Most baseball players and parents gravitate toward private instruction when they want to supplement their team training. But is this the best path to follow to enhance your baseball skills? In this post, I challenge the conventional model by presenting both the positives and negatives of 1-on-1 instruction - and propose a better model for long term skill acquisition.
Many players have at one point or another sought out and hired a private instructor. These private lessons are normally 30 minutes or an hour in length and occur on a weekly basis.
I was one of those players.
I started lessons when I was around 13 years old - I started with one hour sessions where we spent half of it on hitting and the other half on pitching. Within a couple of months, I gravitated towards focusing on hitting and started going on a weekly basis for what was basically years straight.
I remember having a lot of fun at each lesson and walking away thinking I had learned a lot of stuff. The only problem was as each week went by we fell into a routine and it did not seem like I was progressing to new drills, or concepts or movements. I had either forgotten what I learned the week before or regressed because of lack of reps and therefore we ended up doing the exact same things - with the exact same instruction.
I kept going to lessons for years stuck in this negative-feedback loop. Go to the lesson - feel great and productive - regress - go back and do more of the same. Stagnation at its finest.
The problem here was not me or my instructor - the problem is with the format.
A once a week half an hour lesson is probably not going to impact skill development much. It is time that we rethink this structure.
Let's talk about some of the positives of the structure first before listing the negatives.
Positive #1: Cultivating Passion
One of the things that made baseball fun for me was going to lessons and talking baseball with my instructor. We talked about games on TV, my games and practices and anything that came to mind.
It was here in these moments that I was igniting a passion for baseball.
This is a positive that needs to be kept.
Positive #2: Feeling Productive
Although slightly eyewash, weekly lessons can build a sense of confidence and swagger to a player. You put in work and get feedback on a weekly basis on what's working vs not. This feedback is good and should be kept but athletes should not become dependent on it or the instructor.
After a lesson, I always felt a little better - a little more prepared for the game. This is something we should strive to keep - just in a more realistic approach to skill development.
Now let's talk about some of the negatives from this structure.
Negative #1: Dependency
Many times at lessons the instructor is seen talking and providing cues to athletes. It is common for the instructor to feel compelled to provide value to the athlete at each session. Of course, they would feel this way when they are being paid to "teach" the athlete.
Ideally, the relationship should not be this dependent.
Humans are born to learn - not to be taught.
The instructor should serve as a mentor and provide guidance, not as a teacher telling the athlete the proper ways to do things.
This is an important distinction between being taught something versus learning it.
There are two areas of my game that stood out the most during my playing days where I learned - not got taught.
The first being throwing - where from a young age I would throw a ball against a wall with a variety of balls. Whether it was a lacrosse ball, tennis ball, baseball, foam balls, etc. Each object was helping me learn to throw better - and eventually playing wall ball would help me immensely in learning how to throw from a variety of arm slots.
The second being catching. Here I had more help. I sought out information online via videos, articles - whatever I could find that would help me get better. This was a form of guided learning. I never took what any of the videos said as gospel - I always tested out the drills, movements, and ideas myself before buying in 100%.
Reflecting on my time being "taught" hitting, this is where much of my skill development fell apart. I became too reliant on one source of information.
This idea leads into the second part of this negative - where athletes start to get into a mindset that they "need" lessons to be good. That they need to see their instructor weekly for "tune-ups".
I was plagued by this thinking and many of my current and forming players have been as well. At the end of the day, you are the one that goes up to plate or up to mound - alone. No instructor or coach can hold your hand throughout your career. It is time to grow up and understand that sometimes the best thing you can do is to try and work through issues on your own. When you get stumped then you can ask for help. But do not go out seeking help before you get your hands dirty yourself.
Negative #2: Not Deep Practice Friendly
A 1-on-1 setting with limited time and reps is not a good environment for athletes to fall into deep practice.
Deep practice is a deliberate process of being fully in the moment, in-tuned with what you are trying to achieve - and most importantly using failure as your guide to learning skills better.
Deep practice requires time and self-exploration to achieve. The more we can leave an athlete alone to figure things out them self and the more time we can give them to do so, the better.
I remember I was often close to falling into this type of state towards the end of my lesson just to be ripped out of it because we ran out of time or because my instructor wanted to talk to me about my last swing. These are things we should try and avoid, and problem solve with a different structure.
This is not to say that instruction does not have a place in deep practice. But the instructor has to serve as a guide and allow an athlete to push their limits - assisting when necessary - and backing off when you start to see them piece it together.
Negative #3: Not Enough Reps
This ties into the last negative - it is said that it requires 10,000 hours to become great at something. That is 10,000 hours of deep practice.
Whether that is true or not, we can all agree that it takes a ton of time to become skilled at something as complex as swinging a bat or throwing a ball.
Suffice to say, 30 mins of private instruction a week is going to take a hell of a long time to make you better.
If you were somehow able to achieve deep practice in a 1-on-1 private lesson that is still only 30 minutes a week of deep practice.
That is simply not enough. It would take you decades before becoming great - meaning you would have missed your shot to play College baseball or to go Pro.
So what the hell do you suggest then?
I suggest instead that we make a 2-3x Weekly small group training the new norm.
This solves many of the problems and keeps as many positives as possible with 1-on-1 private instruction.
This gives athletes: more reps, less 1-on-1 attention which promotes self-discovery, competition (other athletes to learn from and try to beat) and ultimately still provides a place where they can get guidance from an instructor and talk baseball.
This takes off a lot of the pressure that is put on instructors in the 1-on-1 model. It allows them to sit back and embody more of a mentorship role as opposed to a teacher role.
Now in no way do I think this is an easy transition. Private instruction is ingrained in the culture of the game. And as business owners, it pays the bills. But for those out there wondering how to achieve their dreams, I think this is the best way to supplement your team training.
TLDR:
Skip private lessons. Do small group training 2-3 times per week. Talk less to each athlete - provide the right environment - provide mentorship when needed - and get out of the way when needed.