Mechanics and the Windmill Pitch
The windmill pitch is performed in two styles. These styles are the stepping method and the leap or push and drag.
The push (leap)& drag is accomplished by starting the stride foot and hands simultaneously, dragging the toe of the pivot foot, and as the stride foot lands, whipping the forearm forward against the firm front side. The follow through for the push and drag is the figure four. This is also known as the blocking style. The pivot leg forms a figure four against the stride leg. This style is very smooth and realtively effortless, allowing the body to remain open until after release.
I no longer teach the step style, having found the open, blocking method to facilitate more speed with less effort.
Both styles are acceptable and have produced successful pitchers, although the leap and drag style is more popular as girls get older, and more college pitchers use that style.
Fastballs will eventually give way to the peel drop. A straight fastball is easily hit and very little effort is required to make the peel your fastest pitch.
The breaking pitches, such as the drop curve are thrown differently. As you can see by the student below, the weight is transferred onto the stride leg much as if you were climbing down a stair step. This helps the pitcher to pull up on the seams, imparting maximum rotation.
Rotation imparts movement to the ball, whether real or an illusion, the batter, catcher, and umpire see it. Therefore by using the pads of the fingertips to produce maximum spin in a certain direction, the effect is the batter swings where she thinks the ball is , and the movement takes it to another plane. The drop can best be visualized as a baseball style curve. The true softball curve breaks away from a right hand hitter, but on the same horizontal plane as the fastball. The rise ball, when thrown with the correct spin will jump up. The change up, thrown well will result in about 25-30% speed reduction from the fastball.