Ok ok ok so I didn't blog about our first real practice last Thursday. Guess I need to fill in some details. One of our players opted not to play at the last minute leaving us with only 5 players. An early morning APB on Facebook Thursday morning miraculously managed to yield a 6th player that we got signed up and on roster in time for the first practice that night and wowee what a mess we made.
We started out with some basic toe touch drills and some rules for the girls to start grasping the concept of what we're going to be doing followed by some dribbling exercises and some shooting drills all the while circling back to where we began and going over it again. Honestly I kinda think some of the girls got a little bored at times, which is 100% my fault, but even admitting that I feel like I had no choice but to focus on the core principles. The most important thing about this endeavor is that no matter what else goes on there's nothing more important than the girls here. Screw the parents, screw the "scores", screw everything, if the girls aren't having fun there's just no point in bothering with this at all and all of that hinges on my ability to keep it interesting. Only problem is that at the same time every single thing I'm doing has to actually translate into applicable soccer related skills. I feel like Mr Miyagi trying to find fun ways to trick the girls into learning the skills that they'll use to play the game!
ON TO THE GAME!!! So we get there to set up last night, we're one player short because one of the girls couldn't be there and we haven't so much as had a scrimmage to explain to the girls the concept of what we're going to be doing. but a quick breakdown and they pretty much had it figured out. We've got our superstars, and we've got our butterfly chasers, and to be completely honest.....they weren't always the same ones from moment to moment! I saw tons of great things, and just as many not-great things that we'll be working to encourage/discourage as needed in the following practices and the entire experience showed me a lot of things that, as a coach, I'm doing right and a lot of things I hadn't thought about that I can approach in my practices that I truly think will let me get the girls to relate to the game and develop skills that will be useful but all in a way that, with any luck, will be engaging and enjoyable across the board for everyone! I can not wait for Thursday!!!
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