2 Techniques For Dribbling a Soccer Ball

It's just you, the sweeper and the goalie. Your approaching the sweeper thinking of what move you'll use to slip past him and then it happens. You trip and the ball continues to roll heading right for the sweeper like a present on his birthday. How could this have been avoided? By mastering the art of dribbling. Read on to learn 2 techniques that will assure this scenario never happens to you.

We all have seen how great the Brazilians are at ball control. But how do they do it? Rhythm. They are in tune with the ball like a seductive dance. Their upper bodies are relaxed which enables them to adjust their body and the ball to any situation that arises. If your upper body is stiff then so will your dribbling style and it's effectiveness.

The first technique as over viewed above is to keep your upper body loose and flexible. When you dribble you need to keep a low center of gravity, kind of like a running back in pro football. This can be achieved with a loose upper torso allowing the flexibility to propagate throughout your body. To train yourself to have a loose upper body, practice dribbling with your soccer balls having your palms facing forward. It sounds crazy but it works and allows your upper body to be more flexible and mobile.

The second technique involves your legs, more specifically your knees. To obtain optimum ball control keep your knees slightly bent. This, like the first technique will give you a better lower center of gravity. It enables you, the player, the ability to maneuver better with sudden and precise moves leaving your opposition dead in their tracks. A good drill to practice this is to dribble the ball and every 10 seconds or so, if you don't have a coach to blow the whistle, is to stop the ball with one of your knees. This will teach your body to dribble with the knees bent and also forces upper body movement as explained in the first technique.

Be sure to practice these two techniques often. They'll greatly increase your dribbling ability and improve your juking ability. With a lot of practice you won't have to worry about ever tripping over the ball a blowing a perfect opportunity at a goal.

Kicking Your Soccer Ball

If you really want to learn to kick a soccer ball, you need to determined, persistent and patient. Most importantly, you need practice. To get yourself started, you will need a soccer ball, cleats, and large clear area so that you can practice. Now let's quickly take a look at some tips to start off.

1) Kicking with your toe should be strictly avoided. It may seriously injure your toe and you'd surely lose control over the ball.
2) To avoid slipping and tripping, soccer cleats are recommended.
3) The ball should only be sufficiently pumped, over pumping would only make it difficult to kick.
4) You can give additional lift to the ball by leaning over it while kicking. Also make sure that the ball is under your foot.
5) If you want to kick the ball further, do not stand directly over it. Instead, lean back while kicking to give the ball more height and more power to your kick.

The above tips will certainly give your kicks more strength. Now we shall take a look at how to kick a soccer ball CORRECTLY. Following the easy steps below should definitely help.

Step 1: Your equipment is the most important, a soccer ball (real one!) and soccer shoes. Playing without soccer shoes is not recommended and playing barefoot should be strictly avoided.

Step 2: Now while kicking, take a few steps backward and a step to the side (to the left if kicking with your right foot and vice versa if you are kicking with your left). This way you are using your hips to kick the ball with excess power.

Step 3: Run towards the ball, using your foot which you are not using for the kicks to direct the ball by placing it about six inches from the ball ground level in the direction that you aim to kick it.

Step 4: Always bring your leg back and then push it forward, with your toe pointing towards the ground. Your foot should strike the ball at the point where your shoe laces are.

Step 5: Having your body lean forward in order to push your weight ahead of the body makes the soccer kick more powerful. Leaning back after you kick will help you keep your balance.

Follow these basic steps of soccer and you might just turn out to be a soccer star some day.

Improve Your Moves - Skills & Drills

If you’ve learned anything on this site, it’s that your success as a soccer player depends on much more than how well you can kick the ball. The fate of the game rests on strategy, teamwork, and decision-making. That being said, there are several skills and techniques that’s you’ll want to have developed, if not perfected, so that you can tap into them when you need to.

The Main Soccer Positions?

The positions of soccer players are often misunderstand, especially by people new to soccer. In this article we will take look at the most common positions in soccer. Lets start...

The Sweeper

The position of sweeper requires good understanding for the game. As a sweeper you will be the one that controls your defense. You need also to have good heading abilities.

Center Fullback

Your main task as the center fullback is to stop forwards from scoring. You need also to start offensive attacks by playing the ball safely to your midfielder.

Left or Right Fullback

If you want to play right or left fullback you will need to be fast, react quickly and pose good technique abilities

Left or Right Midfielder

You need to have good passing abilities to perform well on this position. As the left/right midfielder you will have more time and room comparing to your center midfielder. This gives you opportunity to receive the ball without big pressure.

Defensive Midfielder

As a defensive midfielder your mission is to act in front of your defenders. Having good passing abilities is a must on this position. You need always to play safe and to provide your defenders with support.

Central midfielder

If you want to play as central midfielder you will need to pose good skills with the ball. Beside that you need to support your defensive midfielder during your opponent's attacks.

Forward and Striker

The forward and striker are two similar positions where scoring is only thing that matters. Your job is simply to score and you must try to do it on every chance you get in front of your opponents goal.

The Soccer Goalkeeper

Your main mission as soccer goalkeeper is to prevent your opponents from scoring. Beside that you will also need to encourage your teammates.

Your Soccer Team Homework

One of the key ways for youth soccer players to develop is to work on individual skills at home. It has always been my philosophy that dribbling and other individual skills should not be worked on at practice. Practice is a time to work on team skills and strategy.

The problem I found with this philosophy is that I was having a hard time getting my team to practice at home. I would reiterate the necessity at every practice, but I could tell that it wasn't happening. This is when I decided to implement homework into my team's training.

As a coach you should be able to judge which skills need to be worked on by your team as a whole. With my team it was ball control, especially off the chest and thighs. So I decided to come up with a list of items that needed to be worked on for an hour at least 5 days every week. This list was printed and handed out to each player at the end of practice. They were required to have their parents sign the paper when they finished and return the paper the next week.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that my homework regiment was met with very little resistance. I think that the parents and players understood that becoming a better player doesn't happen with only 1 hour of practice every week.

Over the next few weeks I noticed a marked improvement in the dribbling and trapping skills of my team. But the real results came when we beat a seemingly unbeatable team in the finals of a large tournament only 1 month after starting our homework regiment.

A Good Team Anatomy

It is very obvious that Argentina has such players in abundance and clubs should be sending scouts over there to acquire such players.

Alternatively the French league seems to a breeding ground for such players but they usually of African origin not French. But they tend to ply their trade in France as Claude Makele, Saydoo Keita, Mohamadoo Diarra etc to name a few.

As far as the creative midfielder goes, the 1st point of call should always be Brazil as they produce them more than any other country with Argentina being another country that produces them in abundance but their creative players tend to be more strikers than attacking midfielders.

As far as strikers, goalkeepers, defenders go, there does not seem to be a country that has the monopoly on those positions as it depends on the type you want but I would not go for a Portuguese for a striker as there are not any.

I would bypass the English and Argentines if I wanted a decent goalkeeper as they are very few and far between and it is not a good idea to go for a Spanish defender as Carlos Puyol and Sergio Ramos apart, there are not that many if any world class defenders about.

As far as the manager is concerned, I would not go for an Italian because they are too technical and do not let their teams express themselves enough and definitely not an Englishman as they are not technical enough.

A Soccer Training

In this article we will take a look on what you can do to improve your juggling skills in soccer.

Patience - It is important to have patience while practicing on your juggling skills. You can't expect to become good at juggling in few weeks. This is something that takes time and the more effort you put in, the more you will get back. What I am trying to say is that you need to see every day as a chance to increase your juggling skills.

Practice often -I would recommend you to practice on your juggling at least 30 min per day. After few weeks or so you will notice that you juggling skills have increased by several levels.

Use a small ball - This one is great for your overall soccer skills and not only for juggling. I can admit that juggling with a small ball is not that easy as with a regular one. However, I can ensure you that after juggling with a small ball for 20 min or so you can try change to the regular one. What you will notice is that the regular ball suddenly feels clumsyand too big for your feet. It will also become easier to keep the ball in the air for longer time.

Keep you focus on the ball - While juggling, don't lose focus on the ball. Try to shut down everything around you and just concentrate on keeping the ball in air. This is not so easy to do if you are new to soccer, however after a while it will become natural.

Try to break your record - Each time you practice on your juggling skills you should try to break your record. Never get satisfied just because you have managed to keep the ball in the air for 5 min or so. Instead encourage yourself to increase your time to 6 min and so on. My point is that you should always try to improve your juggling skills.

Relax - One of the most important things in juggling is to keep your body relaxed. The more relaxed you are the better juggling skills.

My Sports Hobby

This love for a ball doesn't seem to go away with age. Soccer is the most popular sport in the world. People play soccer in every nation and country. It's a universal sport. It has simple rules and requires little equipment, but can still take a lot of skill to play it well. The entertainment of playing with a ball doesn't go away. Soccer players just kick a ball around for hours every game. They can't use their hands, so they kick it around with their feet, their heads and other parts of their bodies.

Some people like to juggle their soccer balls. You juggle a soccer ball by kicking it up and down in the air without letting it hit the ground. You can kick it up with your feet, your knees, your head, or any part of the body. Just don't let it hit the ground. It might take a while to learn how to do this well, but it's nice once you get good at it. It is one of those skills you can show off to all of your friends and might make you more attractive.

You can dribble a soccer ball. Just kick it around on the ground, kicking it back and forth between your feet as you run. Once you get good at dribbling, you can show it off in your game, cutting around people with awesome tricks. One of my favorite tricks is to roll the ball up the back of one of my legs and then kick it up and over my head with the back of my foot. It makes me look like a good soccer player, even though I can't do much else. It's the intimidation factor.

You can do a bicycle where you jump up in the air and kick the soccer balls while you are in the air, and then land on your back, or sort of land on your back. You have to land so that you can roll, keeping yourself from being injured to badly. You may have to try this one a few times before you can do it well, and might knock the wind out of yourself the first couple times or hit your head on the ground if you rotate too much on your back. But it feels pretty cool, once you can do it.

Learn to Paint

I have always enjoyed looking at different types of artwork and I especially like oil and watercolor paintings. I just find it so amazing how one can create an illusion of reality with just a few dashes of paint here and there. Well, I know that's rather simplistic but I think you get the point.

I was about 33 years old when I decided to take the plunge into the art world and learn how to do some of what I had admired so much. I set out on a mission to find a local art class or someone that could teach me the basics oil painting. Believe it or not I was very difficult to find someone that actually taught classes that would show me how to paint and explain how and why to properly use the tools.

I eventually gave up on finding a class and decided to see if I could learn from one of the program I saw on PBS TV. I had watched the Bob Ross - Joy of Painting series many times over the years and decided. I was always quite enchanted by Bob Ross as he gracefully stepped through his paintings on TV. He would always say you can do this my friend, you can do this. I guess over time I began to take him at his word and gave it a try.

I placed an order for a Master Paint Kit (and all the fixins). I couldn't wait to get started, it was like waiting for Christmas.When I received my supplies I setup my easel and canvas with eager anticipations of completing my first painting. I popped the VHS tape that came with the kit into my VCR and soaked up every word. I carefully watched every movement and every brush stroke until I was sure I knew exactly what to do and how to do it. Now I was ready to paint.

And there I sat, staring nervously at this vast white empty space. One day, two days, eventually almost a week went by and I still had accomplished nothing more then just a stare at a blank canvas.

Painting on Linen

TIP. For any size larger than 18 inches on the long side, I recommend that you use heavy-duty stretcher bars. This timber is strong enough to make the traditional 'cradle' support unnecessary. However, you will still need to set-in an upright centre bar in the slots provided. It's a good idea to reinforce each end of these with a small piece of timber nailed to both upright and stretcher bar.

TIP. Keys - those little wooden wedges designed to be inserted in slots at the corners of the finished stretcher - are best not used at all. You can tack them, in a small plastic sandwich bag, to the back of the stretcher so they're handy if you do feel a need to tighten the canvas later.

TIP. Use stainless steel staples only; ordinary steel will rust and may rot the canvas. Invest in a good, heavy-duty staple gun; your hands will really appreciate it. Always cut your piece of canvas from the roll 4 inches longer each side than the stretcher. Don't trim it off at the sides. It won't look so neat, but if ever the painting needs to be de-mounted or re-stretched, the framer or conservator will bless you.

The day will come when nothing else but linen will satisfy you, and you'll be glad you're already familiar with the techniques for stretching and painting on canvas. As an organic fabric, any canvas absorbs moisture, swelling as it does so, and stretches or sags with the pressure you apply while working on it. Not a worry; that's just natural. When the work is finished and the paint layers begin to dry out, the canvas will return to its original state. There's no need for you to tighten the keys at the stretcher's corners; it's far better that you leave them alone.

Art of Cubism

Influenced by the works of Paul Cezanne and Jean Dominque Ingres, Picasso became intrigued with ambiguous silhouettes. Picasso also began to include elements of primitive and African art. It is believed that after Braque saw Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, Braque set out to deliberately change his style in a friendly rivalry with his friend, Pablo Picasso. Heeding Cezanne's advice that artists should treat nature in terms of the cylinder, the sphere, ad the cone, Picasso and Braque considered their subject and then fragmented it, analyzed it, and reassembled it in abstract form. Proportions, organic integrity and continuity of life samples and material objects were abandoned. One vicious critic said the works resembled a field of broken glass. Cubism was the most radical and influential movement in twentieth-century art. The movement began a revolution in the visual arts that all subsequent painters dealt with in some way. French art critic Louis Vauxcelles, upon seeing Braque's highly abstracted 1908 landscapes, coined the word Cubism to describe the new style that seemed to be composed of geometric cubes.

How to start your own Magazine

Okay so you've decided to start your own magazine. You are really quite excited, as you get to put YOUR name as the publisher and editor of this yet to be released published magazine masterpiece.

So now what? Do you have a business plan? How are you going to execute this marvel of modern publishing and release it to your awaiting adoring fans? Have you researched your topic? Have you looked in to design costs? Have you looked into printing costs? Have you looked at how many businesses will be willing to advertise in your new, unproven publication? Have you looked at how you are going to distribute your publication?

Sorry, my intention is not to scare you away from the magazine publishing business, but to inspire you to create an action plan that you will be able to follow through with to get your magazine up and running.

Printing on a Canvas

Canvas printing can be also used for home use. In this case, family photographs can be enlarged and placed on canvas in an economical way. This adds a homely appeal to one's house. If one has created masterpiece and want to duplicate it then, canvas printing is the right option. With it, one can have his work posted on different places. One can also give out some pieces to family and friends as gift. It can really take your work to different places and gets himself known. One may try this trick if one is confident enough that his work can be launched on something bigger.

One can make himself stand from the rest of the world by taking the help of this approach. This form of art really captures eyes. One can place the best photos of the product and services on canvas. One can post it on right places where people can see. This form of marketing tool gives people the impression that the company has style and class. One can use this tool of canvas printing to announce events and promotional gimmicks during trade shows. This way, people can remember what one is trying to convey to them. This unique and stylish form of ad can be displayed in many ways. Take advantage of such to move ahead the competition and thrive in the industry.