If you know parents of little kids engaging in soccer consider encouraging them to play toss and trap (active trap) for five minutes a day. Google Kraig and Five Minutes and this link will show up.
The concept is fine but that video is horrific. Lots of standing around doing nothing and the soccer that happens is slow and disinterested. I have a small space in my basement where I throw the ball to my kids for them to return to me with a prescribed number of touches (usually 1-3 touches). But they are in ready-position on the balls of the feet and constantly moving, rather than standing stock still like the kid in that video. If you are going to do 5 minutes, better to do it the right way rather than reinforcing bad habits like flat-footedness.
It's old ... in it the kid is telling me what to do and I keep not doing it. It's funny he throws the ball at me at the end.. It is a shitty video but.... It carries through the concept. It's about sharing that five minutes a day reinforcing parental commitment and creating an opportuity for conversation. Unless he did a double practice, we were out there rain shine night winter getting in active traps. That kid is now a 5'6" 191 pound monster. J is now a junior. He plays all game every game for Berkshire School. Games are all on line.
Is cool.. You have provided impetus to make a better vid with editing and using other kids in all sorts of places. When parents do this they will get more than a kid with an un-American first touch... They will help their own abs bending down 100= times, but much more important, like me they will look back at the most memorable five minutes of their life. This active trap thing is the only coaching/training I ever did with the kid as I didn't want to screw up his training from a coach who had SFC soccer as his day job.
I definitely agree that it's a great drill to do with your kids, for two main reasons. First, the kids don't get a lot of training on receiving flighted balls in organized practices. Second, you only need a few minutes and a small space to do this drill, and the kid doesn't even have to get all sweaty when doing it, so it's perfect of right before or after dinner or something like that. By the way, I'm a youth soccer coach and can tell you why the youth teams don't spend a lot of time drilling this. First, the teams play small-sided soccer where the ball stays mostly on the ground, so it's not a very useful skill until about U10. Second, kids younger the U10 aren't very good at serving the ball to each other and it's very difficult to serve the ball to 10 kids at once, so it's really inefficient and wastes a lot of time to do drills like this in organized practice. I've worked with my own 12 year old on variations of this drill for years. He's literally probably spent 200 hours on variations of this drill. As a result, his skill in receiving a flighted ball is unbelievable, regardless of whether it's chest, thigh or foot, and his ability to return the ball with one, two or three touches is pure class. You can see a clear difference between him and the other kids his age.
We had a coach who always talked about first touch. Its one thing to have your kid go out and practice, and another to go out with them and spend some time with them! It only has to be five minutes, and it could be a fun thing. Thank you for the video, I always appreciate these ideas.
Would you mind sharing how the Berkshire School selects/admits its players? I know places like Grande and SSM basically have tryouts several times during the year.
Call their coach, videos, recommendations, touring campus. One real surprise is that their entire team goes over videos and plays a large and vital part in team selection. This approach really makes a lot of sense. A lot of selection is based on personality, not just speed and skill, which is great cause J is the slowest kid of starting 11. Berkshire has generous financial aid. There is a scholastic test. Disclaimer: Not having your kid at home sucks.
Thanks for this info. There's a lot of pros and cons of sending a kid to boarding school or residential program like Grande. Having recently moved to the Boston area, there were a lot of good private and public schools to choose from. I agree that all things being equal, I would prefer to have my son live at home during his high school years. I'm trying to look at a combination of h.s. soccer in the fall and club soccer in spring and summer that would help him continue to develop as a player but also enjoy this stage in life with his friends. Of course making good friends at a place like Berkshire School has a lot of advantages, too. He's only a freshman, so depending on how he develops as a soccer player will have a big bearing on what kind of path we consider.