How long did it take you to get good at ball juggling?

I think you're doing OK. If you continue your juggling sessions, at some point you'll have a big breakthrough where your best will increase by 5-10 almost every day instead of the 1-2 you're experiencing now. Eventually you'll get to where your best number will be restricted more by your fitness instead of your skill level.
I think it took me several months during a summer to go from a max of 30-50 to over 500. Every day (summers were very boring where I lived) I juggled until I beat my record.
Even though I got to where I could do over 500, I never felt as comfortable juggling as the pros seem to be.

 

There are also accomplished pros who don't juggle. I never did better than 50, and never cared to do more than 50. I don't think the value is in being able to do 500 repetitions. There is a diminishing return on practice time to performance benefit in the application of the skill to the game. I think the real value is being able to juggle between head, chest, thigh, and foot. In a match often your first touch will be with head, chest or thigh and there is real value in learning the soft touch necessary to transfer the ball to your foot with that first touch--while sprinting, starting, stopping, or turning.

 

I started to juggle 63 years ago

I juggle every day. Sometimes I sit on the floor and while I am watching tv a juggle multi task baby. I can do 2oo at a clip before I lose one. If I am feeling good.

Sometimes when the wife is bothering me I do high juggles. She gets annoyed and tells me to go out side and do it. Then I go to the movie theather and catch the first show I get in for 8 dollars because I am an old man. Saw the wolf of wall street it sucked but his blond wife was something.

It just helps your ball control especially when you pull a ball out of the air plus it is fun to do. When I take my grand daughter to the park I juggle to the field. She likes when I do it. I get her off the school bus 3 days a week. The kids on the bus go wild when they see me do it.

There was an American who was in the Quiness book of records years ago. He played in the indoor league for a year or two. He was never more then an ordinary player.

But then you had Maradona who juggled every chance he got. He was the best player I have seen in my life time. Better then Messi in my oppinion.

 

Here is an example of what I mean by "the soft touch" in matches. Nick also referred to "when you pull a ball out of the air." Zidane has a great soft touch while moving. I never get tired of watching clips of him on the ball.

 

Can you name some?

 

I don't know why you want me to name some players who don't juggle. Alan Shearer, one of the greatest English strikers of all time supposedly didn't juggle, because he considered it a waste of his practice time.

Just to keep this in perspective, when I coached U-Littles I included some juggling as part of the fundamentals I was teaching. But my earlier point is that classic juggling--doing hundreds of "keepy-ups"-- which are repetitive small movements of the feet while stationary have absolutely no relation to the game. What you want is the ability to move the ball around with soft touches between head, chest, thigh and foot WHILE MOVING in any direction, turning, stopping and starting at game speed under pressure. 500 "keepy-ups" have no value. When I practiced on my own while playing on a competitive team, I practiced juggling--but the emphasis was on moving the ball around and not repeating any touches. To practice touch, I also would kick the ball straight into the air about 15 feet, and receive the ball directing it to ground so that I could accelerate away dribbling. This is not the type of juggling that most people think of as juggling, but it is game related.

Generally speaking, any time you practice and execute successfully something 500 times in a row you are not challenging yourself. So the practice is not meaningful. To be meaningful, the movement must be more difficult to execute. When you are trying to maximize successful repetitions, you try to make the movement as unchallenging as possible. So it is not an efficient approach to improving game performance.

 

There are definitely better forms of practice, but it beats sitting inside watching TV, especially if you don't have anyone to practice with or much outdoor space. For me, I think it improved my touch and my fitness. For my parents, it got me out of the house during the summer.

 

I found a coaching comment in a clip that I thought would help explain why the typical repetitive juggling is not very helpful.

Stationary juggling is okay for a starting exercise for an unskilled novice, but you want to make your exercises progressively harder.

This is a clip of the most common 2-person soft touch drill in its easiest form


Here are some ideas on how to make the 2-person drill more difficult. (This clip shows is a 3-person drill with alternating roles, but it is the same idea.)
Watch the coaches comments beginning at 2:50. He explains why you need to be able to strike with all surfaces quickly.


Vary the service: direction, height, spin, weight, pace, half volley
Move around--don't stay stationary
Surprise your partner with the timing of the service--be unpredictable.

A quick word about receiving and soft touch. During a game you don't want to stop the movement of the ball when receiving. With your first touch you want to control the ball and redirect it in the direction that you want to move in. This is important because it is how you create space for yourself and win free of your markers. So you want to practice like you are going to play. Stationary is not how you want to play. Keep challenging yourself.

 

I find it hard to believe the kids in the second video aren't giggling the whole time "Mr. Bate" instructs them. Or maybe the video title has a typo.

 

A couple of months with about an hour per day?
I can't really remember, but when I was younger, there was a popular McDonalds advert (?) here in the UK which
showed a kid juggling the ball and at school me and all my friends tried to do the same.
I remember being in the garden everyday. From stuggling to be able to do just 2 or 3,
I could maybe do 12 within a few weeks. And slowly more and more each time.
There does come a point where it gets easy(ish).
It's like muscle memory.

 

Just like hitchslap said. It get easier with practice. But you must not get discouraged. Everybody has to start somewhere. I myself think that amazing players are made through hard work and pracite. Just keep trying till make your first 5,10, 15, .... and so on. Once you get the hang of it you will quickly improve.

But as other members said. You have to work on every ascpect of your game not just juggling.

 

I went through observing my two sons (8 and 10) juggling -- they are still doing it. The key is repetition which can be boring. I think in the beginning it definitely helps your touch without a doubt. However, at a certain point it does not add much to your skill level -- there are diminishing returns when you get to 150 or so. I would work on repetition for a while with both feet, thighs, head, chest and shoulders being added to the mix. Also, at a certain point you can have fun by adding tricks -- catching the ball on your neck, balancing it on your foot, and "around the world" are some things my older son does. It has taken him from about age 8 to 10 -- two years to do that and to juggle without dropping the ball too much. Fyi, I think he averaged about 15-20 minutes per day for those two years, if you are trying to get a general estimate of time.

I think that it is worthwhile to juggle so long as it does not cut into practice. It helps with volleying. It is fun to do when bored or alone on the side of the house, for example where there may not be a lot of room. Also, I've noticed that kids who can juggle quite well get some respect when they play with new teams. For example, before a practice begins the kids eyeball each other when messing around and juggling. They can make friends, etc. It can give a kid some confidence. I agree, though, that "soccer skills" utilized directly in a game are of greater value, but it is definitely worthwhile.

There are tons of amazing jugglers on the Internet with ridiculous tricks that are a waste of time for true players, but take a look at Maradona juggling, especially if you have not seen it before. Life Is Life -- I think he was warming up with Argentina before playing Germany. The joy of juggling.

 

I learned how to do kick upwith my thigh first because lace kick up was too hard for me and i always kick the ball away. Took me 2 months to master thigh kick up ( i could do 2oo something at my best walking around and jumping around like dancing with my thigh) then after that i realized i have to be good at lace too so i spend 2 weeks to do around 10-30 kick ups of lace on average. now im pretty good at lace kick up but still cant be as good as my thigh. my average for lace kickup is 25-45 depend on my mood and my best for 1 time is 127. average for thigh range from 50-90 something because it was like my second nature now. another type of kickup that i learned before i was able to do stand up lace kick up was sitting kick up (which is hard for most people but somehow easy for me) i can do easily 40 something on average (took me 3 weeks of practice). for me head is the hardest right now my best is 24 and average is 12 lol. but you know, practices make perfect, the first week is the hardest part because it's really frustrated !

 

Everyone learns at different rates.

One thing I'll throw out there is that I found that with practice, quality matters over quantity. Make sure you know what you're focusing on and are consistently thinking about what you're doing. I found that it's very easy to zone out when practicing juggling, and in this case you're not improving nearly as much as with focused practice.

Also I'll note, when observing some pro teams warm up, it's clear that not all pro players are very good at juggling. In fact, most were quite poor.

I am a pretty good juggler but I practice a lot. It helps with first touch, but as others said, you can probably find better ways to spend practice time. I spend a lot of time practicing juggling because that's the best form of practice I could do by myself, inside. I found that using a miniature ball helps--the full size ball is much easier to juggle afterwards.

 

Like you said, it comes with years of experience to become as good as some. I personally haven't played football in years and am now coming back and I'm the same boat as you. I've also found that some videos on YouTube help with just tips that make it a little easier.

"You are what you repeatedly do. Therefore, excellence is not an act but a habit".

 

Robbie Savage. Like him or not he was one of the best holding midfielders of last generation. Only injuries hampered him from actually playing for a top club (the reason Man Utd let him go)

When asked to do some kick-ups (juggling) for charity, he couldn't do more than 6.

 

Took me ages to juggle the way I do now. But I purely did it for show and it never really helped my game nor do I ever use it in a game. I guess it does improve touch and control but practicing more specific skills (eg. Lots of dribbling, lots of cushioning the ball exercises, etc.) helped me more in the long run.

It is a good way to stay fit though, and obviously a good way to become a pro freestyler if that's your goal. It's also a good 'party trick' or tricks to show off to friends/teammates.

The only way you'll get better is practice every day. Practice with both feet, practice juggling high and low. Repetition, repetition, with a bit of failure mixed in, you'll get there I promise you!

 

A few quibbling exceptions aside, I really do think there's truth to the addage that all great players juggle well, while not all great jugglers necessarily play well.

 

Relax. If you're tense about it you'll impede your ability.

However, also be scientific about it at times. Understand exactly what went wrong on touch 17 to keep you from proceeding. Was the ball off to the side and you failed to get into position so as to tap it on the outside bottom edge to bring it back to center? That kind of thing.

 

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