Doing your homework
Soccer-expert.com

Practice makes perfect! Or does it? Well if we are being 'picky' then this statement is not correct. Bad practice does not make perfect. The statement should be practice makes permanent.

The great players practice and practice outside of their normal training time. If you are lucky enough turn up at Real Madrid's training ground you are very likely to see David Beckham practicing free kicks outside of the team's training sessions. How else can you perfect something if you don't practice it?

Soccer is no different to any other activity, sporting or academic. To improve you should rehearse activities. There are many aspects of soccer you can practice on your own or with a friend or parent.

The obvious ones are ball juggling and control. However, by setting up simple exercises you can improve many aspects of soccer. Not all these activities start with a ball and they can easily be adapted to adjust for players at different levels and ages, for example, dribbling with the ball.

The first step of teaching someone to dribble with the ball is to teach the movements the feet and body have to make. It is therefore not necessary to have a ball to start this practice off.

With a few cones and a small space the movements required to dribble the ball can be worked on. Obviously a ball should be introduced as soon as possible but the type of ball can also vary depending on the level and age of the player e.g. for small children they could start with a light ball!

An example of a practice for young children is the following:
Spread out a variety of coloured cones randomly in a small area (no more than 10 v 10metres). The child should practice running in an out of the cones imagining they have a ball at their feet.

If you have different coloured cones they should 'plot' or plan a route. This gets them to think ahead and look up - two important aspects of dribbling. You can introduce a ball when the child is comfortable with the exercise. All very simple!
This practice and its progressions are shown on the new junior soccer-expert part of the www.soccer-expert.com website. Children can do this on their own with a little bit of guidance from a parent or friend.

Derek Broadley of the www.soccer-expert.com team adds: 'The increasing demands on our modern lifestyles have taken away an important ingredient of the soccer development process.

'The demise of "Street Soccer" due to increased numbers of cars on the roads, the fear of children being left unattended, along with increased demands of employers for people to spend more time at work (to mention a few), have seen "self learning" almost fade away in Western Society.

'Upon recent visits to less developed countries, (Romania, Thailand) I was refreshed to see children playing in the streets, not just soccer but all sorts of games that had physical and social elements included.'

The www.soccer-expert.com team have introduced a "street soccer" mentality to their practice sessions and have gone even further now with the introduction of the Junior Soccer-Expert Shows.

'It is our belief that we should still actively get children practicing in their own homes with the help of their friends and family,' Derek goes onto say. 'In young children, we must emphasis the importance of practicing and experimenting new things in order that they become instinctive, this can only be done through playing.

'Parents should applaud this notion and they have a great opportunity to bond with their kids whilst they learn. Children have to become more active and parents must take the responsibly to find time to play.'

'Recently, different governments around the world have been reporting on the rise of obesity in young people and this type of venture by soccer-expert.com goes along way to tackling that problem,' commented Art Auchenbach, a subscriber to the site.
'Soccer is like all "taught subjects" in that, it has to be learnt outside of the directed time given on school curriculums,' ex-teacher Derek says. 'Therefore soccer homework must be introduced at all levels in order to raise standards.

'Any form of soccer activity will be beneficial to the individual, and just think what is going through the child's mind when mum and dad are the partner or friend sharing the activity?'

The different types of activities can be seen on the site via the video data base.
'Once we have established the need for soccer homework, we can then start to look at the content of the work and this is where the junior shows will benefit many young players and their families.' Derek Broadley explains.
'I was one of millions kids that learnt the basic techniques in the street with my friends, my family only needed to give me a ball to satisfy my desire to learn the game I loved.

'I now spend endless hours PLAYING soccer with my two boys Lochlan and Karsten and they give me many of the ideas you will see on the junior shows, we introduce different outcomes to our playtime every time we play,' Derek says.
Homework, is something that children have to be continually reminded of, something that always seems to take longer than the directed time given by the teacher. Let us try and make some of the homework exciting and enjoyable so that it is installed in the children's mind and it become habitual.

Let's get parents playing actively with their kids. Think of the physical and social benefit that brings to family life.
Click in for your first home work session on www.soccer-expert.com.