How to Improve Soccer Dribbling Skills for Elementary School Students
Hello, This is Yatabe.
Soccer Dribbling Improvement Methods For elementary school students, this is undoubtedly the first major hurdle.
The most common concerns include:
- The ball gets taken away immediately
- The ball doesn’t stick to the feet
- The ball goes too far away from the body
- Unable to get past opponents
These would be the typical issues they face.
Learning from how to touch the ball
**How to Touch the Ball**
Recently, due to my influence, the teaching method of “thumb and pinky finger” has been heard at various schools and teams.
Yes, just like touching someone precious to you, you should touch the precious ball – the ball you want to stay close to you – with your “fingers.”
Just like piano or PC typing, where you use the same fingers to type each time, touching the ball with the same sensation every time is the shortcut to improving your dribbling.
Especially when elementary school students learn this from an early age, the number of correct repetitions increases dramatically, and they improve in no time.
When unable to get past opponents
In this case, many players have the tendency to:
Go close to the opponent
Head directly toward the opponent
Dribbling toward the opponent goes against the purpose of soccer.
The objective is to put the ball into the goal.
For that, it’s important to look toward the goal.
In many cases, the purpose becomes beating the opponent rather than the actual objective.
Also, when players get too close to the opponent, in most cases they haven’t simulated any route to their destination – the goal – at all.
If you keep looking at the map, you’ll end up looking down all the time to move forward.
It would be smooth if you create several images and simulations in advance before the ball comes to you.
In other words, while we usually have an image of the route to our destination in daily life, the problem is that we become too “no-image” when it comes to soccer.
It’s like knowing there’s a test but starting to panic and prepare only after sitting down.
If you know there’s a test, advance preparation makes all the difference.
Dribbling is about learning the mindset rather than learning techniques
Especially for elementary school students, learning the correct fundamentals is crucial for proper improvement.
Learning by watching techniques, as well as learning from the way of thinking –
This attitude is very important.
Correcting these small misconceptions one by one –
This is the kind of individual lessons I provide every day.
Please feel free to contact me for consultation first.
Shinnosuke Yatabe
