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[ 00:00:05-00:00:10 ] Welcome to the show where we explore the minds behind the game.
[ 00:00:10-00:00:17 ] Today we're honored to have Alan Yeager, the visionary founder of Yeager Sports, join
[ 00:00:17-00:00:17 ] us.
[ 00:00:18-00:00:24 ] Alan has revolutionized baseball and softball training by emphasizing the synergy between
[ 00:00:24-00:00:26 ] mental focus and physical conditioning.
[ 00:00:26-00:00:31 ] His innovative approach has been embraced by over 200 professional players, including
[ 00:00:31-00:00:36 ] Sai Young, award winner Barry Zito, and organizations like the Texas Rangers and Cal State
[ 00:00:36-00:00:36 ] Fullerton.
[ 00:00:37-00:00:41 ] In this episode, Alan Delves into the core principles that make his training methods
[ 00:00:41-00:00:42 ] stand out.
[ 00:00:43-00:00:48 ] The importance of mental discipline, the benefits of long toss, and the integration of yoga
[ 00:00:48-00:00:50 ] and mindfulness into athletic routines.
[ 00:00:51-00:00:55 ] Whether you're a coach aiming to elevate your team's performance, apparent supporting
[ 00:00:55-00:01:00 ] your young athlete or a player striving for excellence, Alan's insights offer practical
[ 00:01:00-00:01:04 ] strategies to enhance both the mental and physical aspects of the game.
[ 00:01:04-00:01:09 ] Get ready to transform your approach to baseball and softball with actionable advice from
[ 00:01:09-00:01:11 ] one of the sports most influential trainers.
[ 00:01:16-00:01:18 ] Alan, do you know how are you, buddy?
[ 00:01:18-00:01:19 ] How's it going, man?
[ 00:01:19-00:01:20 ] I like that background.
[ 00:01:21-00:01:22 ] Oh, thanks, man.
[ 00:01:22-00:01:25 ] Is it, I got to do camera because it was sort of bright with the sunlight.
[ 00:01:25-00:01:26 ] Is it okay?
[ 00:01:27-00:01:28 ] Yeah, you got the jerseys back there.
[ 00:01:28-00:01:29 ] That's not a fake background.
[ 00:01:29-00:01:30 ] That's one of those real ones.
[ 00:01:32-00:01:33 ] Exactly.
[ 00:01:33-00:01:36 ] You know where they blur it, but it's sort of something else in the background, which you
[ 00:01:36-00:01:39 ] could tell it's fake because they're moving around and everything's kind of messing up.
[ 00:01:40-00:01:41 ] Yeah, I know.
[ 00:01:41-00:01:43 ] I've always had quote unquote.
[ 00:01:43-00:01:44 ] I like the real background.
[ 00:01:45-00:01:47 ] I think they're more organic, right?
[ 00:01:47-00:01:47 ] Yeah.
[ 00:01:49-00:01:50 ] So where are you?
[ 00:01:50-00:01:51 ] I'm basically based.
[ 00:01:52-00:01:54 ] So I'm sorry, I'm just trying to get my camera.
[ 00:01:54-00:01:55 ] I'm also trying to get this to my camera.
[ 00:01:55-00:01:58 ] Oh, I got your frozen almost looks like it looks like you're getting ready to hug the
[ 00:01:58-00:01:59 ] camera.
[ 00:02:00-00:02:00 ] You see me?
[ 00:02:01-00:02:01 ] Okay.
[ 00:02:01-00:02:01 ] Hear me okay now?
[ 00:02:03-00:02:04 ] I'm probably frozen too.
[ 00:02:06-00:02:07 ] Yeah, you froze.
[ 00:02:07-00:02:07 ] Here we go.
[ 00:02:08-00:02:09 ] Here we go.
[ 00:02:09-00:02:10 ] Yeah.
[ 00:02:11-00:02:13 ] I'm in, I'm in Sherman Oaks.
[ 00:02:13-00:02:17 ] I'm right by, you still I kind of.
[ 00:02:17-00:02:18 ] Yeah.
[ 00:02:18-00:02:18 ] Nice area there.
[ 00:02:19-00:02:20 ] Yeah.
[ 00:02:20-00:02:20 ] I love it, man.
[ 00:02:21-00:02:25 ] I used to live, I was on the Westside Forever Santa Monica Brentwood for like 15 years and
[ 00:02:25-00:02:30 ] then actually because of the fire, it's a long story, but I ended up here and.
[ 00:02:30-00:02:30 ] Oh, wow.
[ 00:02:30-00:02:31 ] So this is recent.
[ 00:02:32-00:02:34 ] Yeah, I just moved here two months ago.
[ 00:02:35-00:02:35 ] Wow.
[ 00:02:35-00:02:36 ] So did you get displaced?
[ 00:02:38-00:02:44 ] Well, my landlord in Brentwood home was in Palisades and.
[ 00:02:44-00:02:44 ] Oh.
[ 00:02:45-00:02:48 ] Yeah, she, her house got partially burnt and.
[ 00:02:48-00:02:53 ] We thought she lost the whole house and so she actually tried to find a new place for
[ 00:02:53-00:02:58 ] like two months and she couldn't because I offer the place back to her.
[ 00:02:58-00:02:59 ] Yeah, good for you.
[ 00:02:59-00:03:01 ] Yeah, and she didn't want to do that.
[ 00:03:02-00:03:06 ] So she tried and then two months later she finally reached out and said I can't find
[ 00:03:06-00:03:06 ] them because.
[ 00:03:07-00:03:08 ] Well, people don't understand.
[ 00:03:08-00:03:11 ] It's like a lot of, you know, things like that.
[ 00:03:11-00:03:20 ] There was a almost 5,000 homes destroyed or harshly burned.
[ 00:03:20-00:03:24 ] So the rental market just evaporated as you can imagine.
[ 00:03:25-00:03:25 ] Yep.
[ 00:03:26-00:03:33 ] And so I was going to stay on the Westside where I had been living for 15 years, but it
[ 00:03:33-00:03:33 ] was no inventory.
[ 00:03:34-00:03:40 ] I mean, it was like I put in crazy numbers for a month to rent like crazy numbers.
[ 00:03:40-00:03:41 ] Yeah.
[ 00:03:42-00:03:43 ] Wow.
[ 00:03:43-00:03:53 ] There was like literally like the numbers I put in there was maybe like four or five dwellings
[ 00:03:53-00:03:57 ] and in our houses to rent and all of that would.
[ 00:03:57-00:04:00 ] And like 10 or 12 in Santa Monica.
[ 00:04:00-00:04:02 ] These are huge cities, right?
[ 00:04:02-00:04:02 ] Yeah.
[ 00:04:03-00:04:04 ] Wow.
[ 00:04:04-00:04:05 ] Crazy.
[ 00:04:05-00:04:07 ] Yeah, we had one family.
[ 00:04:07-00:04:09 ] We were doing, doing lessons at a local high school.
[ 00:04:09-00:04:11 ] That's where I do my, my hitting stuff.
[ 00:04:11-00:04:15 ] And there was a mom and her son and the son looked like he was probably freshman, sophomore
[ 00:04:15-00:04:18 ] in high school and they were walking up in the mom asked.
[ 00:04:19-00:04:20 ] When did she ask?
[ 00:04:20-00:04:21 ] She asked.
[ 00:04:22-00:04:26 ] Do you know, maybe something, something on campus.
[ 00:04:26-00:04:29 ] Do you know where the office is or do you know where the baseball field is or something
[ 00:04:29-00:04:30 ] to that effect?
[ 00:04:30-00:04:30 ] It was on a Saturday.
[ 00:04:31-00:04:32 ] And I was like, oh, yeah.
[ 00:04:32-00:04:38 ] So I kind of pointed her and I go, are you, is your boy, because this was like early
[ 00:04:38-00:04:42 ] on in the season, it was probably was around where the fires were February, March, something
[ 00:04:42-00:04:43 ] like that.
[ 00:04:43-00:04:46 ] And she goes, I go, is your boy played baseball?
[ 00:04:47-00:04:49 ] And she says, oh, yeah, she goes, actually, we've been displaced.
[ 00:04:49-00:04:52 ] We got a house in the palisades that burned down and we're here with family staying.
[ 00:04:52-00:04:53 ] I was like, what?
[ 00:04:54-00:04:58 ] So they were looking for high school for, for the kid, poor guy.
[ 00:04:59-00:05:01 ] So he's looking to play for close West baseball.
[ 00:05:02-00:05:05 ] And I mean, his, I'm sure he started his season.
[ 00:05:05-00:05:09 ] They started all this stuff there and then just all just went up and literal smoke.
[ 00:05:09-00:05:10 ] Crazy.
[ 00:05:11-00:05:12 ] Crazy.
[ 00:05:12-00:05:17 ] It's really hard to believe how devastating it is.
[ 00:05:17-00:05:21 ] It, yeah, my business partner grew up in Palisades.
[ 00:05:22-00:05:27 ] So I know his area well and his parents were actually one of the few houses that really
[ 00:05:27-00:05:27 ] survived.
[ 00:05:28-00:05:31 ] And, but his sister's house completely gone.
[ 00:05:33-00:05:37 ] Another guy I've known for a long, long time, his kid was in our camp forever.
[ 00:05:38-00:05:40 ] Beautiful home in Palisades gone.
[ 00:05:43-00:05:46 ] Just, yeah, it's just, when you, I'm born and raised here.
[ 00:05:46-00:05:52 ] So when you know the area as well as I do, just from living here, you can't, you just
[ 00:05:52-00:05:54 ] can't get your head around.
[ 00:05:56-00:05:59 ] It'd be like, you know, I know Fresno a little bit.
[ 00:05:59-00:06:02 ] It's sort of just be like one day you wake up and Fresno's gone.
[ 00:06:02-00:06:03 ] Yeah.
[ 00:06:03-00:06:06 ] You know, I mean, that Fresno's huge.
[ 00:06:06-00:06:09 ] So you have to pick maybe a pretty big piece of it.
[ 00:06:10-00:06:13 ] But, you know, Palisades is probably not Palisades is a pretty big city.
[ 00:06:15-00:06:21 ] So yeah, anyway, it's, now, now you've originally from the Fresno area?
[ 00:06:21-00:06:21 ] Yep.
[ 00:06:21-00:06:21 ] Yep.
[ 00:06:22-00:06:24 ] Born and raised Fresno, been here my whole life.
[ 00:06:24-00:06:28 ] So I've high school, bullied high school and then went to Fresno State, played baseball
[ 00:06:28-00:06:28 ] there for four years.
[ 00:06:29-00:06:35 ] So I kind of got here, rooted here, stayed here, chances to go out and play other places
[ 00:06:35-00:06:41 ] in college, but decided Fresno just because at the time we were getting, I don't know,
[ 00:06:41-00:06:43 ] 2500 to 3500 at a game.
[ 00:06:44-00:06:50 ] And we go to, I went on a recruiting trip to USF in San Francisco and I love the city.
[ 00:06:50-00:06:56 ] It's one of my favorite, favorite cities, but they had two little bleachers on each side.
[ 00:06:56-00:07:01 ] Something we're getting more than probably 50 at a game and they were mostly students.
[ 00:07:01-00:07:05 ] It's not something my parents would, they probably would come up and watch, but it just
[ 00:07:05-00:07:07 ] wasn't, it wasn't the same, you know.
[ 00:07:07-00:07:13 ] So plus just being local, the, this Fresno State locals, they really support.
[ 00:07:13-00:07:17 ] You got a lot of fans that come out that have been fans for decades, you know.
[ 00:07:18-00:07:19 ] I know all of that, man.
[ 00:07:19-00:07:22 ] I played at Cal State, Northridge back in the day.
[ 00:07:22-00:07:22 ] Yeah.
[ 00:07:23-00:07:28 ] We went up to Fresno, even back in the day, Fresno was just known as like, I mean, first
[ 00:07:28-00:07:37 ] I was a beautiful stadium and it was just, yeah, we were at D2 Midweek game probably.
[ 00:07:37-00:07:39 ] And it was the right people there.
[ 00:07:39-00:07:44 ] So, no, they've always, Fresno State's always had a great reputation.
[ 00:07:44-00:07:49 ] And I know Bates a little bit from Northridge was Bates your coach?
[ 00:07:49-00:07:50 ] Yeah.
[ 00:07:50-00:07:53 ] So Bates his first year was my last year.
[ 00:07:53-00:07:58 ] So I had been it for three and then he retired and then Bates came in my senior year.
[ 00:07:58-00:07:58 ] Yeah.
[ 00:07:59-00:08:02 ] Well, you were around some pretty legendary coaches, man.
[ 00:08:03-00:08:08 ] You cross Pazidol with Tanner Erickson?
[ 00:08:09-00:08:09 ] Yes.
[ 00:08:09-00:08:11 ] So Tanner and I went to the same high school.
[ 00:08:11-00:08:12 ] Yeah.
[ 00:08:12-00:08:16 ] He was two years older than me, I think.
[ 00:08:16-00:08:19 ] So when I was a, no, was he, was he three years older?
[ 00:08:19-00:08:25 ] He might have been a senior when I was a freshman because I got called up my freshman year after
[ 00:08:25-00:08:29 ] our, after our freshman season was done and they were in the playoffs and they let us
[ 00:08:29-00:08:35 ] inter squad and I got to hit off of him and I got a double, I hit a double off of them
[ 00:08:35-00:08:38 ] in the left center field gap, race center for something like that.
[ 00:08:38-00:08:41 ] And they told me they said, if you get a hit off of Tanner, like,
[ 00:08:41-00:08:47 ] don't stare him down, don't, don't pimp it, just keep your head down because he'll look at you.
[ 00:08:48-00:08:52 ] And you know, Tanner, he could get, he could hot head it, you know, and his brother Christian
[ 00:08:52-00:08:53 ] was my year.
[ 00:08:54-00:08:57 ] So Christian was completely different than Tanner and he was more of a football guy anyway.
[ 00:08:57-00:09:01 ] But yeah, I hit a double, a land on second and I'm just kind of standing and staring at
[ 00:09:01-00:09:04 ] the dirt and I guess he was looking at me waiting for me to do something and do anything.
[ 00:09:05-00:09:05 ] That's just Derek.
[ 00:09:06-00:09:07 ] I'll tell him that story.
[ 00:09:07-00:09:09 ] He's one of my best friends in the world, man.
[ 00:09:10-00:09:15 ] So I, yeah, Tanner and I spent a lot of time together when he was a player and he,
[ 00:09:16-00:09:19 ] he's incredible person and great guy.
[ 00:09:19-00:09:20 ] Great family.
[ 00:09:20-00:09:21 ] The whole family is awesome.
[ 00:09:22-00:09:26 ] Great family and, um, yeah, we actually had some other really cool.
[ 00:09:26-00:09:29 ] We did a few clinics up there back in the day.
[ 00:09:29-00:09:33 ] The guy that, what's the legend that runs the Clovis West maybe?
[ 00:09:34-00:09:41 ] Well, you have KP Kevin Patrick was there, has been there for the last probably 15 years?
[ 00:09:41-00:09:42 ] No, no, no, sorry.
[ 00:09:43-00:09:45 ] So that's been there like 30 plus now.
[ 00:09:45-00:09:45 ] He's a legend.
[ 00:09:46-00:09:47 ] He's the next Mike Knokes.
[ 00:09:48-00:09:53 ] Mike Knokes or Chris or maybe Kevin, no, Kevin Chris.
[ 00:09:53-00:09:56 ] I think it is a might, but it's not, um,
[ 00:09:57-00:10:00 ] because Mike Knokes was Bullard baseball.
[ 00:10:00-00:10:07 ] He was there for, he would have been if my, so after my freshman year, so Knokes was there.
[ 00:10:07-00:10:12 ] He ran summer camps, winter camps and they, I mean, nobody ran camps like him.
[ 00:10:13-00:10:16 ] And I did those camps from like a late age, 10 or 11 on.
[ 00:10:16-00:10:19 ] I read my bike there in the summer home and stuff like that.
[ 00:10:20-00:10:23 ] And if he wouldn't have, there was a little bit of a drama that happened.
[ 00:10:23-00:10:27 ] He ended up out as coach and ended up taking over at Central High School.
[ 00:10:28-00:10:34 ] And I think he was there for maybe three years and then ended up in a present city college coaching, helping out.
[ 00:10:34-00:10:37 ] If he wouldn't have jumped out of high school baseball,
[ 00:10:37-00:10:41 ] he'd be probably the winningest coach in all of high school baseball across the country.
[ 00:10:41-00:10:50 ] Like he, he had so many wins and so many wins to the point to where Coach Patrick the dad, so KP and CP's kids.
[ 00:10:51-00:10:53 ] So when Coach Patrick got done coaching at Clovis High,
[ 00:10:53-00:11:01 ] who put in probably 30 years there or close, when he retired, he barely eclipsed Mike Knokes in wins barely.
[ 00:11:01-00:11:07 ] And he had had 20 more years on Mike Knokes in the years, high school, high school coaching years, right?
[ 00:11:07-00:11:10 ] Yeah, yeah, that's the guy Patrick James is a James what's that?
[ 00:11:10-00:11:12 ] James Patrick. Yep. That's him.
[ 00:11:13-00:11:16 ] Yep. Yeah, James is legend too. Yeah, he's, I mean, he's a great coach. Yeah.
[ 00:11:17-00:11:17 ] Yeah.
[ 00:11:17-00:11:22 ] We had a clinic up at his place and really enjoyed meeting him and.
[ 00:11:23-00:11:31 ] And so now once you retired from baseball, you got into the coaching and so it sounds like you're just more on that you're hitting guy.
[ 00:11:31-00:11:34 ] Do you coach the high school team as well?
[ 00:11:34-00:11:37 ] So I do more more my son.
[ 00:11:37-00:11:40 ] So I have a 12 year old son and an eight year old or nine year old daughter.
[ 00:11:40-00:11:42 ] And so I've been coaching this my son.
[ 00:11:42-00:11:43 ] I coached my daughter last year.
[ 00:11:43-00:11:45 ] She wanted to play baseball for whatever reason. She had two girlfriends.
[ 00:11:46-00:11:51 ] And I think she just wanted to do it because dad likes baseball and she's been watching her brother and that kind of thing.
[ 00:11:51-00:11:54 ] But yeah, so I've been team coaching my son.
[ 00:11:55-00:11:58 ] But mostly the hitting I've been doing since.
[ 00:11:59-00:12:03 ] Time in memoriam 2005, 2006 something like that after I got done plan.
[ 00:12:03-00:12:05 ] So I've been doing the private lessons.
[ 00:12:05-00:12:11 ] We do, we do small private groups will do like a four or so in a group.
[ 00:12:11-00:12:13 ] And then we'll do like duels, two on ones and one on ones.
[ 00:12:13-00:12:16 ] So mostly just more of the private lesson stuff.
[ 00:12:17-00:12:17 ] Great.
[ 00:12:18-00:12:18 ] Yeah.
[ 00:12:19-00:12:20 ] Well, I want to get you.
[ 00:12:20-00:12:20 ] I want to get you.
[ 00:12:20-00:12:22 ] I mean, you're turning this into my.
[ 00:12:22-00:12:23 ] You're like, you're the host here.
[ 00:12:23-00:12:26 ] I want to I want to actually ask you some questions if that's okay.
[ 00:12:26-00:12:27 ] Yeah, let's do it.
[ 00:12:27-00:12:28 ] Look before we get going.
[ 00:12:28-00:12:28 ] Let me just.
[ 00:12:29-00:12:30 ] I'm going to use the rest of real fast.
[ 00:12:30-00:12:31 ] Go for it.
[ 00:12:31-00:12:32 ] Go for it.
[ 00:12:32-00:12:32 ] You got it out.
[ 00:12:35-00:12:37 ] Okay, man, we can go anywhere you want.
[ 00:12:37-00:12:38 ] So it's your show.
[ 00:12:38-00:12:39 ] So.
[ 00:12:40-00:12:41 ] You just.
[ 00:12:41-00:12:42 ] I can't.
[ 00:12:44-00:12:45 ] You can go in the mental stuff.
[ 00:12:45-00:12:46 ] We can go into throwing.
[ 00:12:46-00:12:47 ] We're going to.
[ 00:12:47-00:12:48 ] We got a little bit of everything.
[ 00:12:49-00:12:50 ] We got a little bit of everything.
[ 00:12:50-00:12:53 ] And I got I have 10 questions here.
[ 00:12:53-00:12:54 ] I don't know if we're going to get through all of them.
[ 00:12:54-00:12:57 ] Because I'm sure it's going to be a lot of good stuff that each one.
[ 00:12:57-00:13:00 ] So if we have to, maybe we can do a part two or something like that.
[ 00:13:00-00:13:01 ] Because I definitely want.
[ 00:13:01-00:13:02 ] Reading through all the questions.
[ 00:13:02-00:13:04 ] And there's nothing that you're not going to be able to answer.
[ 00:13:04-00:13:06 ] I'm not asking you what the meaning of life is.
[ 00:13:07-00:13:09 ] But I'm sure you'd be able to give me a pretty good answer.
[ 00:13:10-00:13:11 ] Anyway, but.
[ 00:13:11-00:13:11 ]
[ 00:13:11-00:13:11 ]
[ 00:13:11-00:13:13 ] Yeah, I mean, these are all great questions.
[ 00:13:13-00:13:17 ] I think that we need to get these answered now to, you know, my crew.
[ 00:13:17-00:13:18 ] So first one.
[ 00:13:18-00:13:21 ] So what was the moment that shifted you from being a traditional player.
[ 00:13:22-00:13:23 ] Into a transformational coach.
[ 00:13:23-00:13:25 ] So someone who's now reshaped.
[ 00:13:25-00:13:29 ] How the baseball world and soffil world views arm health and mental conditioning.
[ 00:13:29-00:13:30 ] So what, where was that.
[ 00:13:31-00:13:32 ] What was that moment that shifted.
[ 00:13:34-00:13:36 ] Well, I mean, just like you.
[ 00:13:37-00:13:39 ] I mean, I was a player at some point.
[ 00:13:39-00:13:41 ] And I stopped playing.
[ 00:13:41-00:13:42 ] I got into coaching and.
[ 00:13:43-00:13:52 ] You know, to be honest, I just had a strong visceral belief in certain things that I had come upon on my path.
[ 00:13:52-00:13:53 ] You know, one of them was.
[ 00:13:54-00:14:00 ] The first real big one was really meditation, mental training, Zen, Eastern philosophy, yoga.
[ 00:14:01-00:14:07 ] On the baseball side, I was a pitching coach at a junior college for four years, three and a half, basically.
[ 00:14:09-00:14:11 ] And it's three full years as sort of a part time.
[ 00:14:12-00:14:12 ] And then I.
[ 00:14:13-00:14:26 ] Yeah, I started doing lessons with pitching, but really I found myself wanting to teach more long toss and throwing an arm conditioning and, you know, dropping arm strength.
[ 00:14:26-00:14:27 ] And so it's funny.
[ 00:14:27-00:14:33 ] Like I just sort of fell into these parts of the games that at the time I just knew where the most neglected.
[ 00:14:33-00:14:44 ] You know, the funny thing is that there is that I really fell into mental, the mental side, you know, now it's gotten very mainstream, but in 1990 it was.
[ 00:14:45-00:14:53 ] You can imagine throwing, which I know throwing everybody knows is like, you know, the foundation of a baseball and softball, but.
[ 00:14:55-00:15:07 ] Again, you have to go back to 1990, 35 years ago, throwing was nothing that was necessarily like out there as far as, you know, there was pitching and pitching mechanics, there was hitting and hitting mechanics.
[ 00:15:08-00:15:16 ] So, and then yoga, you know, the whole stretching flexibility balance, injury prevention, yes, stretching was around.
[ 00:15:16-00:15:24 ] We did every day in practice, as you know, but was it taken to the degree that yoga, which was very, very deep because it was not only.
[ 00:15:25-00:15:42 ] Stretching it was my body spirit, if you will. So yeah, I just sort of, I had this deep, deep drive and passion to share what I thought were just these really, really important parts of the game and life that again, I just.
[ 00:15:42-00:15:48 ] I think the key was is that I just knew they were very, very neglected and so it was like a perfect storm in a good way.
[ 00:15:48-00:15:55 ] Yeah, it's cool and I wanted to tell you that this year, so I learned something new every year coaching my 12 year old son, right.
[ 00:15:56-00:16:05 ] Well, not not something, but some things more, you know, plural and this last year from last year to this year, I had the whole team purchase.
[ 00:16:07-00:16:17 ] Yeah, you know, I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:16:17-00:16:19 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:16:19-00:16:19 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:16:19-00:16:19 ]
[ 00:16:19-00:16:19 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:16:19-00:16:19 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:16:19-00:16:19 ]
[ 00:16:19-00:16:19 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:16:19-00:16:19 ]
[ 00:16:19-00:16:19 ]
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[ 00:16:19-00:16:19 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:16:19-00:16:21 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:16:21-00:16:22 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:16:23-00:16:23 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:16:23-00:16:26 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:16:30-00:16:31 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:16:32-00:16:34 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:16:45-00:16:46 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
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[ 00:16:46-00:16:47 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:16:47-00:16:47 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:16:47-00:16:47 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:16:47-00:16:49 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:16:49-00:16:50 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:16:50-00:16:50 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:16:50-00:16:52 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:16:53-00:16:55 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:16:55-00:16:57 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:16:57-00:16:58 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:16:58-00:16:59 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:16:59-00:17:02 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:02-00:17:04 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:09-00:17:11 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:11-00:17:11 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
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[ 00:17:11-00:17:12 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:12-00:17:13 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:15-00:17:16 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:16-00:17:16 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:16-00:17:20 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:20-00:17:21 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:21-00:17:22 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:22-00:17:23 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:23-00:17:24 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:24-00:17:28 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:28-00:17:29 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:29-00:17:30 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:30-00:17:33 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:34-00:17:34 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:42-00:17:45 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
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[ 00:17:46-00:17:46 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:46-00:17:46 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:46-00:17:49 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:49-00:17:49 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
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[ 00:17:49-00:17:50 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:50-00:17:50 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:50-00:17:50 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:50-00:17:52 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:52-00:17:54 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:54-00:17:57 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:57-00:17:58 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:17:58-00:18:00 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:18:00-00:18:04 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:18:04-00:18:04 ] I think it was a great thing to do.
[ 00:18:04-00:18:06 ] I was a pretty new term.
[ 00:18:08-00:18:10 ] I switched my major to psychology.
[ 00:18:10-00:18:12 ] It's kind of, I was really interested
[ 00:18:12-00:18:14 ] and well, a part was from just based on
[ 00:18:14-00:18:15 ] a part was from just based on
[ 00:18:15-00:18:19 ] share the challenge of just me being
[ 00:18:19-00:18:21 ] after a very difficult place.
[ 00:18:21-00:18:23 ] I wanted to help a very difficult place.
[ 00:18:23-00:18:24 ] Programming to worry about
[ 00:18:24-00:18:26 ] learning and practical opportunities.
[ 00:18:28-00:18:30 ] Programing to assure something suitable
[ 00:18:30-00:18:30 ]
[ 00:18:30-00:18:42 ] And it was actually one of my upper division classes that one of the professors who was actually a practicing therapist, but he had a very strong background in Eastern philosophy.
[ 00:18:42-00:18:47 ] And so our class basically went from like Socrates the West to the East.
[ 00:18:48-00:18:51 ] And it was called contemporary trends of psychology.
[ 00:18:51-00:19:13 ] And he told us that story one day, which is a very well known Zen story about a monk who goes to the master to try to learn more, you know, or basically become a master and the master is pouring him tea and the tea starts to overflow and his cup.
[ 00:19:13-00:19:28 ] And the students says it was stopped stopped stop. You know, your cup is overflowing and the master says well, just like your mind is overflowing with whatever until you empty out your mind. It was sort of that idea of emptying the mind out and the.
[ 00:19:28-00:19:42 ] And I went up to the professor class. I had never is and and I asked him about it and he told me about a book that was from the story, which was a book called Zen flesh Zen bones that let me to Alan Watts.
[ 00:19:42-00:19:54 ] And I asked who actually was an Anglican minister in England, who was the first westerner to bring Zen from the east to the west, probably back in the 50s or 60s.
[ 00:19:54-00:20:09 ] And so long story short is what intrigued me about Zen, which everybody I've known, especially in the sports world, but you can relate it to life is that Zen is really about getting out of the thinking mind and into your instincts.
[ 00:20:09-00:20:25 ] So, so where the where psychology you can say has an angle of dealing with the thinking mind to, you know, correct the thinking mind or process the thinking mind to resolve it, which is same idea.
[ 00:20:26-00:20:34 ] Zen was like without going into great details. That was really more just about instead of trying to get too much into what the thinking mind is thinking about.
[ 00:20:35-00:20:56 ] Let's just go to the non thinking part of you, which to me, like growing up in sports, I know my best games and anything I do or nowadays my best, you know, conversations or if I'm talking to a group or talking to you, the best part is going to come out when I'm purely instinctive and just going with the flow.
[ 00:20:57-00:21:11 ] And let's just say not thinking about anything per se. So that's where the west meets the east. It's more of a, you know, the east is, you know, they've been Zen is comes out of Taoism, which you could say is I think between three and 5,000 years old.
[ 00:21:11-00:21:25 ] And I think a lot of it is just really grounded in nature in a way. It's grounded more in just the flow of life. You know, there's a there's a synchronicity or a harmony with life just like when you're in a, you know, lost in a good movie or a good song.
[ 00:21:26-00:21:43 ] You're not thinking about anything. You're just there's this feel of flow. And you know, as an athlete, when you've had your greatest games, you're not thinking about anything, you know, you're flowing. And so I would say that that's, that was the part of Zen that just grabbed me and.
[ 00:21:43-00:22:10 ] And so I really studied it. And in one of the essences of Zen is Zen actually translated in Sanskrit. I think it's means meditation or it's translated into Japanese means meditation. And so meditation became the absolute foundation for everything that I teach in life because at the end of the day, we're all trying to get quite like you said, this is universal.
[ 00:22:10-00:22:31 ] We're all trying to get quieter, clearer, more relaxed, more free, more at peace, more flowing, more joy, more in love. So it's like, and to me, Zen is an amazing approach and way of life to just connect with those types of principles.
[ 00:22:32-00:22:48 ] And I think in quieting the mind is more relevant today than than in any time with all the tech based stuff. And it's just, it's really hard to now we've our boys this this year for our rec league. Our boys have been great. The families are great. We really haven't had too much drama.
[ 00:22:48-00:23:07 ] The kids are really receptive to the teaching and coaching and and albeit I'm a little bit more transparent. If today's conversation with Alan Jager lit a fire in you about the importance of the mental game, breath work and developing focus, then you're going to love what we've built inside the swing shift daily video series.
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[ 00:23:19-00:23:30 ] We focus on the complete hitter from breath and body awareness to elite timing drills, visual strategies and confidence building routines all back by the same sports psych principles we talked about today.
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[ 00:23:44-00:23:57 ] So if you're ready to take what you learned today and turn it into daily action head over to hitting performance lab.com forward slash swing shift and try the seven day free trial. Let's build hitters who are strong in the box and between the ears.
[ 00:23:57-00:24:11 ] And honest and I use a lot of the chat GBT to help out on the communications, which you know as us coaches sometimes we could use certain trigger words or something and you know it really upset some some parent and you know that's not how you meant it and whatever.
[ 00:24:11-00:24:23 ] And so I kind of I almost over communicate stuff. And I think that helps a lot. But I think with the boys and I try and give him tips and different things like that, especially early on on the mental side of things.
[ 00:24:23-00:24:44 ] And you know having chat GBT act like a sports performance psychologist and doing that doing that that but the flow and the meditation I think is has a huge application nowadays with trying to get kids and not be as anxious because of all the almost turning them into 80 D 80 HD type and they probably wouldn't be if it wasn't for all that so I love that.
[ 00:24:45-00:24:55 ] So J bands are everywhere now from you fields to big league club houses and I told you that it's on every player of ours has has one they got to warm up with it before the game. So take us back.
[ 00:24:55-00:25:02 ] What was the aha moment that led to their creation the J bands creation and how they have evolved as baseball has changed.
[ 00:25:02-00:25:10 ] Yeah, well, let's go tie back to our yoga background, which is someone to bring in a person I mentioned a lot who's just.
[ 00:25:11-00:25:18 ] He's such an amazing person. Perry has been who people know really well for effective velocity or EV.
[ 00:25:19-00:25:29 ] But Perry has done a lot of things with baseball and he's he's just brilliant and and so I'll try to give you this short version Perry.
[ 00:25:30-00:25:38 ] I believe was an all American at Cal State North where he's went on to play for the twins had he was an infielder I think a middle infielder had an arm injury.
[ 00:25:39-00:25:47 ] This is probably late 80s and back then you know there wasn't a lot going on with with I mean bands or you know I mean maybe you had a rehab clinic.
[ 00:25:47-00:25:57 ] And so you know back then if you have an arm injury you know you start to think about your career maybe over and so that really really scared him and so the PT had him do these band exercises.
[ 00:25:58-00:26:05 ] And he came back and Perry is super super smart and so he came back and he didn't back right away and he's like oh his arm came back.
[ 00:26:06-00:26:22 ] If I had a guess I think he said you know better than ever and he knew it was the arm care you know it was the proactiveness of taking care of his arm and doing stuff for his arm and so lots of short is that even a Perry's a hitting guy.
[ 00:26:23-00:26:27 ] He started selling a version of the bands he was using.
[ 00:26:28-00:26:36 ] I guess because intuitively he wanted to help the community and just have bring awareness this is we're talking like 1990.
[ 00:26:37-00:26:48 ] So so Perry and I met Perry and I met because of a common player we both worked with and I actually went out to watch this player play his actually out about an hour from here in Palmdale.
[ 00:26:49-00:26:55 ] Perry happened to be at the game I had never met Perry before. I think I heard about it because this kid towing back his hitting coach.
[ 00:26:56-00:27:01 ] Anyway I think I heard about Perry because Perry was really really really good at what he did.
[ 00:27:02-00:27:10 ] We started talking and one thing led to another we started talking about bands and honestly this was probably 19 this is like 30 years ago and I.
[ 00:27:11-00:27:31 ] I was hard to say this now that I'm into tools but when I played I wasn't into any training gizmos or anything I was pretty hardcore meaning I just was very competitive and I just you know I work and I did a lot of reps fortunately and everything I did and I was I think very well prepared.
[ 00:27:31-00:27:43 ] But the idea of doing like this or that so but fortunately I think I just got through my yoga training and the idea of elasticity of course ring a bell.
[ 00:27:44-00:27:52 ] And so honestly it's as simple as that I started using Perry's bands with our players I'm sure I started playing around with it and.
[ 00:27:52-00:28:08 ] And one thing led to another honestly and we started having Perry make us more and more I mean we started out at one point you know you might have made 10 for me for private lessons and then we did a camp that we might have had 20 or 30 at them.
[ 00:28:09-00:28:21 ] And after about five or six years of Perry making these bands by hand he actually ordered all the parts separately and at some point he got tired because they took him a while to make the bands.
[ 00:28:21-00:28:48 ] And so we we took the bands over and they were essentially the way they looked then but we added some the risk of we added really more cushioning we put our label on there and I think the carabiner clip we got a sturdier clip and we basically managed to manufacture them ourselves and we paid Mary paid Perry some royalties and stuff like that for a while and.
[ 00:28:48-00:29:16 ] And and really it was started so innocently I mean honestly there was a time I remember Jim bachelor is my current partner who was an former player around 2000 became my partner and I had a partner in ruby before that as well and Jim and I at one point we had a box of 50 J bands in our in the office we bought 50 because we got a better deal on them and we were hoping that.
[ 00:29:16-00:29:38 ] We were going to be able to sell them at some point because we you know we were kind of ones the twosies these and and there was no internet in 1995 or 2000 maybe started you know coming around a bit so really the the long answer question is it started with a meeting with Perry husband and.
[ 00:29:39-00:30:01 ] And again I think and also the you know what you know how life when you get feedback from people that's visceral and consistent it doesn't matter what it is you know you're you're honest I don't mean we're on we didn't invent the idea of you know internal external rotation movements and band work but.