Ball play without bouncing
Ready when: nothing, this is the first card.
What you are learning
To get to know the ball: moving it round the body on the finger pads, not the flat palm, while the eyes look up. Every dribble, pass and shot later uses these soft fingertips.
Words on this card Dribble, Finger pads
- Dribble
- Bouncing the ball with one hand while moving or standing.
- Finger pads
- The soft pads of the fingers. The ball is controlled with them, not with the flat palm.
Show it first for the one teaching
- Hold the ball on the pads of your fingers, palms off the ball.
- Pass it round your waist from hand to hand, then round each knee.
- Pass it in a figure 8 through and around your legs.
- Toss it up a little and catch it on your finger pads, looking up.
Your part while they practise
Call each task for 20 seconds: pass the ball round the waist, round each knee, through the legs in a figure 8, toss and catch with the finger pads.
Step by step
- Round the waist, 20 seconds.
- Round each knee, 20 seconds.
- Figure 8 through the legs, 20 seconds.
- Toss and catch on the finger pads, 20 seconds.
- Then all four again.
How much: 4 tasks of 20 seconds, twice 6 min a session 4 days a week
Say one thing Pick one line from "What you will see" for today and say only that.
The game: 30-second count
How many times round the waist in 30 seconds; beat it next time.
Who plays: the child against their own best, or two children side by side.
How to play, turn by turn
- Turns
- Ball in both hands at the waist
- On "Go", pass it round the waist for 30 seconds
- Count each full circle aloud
- One try each way round; the better one counts
- Fair play
- A younger child uses a bigger, softer ball.
- Points
- 1 point for each full circle round the waist.
- Fouls
- That circle does not count
- The ball is dropped (pick it up and go on; the clock keeps running)
- The ball is hugged against the body instead of passed hand to hand
- Winning
- Beat your best score.
- 15 circles for 1 star
- 25 circles for 2 stars
- 35 circles for 3 stars
Easier or harder
A bigger, softer ball.
Change direction on your clap.
What you will see, and what to say
- the ball slaps the palm
Fingertips, not the flat hand
The palm stays a little off the ball. - the child looks at the ball only
Look up while it moves
The hands feel the ball; the eyes look ahead.
Self-check
10 times round the waist each way with no drop.
Fitness for this
Warm up first: how to warm up, at workonfitness.com. For strength and stretching, its exercise library shows each exercise step by step, with an easier version.
This card trains hand control, hand-eye.
awiseathlete.com/sports/basketball/basketball-b1