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1. Take your batting stance with your back shoulder pressed up against a wall. Your back foot should be lined up directly under your shoulder and your back knee as illustrated. (Yes, this might necessitate lowering your back elbow for the time being, but don't worry, we will get to whether your little league coach was right when he or she told you to "keep your back elbow up, so that you swing level" in future "Tips of the Month").
2. You should also have your weight distributed about 70 - 30 with most of your weight on your back foot. To help achieve this distribution, you may want to bend your back knee just a bit.
3. Now, you should attempt to take a small stride with your front foot stepping towards the pitcher without allowing your back shoulder to come off the wall. At Clutch Hitting, we like to say "it's like stepping on thin ice." That is, your stride should be a soft stride which does not offset your weight distribution. In this position, a batter is now prepared to hit. A batter does not stride at the same time that he or she swings. The stride merely prepares a batter to hit.
4. If your shoulder comes off the wall, you have taken too big of a stride. That is, the ball is being pitched towards the batter on a particular plane (and actually changes planes depending on what type of pitch). A batter, by striding too far actually changes the plane that his or her head is on, thereby making the ball appear to move slightly. This usually results in a batter hitting the bottom of the ball because the eyes and head have moved down a plane and as a result they are no longer swinging at the part of the ball at which they were aiming.
5. There is no right way to assume the stance, however, the concept of not transferring your weight too far or too soon is fundamental to any discipline of hitting. As shown above and below, a batter may achieve a solid "up against the wall" stance in a variety of ways.
