Everyday Poise: Auburn Softball’s Defensive Hop

For today’s Everyday Poise, I’d like to show you something that popped up on my news feed this week. Check out the Auburn Softball team’s unique way of starting a run:

That little hop enables the players to take off running in the appropriate direction without any false steps, which to me connects to multiple concepts from AT. If you read last week’s Concept Spotlight about Positions of Mechanical Advantage, then this team’s ‘defensive hop’ should look familiar. They’re not just hopping; they’re hopping in monkey. And in doing so, they’re making full use of the mechanical advantage of monkey. When the coach talks about tightening up the muscles to get them ready for movement, that’s much the same idea as what we go for in monkey. Of course, as an AT teacher I’d avoid the use of the word ‘tightening,’ since what they’re really doing is engaging the muscle tone through the body and getting their direction going before moving.

For me, this defensive hop also brings up the ideas of inhibition and direction. Practically speaking, by inserting a hop before any run, the players are working with inhibition – stopping their habitual reaction long enough to make a conscious choice about how to execute their upcoming run. When the coach talks about removing false or excess steps, he’s really talking about inhibition. You can see it in the players’ intent when hopping; the hop gives them time to actually watch the ball and see where it’s going, so that by midway through the hop they’re already sure of which direction they need to go, and are just waiting till they land to take off in that direction.

And by hopping in monkey specifically, they are as prepared as possible to take off in virtually any direction needed. Remember when we said that positions of mechanical advantage are positions that it’s easy to move from? Being in one of these positions gives you the maximum options for where to go next. In fact, you can hear a great description of what a Position of Mechanical Advantage is, spoken near the end of the video by the coach without even knowing that that’s what he’s describing. He says

“…it puts your body in the most optimum position to react.”

If that’s not a Position of Mechanical Advantage, I don’t know what is!

Forward and Up! is a Pittsburgh-based private practice offering quality instruction in the Alexander Technique in a positive and supportive environment.