curve so you can see here that we are taking our our index
finger and shove it against the ball kind of a gooseneck or something I don't
know but from the top looks like this from the front view or whatever you call
this looks like this and this is just gonna help us maybe kind of
aligns the ball a little better I don't really know the advantages of it you can
throw it it may be more comfortable or less comfortable than you for you
everyone's different some guys throw it like this and they really like it
other guys throw like this and they really don't like it because it puts a
little tension through your finger and all that stuff
commonly it's a misconception that you'll actually push or something that
doesn't actually happen your hands moving too fast and that's not the same
direction as the spin in the spin direction to be this way so to push it
that way wouldn't really do anything but this can kind of act as a guide
potentially as you come through to help guide the ball and this into the right
direction again I think it's really more of a comfort thing and it's again it's
gonna be up to you and you're throwing partner which one produces the best
results okay so the finger point made famous by Adam Wainwright obviously this
is just up again it's a placeholder and you just don't want this on the ball
just screw it up by putting pressure through the center so when your fingers
pointed up it's definitely not doing that right and then one thing that can
be an easy cue to try to like point that finger towards the catcher granted this
is not how a curveball is actually released again your fingers as you come
through and accelerate they go around the side of the ball and they get to the
front but mentally it makes a lot of sense to think get to the front of ball
get my fingernail on the front of the ball point my finger to the catcher you
can think things that aren't actually true in real life and get their good
result that you want and I don't think you have to adequately explain every
little nuance as long as you mentally think this is what I'm trying to
accomplish that's fine as long as we get the outcome that we want so the end of
finger point can be fine if you think about getting your your pink your your
finger right towards the catcher again it's a placeholder nothing else but the
grip is really changing okay so after that fingers crossed this one again this
will help us overload so I'm getting I'm stacking on top of the ball and then
this is just helping these two you you move as a unit this can be a good one
depending on how long your fingers are if this is comfortable for you it may or
may not be but this was probably my second choice but again I just was I did
the standard grip I just hung out and I was really well wedged
deep into this between my my ring and my middle finger so because I was really
wedged deep in there which I recommend that you do it just really didn't really
factor in I felt like the ball was secure here I felt like this thing was
kind of loaded it's really tight even though I'm not like gripping over
gripping the ball so I didn't feel like this really added much benefit and
really for me it just sits here but for some people their fingers aren't as
flexible perhaps as someone else's it might be a little tough to feel like
they're stacked securely but either way just another good grip to try to to
check out and then lastly the fingernail dig this can also kind of be referred to
as a knuckle curve sometimes but I think it's obvious it's obviously very
different but again the the I think the the goal behind this grip is just trying
to help you align your spin so this this index finger might sort of act as like a
guardrail to try to get you to the front of the baseball a little bit better but
again it's just a placeholder and we know that if I'm like this I really
don't put too much pressure on the ball it's just like somewhere to put it and
that's fine so I'd encourage you to tinker with all these grips now
understand if this is your first time they're gonna curveball which I'm
assuming for most of you it is this is you know just throwing like two
curveballs this way and two curveballs this way and two curveballs this way and
two curveballs this way if I'm not gonna see a huge difference but when you start
to throw it a lot more and it starts to become pretty decent that's when you
start to tinker and maybe one becomes sharper than the other because one of
these grips helps your spin will line up better and you get a better spin axis
and where you at a higher spin rate when you're just learning it it's gonna be
muddy in general no matter what you what creep you use so it might not you know
you might throw all five do it all five grips and they're all kind of the same
and that's pretty normal because it until it like really sorts of
like tape shape it's hard to know which grip is gonna make those little
fine-tunes and really because these are all mostly the same grip again with this
stuff all being constant the the little differences in this finger are probably
only going to account for again little differences so you know when you're
first learning it it's just again it's just gonna be kind of sloppy kind of
muddy it's not gonna be great the more you throw it the better it'll get and
then that's when these little tweaks will probably help okay so I wouldn't
stress it too much but if you're gonna tinker early with it which I recommend
tinker based on really more than anything which is how it feels if it
feels comfortable sometimes if he's been a few especially we all have different
hand shape different finger lengths it feels like it's gonna slip out feels
really uncomfortable then like me that's not the grip for you and that's
perfectly fine but if they're all sort of like I could hold it either way
that's kind of how I feel about it I could hold it any of these different
ways all of this one kind of makes it feel different where it's like tighter
and it's gonna slip out a little bit then maybe I just don't like that one it
doesn't fit my hand shape very well but at the same time just because it's not
comfortable first doesn't mean it's bad just like if you change your swing you
chain your mechanics a lot of new things that are good for you aren't necessarily
comfortable at first because they're new so don't be necessarily turned off by
the fact that it's you know feels a little awkward at first because it
that's just kind of how sports are in general when you learn new mechanics and
you make changes things are often uncomfortable but again big takeaways
from this to this lecture there's five different grips the the core of each
grip is mostly the same we just need a good placeholder for the index finger
and a grip that hopefully if is comfortable that we can get the best
possible spin rate and spin axis with and then just tinker and figure out
which one of those is right for you it's pretty much it all right see the next
one
you