Rawlings Official Major League Baseballs

On arriving for your first ‘flight’, you will be given a briefing from an experienced instructor. This might involve you balancing ‘belly-down’ on a chair, in an attempt to create the perfect ‘flying shape’. Following this, you will change into your (usually psychedelic) flight suit, helmet, goggles and ear plugs (you will understand why you need these later) and you are then ready.

When it’s your turn to fly, you will stand at the doorway of the wind tunnel and, on your instructor’s say so, lean forward and fall into the airflow. You are now flying. The noise will be deafening and so your instructor will give you direction via some pre-determined hand signals (not dissimilar to those used in diving). You can control your flying by increasing or diminishing the drag of your body and by using your arms and legs as rudders. The best way to learn is to experiment and to think of yourself as an aeroplane (I was a B2 Bomber – slow and stealth-like).

You will usually get two one-minute sessions of flying, which might seem measly until you consider that a ‘real’ skydive, from a height of 10,000 feet, would only provide you with about 30 seconds of free fall. Hence you are getting the equivalent of four skydives.

Indoor skydiving is suitable for everyone. The instructors will consider your age, shape and ability level and set the wind speed accordingly. On average, the wind speed is just over 120 miles per hour. This matches the terminal velocity of a normal-sized human being falling from high above. With indoor skydiving it is necessary to create that same speed, but blowing air upwards.

If you catch the skydiving ‘bug’ you can sign up for further classes and learn how to do turns, rolls, formation flying and pretty much any acrobatic maneuver that you can think of. And all this at just a few feet from the ground.
By Helen Keeling

Here are few of the effective ideas for practicing baseball indoors. The drills for batting, pitching and fielding are presented in the paragraphs below.

Pitching
The pitching activity is an important part of the game of baseball. It is possible to master the pitching activity by regular practice. Controlling the path (curve, height) of ball is the essence of pitching; indoor practice should allow for honing the pitching skills without any problems. The portable indoor mounds are used for pitching practice in the indoor environment. These mounds serve the purpose of offering an elevated position, similar to that on a baseball field. The distance between home plate and pitching mound should be that of 60 feet and 6 inches for the pitching drills to be effective. A home plate made of rubber should be used and catcher positioned behind this plate. The practice sessions for pitching should be conducted twice or thrice a week. The pitch count of around 150 in a week should provide enough practice to the players. The 150 pitches should be distributed equally in 2 or 3 sessions a week. This indoor baseball practice schedule for pitching should help in improving this vital skill.

Batting
The equipments needed for batting practice in an indoor environment include the pitching machine and indoor cage. Use of indoor cage is as effective as practicing in an outdoor environment. It is possible to study and improve the skills of swinging the bat through this exercise. A batter should be allowed to take 15-20 swings at a stretch. The use of pitching machine in batting practice is optional. Live practice with pitchers is another option. The L-screen should be used for the protection of pitchers in case an indoor cage is used. The information on how to build a batting cage will come handy in case you want it in your own backyard for practicing with your like minded friends who live in your neighborhood.

Fielding
There are many things to try out for improving the fielding. Catching is an important aspect of fielding. Pop-ups are not an option when indoor practice is conducted. Instead of pop-ups one can think of playing ground hits; the ground hits should also allow a good amount of practice for fielders. Hitting fly balls also is one of the options. Fly balls are the hits which travel through air. However, these hits do not go high up in the air like pop-ups. Practice of throwing the ball to the bases is also important for fielders. In order to practice throws, rubber bases have to be set up indoors. Fielders should be directed to throw balls at all three of the bases in order to get enough practice. Read the rest of this entry »