Jimmy Dyson has been involved in the fastpitch game for over 23 years. One of the few pitching coaches that pitched competitve mens fastpitch (Delta Rebels, Charlies, Old Friends) coached college (Modesto Junior College), high school (Ceres H.S.) and travel ball (Central Valley Sacrafice 18U Gold) and a Pitching Instructor of all ages. Jimmy has worked out or coached with USA Olympic coaches as well as some of the best college and high school coaches in the central valley. Jimmy has videoed the pitching motion since 1986! One of the few Fastpitch Pitching Coaches in California that uses motion capture anaylysis in his every day instruction! Personalized DVD's with telestration and voice-over now available! Our workout book will be available on CD in the near future.
July Lessons are open!
Our college students interested in working out Tuesday and Thursday mornings need to contact Jimmy!
NEWS FLASH! 6.30.09 Jennifer Costa signed her letter of intent last night. Jennifer will be playing for MNU in Olathe, Kansas on a scholarship!
6.20.09 Mandy Sifuentes has verballed to Cal State Dominguez Hills. She will be signing her letter of intent to play softball on a scholarship in a few weeks! 5.07.09 Desi Maldonado has verballed to William Jessup University! 5.03.09 Escalon's sophomore Caitlin Brooks verballed to Sac State! I think Caitlin is the first sophomore softball pitcher in our area to ever verbal! We have 3 students sign and 3 verbal so far in 2009! I look to see a few more signings in the near future! Kayla Souza, Patterson H.S. signs her letter of intent to play at the University of Great Falls! Vaneza Hoover, Ceres H.S. signs with Humboldt State! Kayla and Vaneza join Taylor Gross as our class of 2009 to sign college scholarships! College workouts! I will be offering workouts for our college students at no charge in the next few weeks! I plan on am start times! In the 2009 College World Series Finals-Game1 What pitch did the announcers say the Florida hitter(s) were the most concerned with from Washington pitcher Danielle Lawrie??? It is 8-10 mph slower than her power pitches and goes down! Hmmm... Ask Otto Check out the Modesto Bee Final Softball Stats! Almost 50% of the leading pitchers are ours! Mondays will be Video Days! I will offer our motion capture analysis with telestration and voice-over on Mondays I will put the available times on the group calendar on the lesson scheduler July lessons are open! Private lessons will be offered Tuesday and Thursday mornings 9:30-??? Private lessons will also be offered Tuesday-Wed-Thursday 3:30-4:00-4:30 and 5:00. Private lessons on Friday will be offered from 3:00 -9:00 Private lessons on Saturday will start at 10:00-?? Group lessons will be offered Tuesday,Wednesday and Thursday with the first start at 5:30 and last start time is 7:30. We will be closed Sunday and Monday in June. Wow! We had some awesome performances in the sections! Congratulations to Escalon and Le Grand becoming section champs! Good Luck to Desi and Davis this week! A big thumbs-up to all 12 of our pitchers in the sections. I plan on running an update on our show "Inside the circle" later in the week!
Our 5th INSIDE THE CIRCLE PITCHING SHOW will air the week of 4.22.09! Our feature show will be on our college workout day and pitching a riseball under the strings! We will try to have an update with Steve Drewery- on the college recruiting process! Check out our other shows!Click on the video button located in JD's Motion Capture link 04.16.2009 Pitching and Hitting Motion Capture DVD's We will offer our Motion Capture DVD's once a month! Students will be analyzed with voice over and telestration next to Jennie Finch, Cat Osterman Angela Tincher or other Olympians or professional pitchers! A hitting analysis will be offered to our pitchers next to Jessica Mendoza, Caitlin Lowe or major leaguers such as Alex Rodriguez or choice of other women's Professional, Olympian or Major league hitters in the near future! A bargain at 10.00 dollars! Check out our new college articles from the weekend of 3.16.09 to 3.21.09 on our brag board at the Academy! We had 7 articles on 7 of our college pitchers! We had 19 varsity pitchers representing 15 different high schools at the Ceres Varsity Tournament this weekend! I will have a few highlights on our upcoming show! Spin Testing Questions! Question- The student hits 23 RPS on all her power pitches. Is she a shoe in to pitch in college? A- Question- The students dropball is 55 MPH and the RPS is 17 ... Her body position is 38 degrees at the release but the ball is not moving... What method(s) should the Pitching Instructor use? Motion Capture Analysis, give the student pitching drills or tell the student to join a gym and start working out? A- Question- The student spins the ball in the mid 20's RPS on her up stuff and in the 17-18 RPS range on her down stuff. What type of pitcher is she? A- Ask Jimmy at the Academy
Softball News Cast is scheduled to air the week of 2.16.09 I plan on interviewing Otto. He should be out the week of 2.02.09. We may have clips of high school softball from 1991-2008, Otto's Recital in 1997 and our Hall of Fame. Taking it to the next level! Online consultations with Jimmy in California and Otto in Montana at the same time!
Motion Capture Analysis over the internet will be available in the next few weeks. We will have be able to discuss with the student and parents /coaches her pitching motion...We will be able to identify flaws, improvements, check angles and compare pitching motions of the pro's or the students previous video's...It will feel like we are at the Academy except... The student and parents/coaches do not travel, they stay home! Otto maybe available for a second opinion on pitching and hitting. We will be able to call on Phil de la Porte, Steve Drewery, Terry Hoffman, Ex-students, Coaches, Counselors for their opinions if needed! I will have more information soon !
Collapse the back leg on the rise and short step on the drop? It's the time for camps and clinics. A good number of our students are going to these camps and clinics. I encourage the students to go to them. I feel it is good to hear other opinions. It seems collapsing the back leg and releasing low on the riseball and the short step or getting on top of the drop are the big questions I have been answering this winter when the students come in for their next lesson. I talked to Otto about this. He went to his personal video of Gibson and Scarborough (Texas AM ), Abbot when she was at Tennessee and Estermaira (Cal State Stanislaus) viewing them on the motion capture program. I will have video of Otto's opinion in the next few weeks. I will have proof on what the elite look like at their release points in the Academy in the next few weeks.
Hot News! Taylor and Vaneza sign! information below...
Taylor Gross signs to play at Mesa State College! Taylor signed her letter of intent last week. Taylor plays for Merced H.S., Sorcerers (fall) and Grapettes (summer). Taylor will play for the Grapettes this Summer. Taylor said "they want her to play middle infield as well as pitch". Taylor is the 2nd sibling to receive a scholarship to play college softball in her family. Some of you may remember Megan Gross who went on to play at Western New Mexico. Taylor started taking pitching lessons with us at the age of 9. Great job Taylor! Vaneza Hoover signs to play at Cal State Bakersfield! Vaneza signed her letter of intent November 16th. Vaneza plays for Ceres H.S., Sorcerers (fall) RR Gold (Summer). Vaneza will play for the Cal Haze this summer. Vaneza said "Bakersfield plans on her playing in the outfield as well as pitch"! Vaneza started taking pitching lessons with us at the age of 11. Great job Vaneza!
Drills Video coming soon! I plan on making a drills video using our students. I will have students demonstrate the strings, the window, big ball, hockey puck and other successful drills. All of our current students are invited. Just signup! It is free and will be fun. It will be in the groups, camps and clinics section on the scheduler. I plan on a sat in mid November. keep looking or ask me. Other New Stuff: I plan on video taping a discussion on how to develop the softball pitcher from the parents point of view. I will play the part of Frank Gifford... I hope to have Phil de la Porte, Steve Drewery and Joe Cucinella in a round table discussion. Their daughters were the elite to ever come out of this area. I will have an interview with Otto on this topic as well. I plan on having the discussions on this site for everyone to view.
Check out Marissa Drewery's progress from 10 to 17! Scroll down and Click on her video clip. It is on the General Information page.
To set the record straight...They used to say "Otto and I teach the girls to pitch like men"! Click on the motion capture analysis button to view Otto and Jimmy pitching next to Jennie Finch. We look the same at our release point! Check out our video of one of our students progress over atwo yeartime span. It is not uncommon to see a student videoed and analyzed (within 5 minutes) and back on the mound working on her pitching motion! This is free and available to our students at every lesson.Click on our Motion Capture Analysis Button to view ourDemo Clip...
Check out how successful our high school students were in 2008. Click on the high school news section!
Congratulations to Courtney Ramos and Kara Spinelli for making the CALIFORNIA HIGH SCHOOL ALL-STATE TEAM as PITCHERS!
2008 Modesto Bee All -District Team It looks like the Modesto Bee allowed 16 spots for pitchers for the 2008 All-District Team. We have 11 pitchers selected to the 2008 All-District Team! Three of the Four 1st team All-Distric pitchers of the year were our students.. The Bee had three 1st team All-District Utility players of the year Two of our students made it!... The Bee selected four pitchers for their 2nd All-District team Three of the Four pitchers our are students... The Bee had two Utility selections ... We had both of them... The Bee had Four honorable mention pitchers... We had One! More Info in the next few days!!! Check out our high schools news link to the left to see our students!
Wow! 2008 was awesome for us check out our college students! What a year we had at A League of Our Own Pitching School! We had Marissa Drewrey pitching for Cal against Florida on ESPN in the College Super Regionals losing a heart breaker in the ninth inning! We had Marissa and Aja Schuber (Fresno State) battling in the Regionals in Fresno. We had Jen Arnold Pitching in the DII regionals for Cal State Stanislaus. We had Heather Dady pitching for Whitter College leading the pitching staff. Read more cool stuff on the college button! The high schools were amazing this year! Our brag board was full all year! We will have an awards update as soon as everyone gets their information to me.
HOT OF THE PRESS!
Congratulations to Caitlin Brooks on being named the 2009 Modesto Bee Player of the Year! Caitlin is the 2nd sophomore to ever be named Player of the Year! Desi Maldonado and Mandy Sifuentes were the other two 1st team pitchers! All the pitchers on the Modesto Bee All-District 1st team go to us. We had a total of 8 pitchers make the All-District selections! According to the Modesto Bee we had: 5 Most Valuable Players out of the 7 leagues in our area! We also had 13 All League awards for a total of 18 awards in 2009! Our 2009 Most Valuable Players and All league selections: Desi Maldonado-Davis H.S.- MVP Modesto Metro Conference Mandy Sifuentes- Patterson H.S.- MVP Western Athletic Conference Jessica George- Waterford H.S.- MVP Southern League Brianna Giampaoli- Le Grand H.S.- MVP Southern League Caitlin Brooks- Escalon H.S.- MVP Trans-Valley League
Brittani McGue- Modesto Christian H.S. - All League 1st team TVL League Carlye Avey- Riverbank H.S.- All League 1st team TVL Taylor Gross- Merced H.S.- All League 1st team CCC Melania Saalfeld- Beyer H.S.- All League 1st team MMC Liz Perez- Johansen H.S.- All League 2nd team MMC Sam Dornan- Denair H.S.- All League 1st team SL Kayla Souza- Patterson H.S.- All League 1st team WAC Alicia Paine- Hilmar H.S.- All League 1st team WAC Alexxis Loura- Livingston H.S.- All League 1st team WAC Briana Rios- Central Catholic H.S.- All League 1st team WAC Kaycee Creek- Ceres H.S.- All League 1st team VOL Vicky Ochoa- Central Valley H.S.- All League 1st team VOL Angelysa Washington- Weston Ranch- All League 1st team VOL
I will have an update on our college students soon!-Marissa (Cal), Jennifer (Cal State Stanislaus), Sierra (Academy of the Arts), Kara (University of Detroit), Erica (Azusa Pacific), Kaelle (Mid-West Texas), Heather (Whittier),Jen (Delta) and Rachel (Modesto). I will have a list of our 2010 students competing in college in the near future!
Wow! Go to Max preps and see how our pitchers are doing! We plan on offering Morning lessons starting in June. The lessons we will be offering private, college videos and motion capture analysis.
Congratulations to Jessica George for making the Modesto Bee Athlete of the week! Jessica joinsVaneza Hoover, Desi Maldonado and Caitlin Brooks this year! We should have some news on three of our students signing or giving verbal's in the next few weeks! How many Modesto Bee All District Players of the Year have gone to us? Answer- ask Jimmy Marissa (Cal) won her 16th game and was on TV against Stanford! Courtney (So. Miss) won her 9th game and e-mailed me letting us know that So. Miss and LSU will be on TV in the near future! I will have more high lights as I get them on ourBRAG boardat the Academy! Question- How many pitchers hit 60 mph last weekend at the Ceres Varsity High School tournament? Answer- ??? Spin Testing Results! We are accumulating some cool data on the use of our spin tester. I will have some of the results posted in the Academy and share a little on our News Cast next week. I am one of the few pitching instructors in the USA to offer!!!
The ability to measure the spin on the ball
Speed of the pitch
Pitching motion analysis with the ability to use voice over, drawing tools and burn it to a DVD for the student
Control of the pitch
Data on speed, spin, control for individual age group(s)- Etc.
Check out Steve Drewery's review of the "spinning the ball test" on our Softball News Cast in the next few weeks.
Softball News Cast 2.12.09
We plan on having a weekly softball show like ESPN on our web site. I am not sure what I will name it. We will give updates on our college, high school, travel ball and rec ball students. We hope to have game highlights. We will have pitchers of the week. We may interview a coach, ex student or parent. We may have a roundtable discussion on our great pitchers. A topic may be... who was the best? Who had the best riseball or change? We have a whole bunch of fun stuff we can do on our Softball News Cast! March group and private lessons are now available. Private lessons are offered Monday thru Sunday Group lessons are offered Monday thru Sunday
01-13-2009
Is High School Softball as good as it was in 1992? The funny thing is that I have been asked this question lately. Is softball as good as it was 10 years ago? It is fun to debate that question about 10 years ago. But the past day or so I have been digging up some old softball videos. WOW! I will have some videos of the power-house high school softball teams in action in the 91-93 era at the academy. I may put a little clip up here on the site as well. parents and students can answer themselves.
Cool Stuff in 2009! Advanced Velocity, Control and Spin Training will be available soon!
Why the controversy ? The big controversy in hitting is Ted Williams (rotational theories) and Charlie Lau (weight shift or linear theories). In fastpitch softball pitching , the controversy is - "no hips" (keep the hips back) or "close the hips" (hips rotate) and "get on top of a pitch" or "lean back on a pitch". In the next few days we will have a variety of pitchers pitching on video clips. We will show how much the hip rotation is used or not used and the leaning back or getting on top. We will show what really is happening. We will have demonstrations using the elite softball pitchers! I will have dvd's made up that can be watched at the Academy at Rainbow Fields.
Can the Eye see as good as a Camera? Does Motion Capture Analysis help the student? Can videoing help the student correct flaws in the pitching motion? Can videoing help an average pitcher become above average? Click on the motion capture button in the next few days to see more proof! I will have photo's at the Academy (on the wall) that will show the progress of a number of students with different problems in their pitching motion - and the dramatic improvement with the use of Right View Pro and Motion Pro analysis over time.
If you would like to see if we can take a beginning student- work with them all the way into their college days, We have proof! - click on our General Information page, scroll down below the general information and click on the names of the students you would like to view. I will have a Marissa Drewery at 10 and 17 in the next few days! I will try to have 5-6 more beginning videos soon!
Click on the movie button below to laugh at Mandy and Melaina's blooper's... Steve Drewery edited the bloopers after he made their college video! I hear we will have a few new bloopers in the next few days!
Courtney and Jimmy
Good Luck Kaelee in Wichtia Falls, Texas playing for Midwestern State University
Good Luck Kara at U of Detroit-Mercy
College signings in 2008
Congratulations to our graduating seniors that have signed to play in college! Courtney Ramos- Hilmar H.S.- Southern Mississippi- NCAA-DI Erika Marmolejo- Merced H.S.- Loyala Marymount University- NCAA-DI Kara Spinelli- Orestimba H.S- University of Detroit/Mercy- NCAA-DI Kaelee Kramer- Patterson H.S.- Mid Western State (Texas)- NAIA-DI Sierra Garcia- Los Banos H.S- Academy of Arts University- NCAA- DII
Jimmy Dyson's Pitching School is unique in how we conduct our lessons... We learn and haveFun! We Video- the student is the Star. We have structured Workouts - Some times as long as an hour and thirty minutes. Students have to compete. Students pitch next to some of the best college and high school pitchers in northern California! Parents and students are able to view the ball flight to the catchers on our TV monitors... You hear "WOW" throughout the Academy. Students have access to counselor, coaches, and parents that have been there, done that! Jimmy's does not charge his students for their college pitching DVD.
Courtney Ramos- Hilmar H.S.- Southern Mississippi- NCAA-DI
We Video- the student is the Star. 
We have structured Work
outs - Some times as long as an hour and thirty minutes. 
Students have to compete. 
Students pitch next to some of the best college and high school pitchers in northern California! 
Parents and students are able to view the ball flight to the catchers on our TV monitors... You hear "WOW" throughout the Academy. 
Students have access to counselor, coaches, and parents that have been there, done that!