Blinking/Flinching

[PeteBooth]

A couple of things.

1. If your friend has kids, have your friend put on the catcher's gear and depending upon how many kids he has have one of them pitch and the other a batter.

You can start out as Bob suggests using tennis balls and then work your way to the "real thing"

2. Stand behind a fence and have someone throw tennis balls at him.


3. Invest in "top of the line" equipment so that you know You can take a shot and it will not hurt.


Your freind should start out slow meaning until his flinching problems go away stick to umpiring at the Modfied Level (mainly 7th/8th graders) or some low level JV games.

Until his flinching problems are solved he most likely will not work High level JV or varsity baseball.

Pete Booth

[Emperor Ump]

A member of my site (blue bomber) wrote a great post on the subject of flinching its post #4 of this thread.

I don't consider myself having a flinching problem but using this technique helps in those non-shaving games when you know you are going to get hit.

[jdmara]

Originally Posted by PeteBooth

A couple of things.

1. If your friend has kids, have your friend put on the catcher's gear and depending upon how many kids he has have one of them pitch and the other a batter.

You can start out as Bob suggests using tennis balls and then work your way to the "real thing"

2. Stand behind a fence and have someone throw tennis balls at him.


3. Invest in "top of the line" equipment so that you know You can take a shot and it will not hurt.


Your freind should start out slow meaning until his flinching problems go away stick to umpiring at the Modfied Level (mainly 7th/8th graders) or some low level JV games.

Until his flinching problems are solved he most likely will not work High level JV or varsity baseball.

Pete Booth

Unfortunately he is still a youngster. I'll gladly throw some tennis balls at him though I called up the coach I know well and I think we're going to set him up to be behind the kids taking batting practice. Hopefully that'll help him out. I guess I've never consciously thought about it.

-Josh

[archangel]

Occasionally I catch myself blinking, so what I have always done, though sounding silly, works for me because its like a mantra....I just think to myself "my mask is my friend" and I then forget I was blinking because I stopped. Just thinking that helps me focus. Since it works for me, it becomes a subconscious memory trick knowing that it will work again if needed...