7 Olympic-Sized Tips from Down Under

One of the best pitchers in the world - Tanya Harding from Australia - recently spent a week with me and what a great opportunity it was! We both learned a great deal from each other as we talked softball in general and pitching in particular for almost 7 solid days.

For those that might not know of Tanya, here are some of her softball accomplishments:

• Pitches for the Australian Olympic & National Team
• Member of 1996, 2000 and 2004 Australian Olympic Softball Teams
• Bronze Medal Winner in 1996 and 2000, Silver Medal Winner in 2004
• Currently playing professional softball in Japan
• Former pitcher for UCLA, won 1995 NCAA National Championship
• Named MVP at 1995 Women's College World Series
• Will be trying out for 4th Olympic team to compete in 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China

Tanya was in the United States studying how we teach pitching in an effort to help ensure that Australia is doing it's best to teach younger pitchers how to pitch, and how to succeed on the international level. She was particularly interested in how I teach pitching and shadowed me during all of my lessons the week she was here.

It was a great opportunity for many of my young pitchers to learn from such a successful pitcher and to also hear someone talk with such a cool accent.

Here's a summary of the things I learned from my discussions with Tanya and her years of international pitching success:

1. Quantity Of Pitches Doesn't Make You Better - While Tanya can throw every pitch except the screwball, she usually only throws 3 different pitches in a game. She thinks that pitchers help make themselves average by having too many pitches, not having excellent control of each one and leaving too many pitches over too much of the plate.
2. Control Matters Most - Since Tanya plays professional softball in Japan she's able to watch the Japanese pitchers train and play, and the Japanese pitcher's are masters of control. They only have fastballs and changeups and yet they have beaten the US National Team more often than any team in international play as a result of pinpoint control. They're able to throw a pitch in one place for a ball, and then throw it ½ inch closer to the plate for a strike. And they can do this the entire game. Control is what matters most!
3. Take Care of Your Body - Throwing at the Olympic level for what will likely be 16 years is an incredible feat, and one that can only happen as a result of sound mechanics and good nutrition and conditioning. Tanya is also the proud mother of a 6 year old and must take great care of her body (which includes her arm). She also says it's important to take care of your mind and strengthen it every chance you get as the mind tells the body to either stop or keep going in close games under intense pressure.
4. Give Back Whenever You Can - Tanya proved her desire to do this simply by being here. She doesn't have to worry about future Australian pitchers. She could just make the next Olympic team and finish out a tremendous 16+ year career on the international stage. But instead, she makes a trip half-way around the world to learn whatever she can from whomever will teach her so that she can go back and help Australia's future pitchers and hopefully, future Olympians. Tanya was also extremely eager to help every young pitcher she met in the US no matter how late or how hot it was. Her generosity with her time and experience were obvious and her genuine ability to share her knowledge with others was wonderful to watch and be a part of!
5. Never Stop Learning - Almost 16 years as an Olympic pitcher, 3 Olympic medals, 3 World Championship Medals, 1 NCAA National Championship and she's still trying to learn how to do a better job of teaching pitching! It's a great lesson for all of us that you can never stop learning!
6. Make Your Opportunities Happen - No matter how good you are you've still got to make your opportunities happen. An example of this is Tanya's dropball which many consider her best pitch. Tanya grew up on a huge cattle ranch in Australia and nobody knew anything about pitching where she lived. So Tanya contacted a men's pitcher in Sydney who had a great dropball and asked if she came down there would he teach her to throw the dropball? This might not seem like such a big deal but Sydney was close to 1,000 miles away and Tanya was in High School. She's also the one who called me and asked if she could come to the States and stay with me to study pitching. Even when it seems like you might have achieved everything you still need to make your opportunities happen!
7. Focus on What You Have Instead of What you Don't Have - I think the main lesson I got from Tanya's visit was how to focus on what you have and what you want, instead of on what you don't have and why you can't do something. Nothing made this clearer for me than when I learned 2 things:
   • The average number of softball games she played in per year in Australia was 20
   • The largest tournament Tanya's EVER played in was 26 teams
   Unbelievable! When you go back and look at her accomplishments and consider that it took her 10 years to play the same number of games most US players play in a single summer it's absolutely proof that if you focus on your goal and take whatever you have and turn it into whatever you want you'll have as good a chance at reaching your goal as anyone - it then comes down to who wants it the most!

Check out our new Pitching eDrills for more pitching information, along with our book, The Complete Book of Pitching of which Tanya is on the cover.