Soccer Practice

Last night we started the first of several weeks of soccer lessons. The lessons were at the park right near our house. Nate was excited to go out and play. He's been playing soccer with Cuco for some time now, so it wasn't really new to him.


Nate was supposed to be working on his dribbling skills, but he kept wanting to kick with the inside of his right foot and the outside of his left foot. The coach had put little stars on the inside of the kids shoes to show them where they were supposed to kick the ball. Of course Nate was more interested in playing with the stars, and was distraught when they fell off.

More dribbling practice

Nate prefers to run up to the ball and just kick it.

Admire the coach, trying to corral the kids is like herding cats.

After about 15 minutes, The coach decided to have the kids play a real soccer match, but with no goalie. The kids were to just run and kick the ball into the net. Of course for the 8 kids it started with 2 balls and wound up being like 6 by the time the game was over. Nate was running with 2 other kids, but one was faster and Nate didn't like that. I reminded him that he had his super fast running shoes on and he said he needed faster shoes. After running up and down the field twice, I heard something I've never heard from Nate, he said he had no energy. He wanted to go sit down and rest. I was shocked, I'm still shocked.In this drill, Nate's supposed to stomp on the ball like a bug to stop it. Then stand like a penguin with toes out and pass the ball back to me. Of course for him penguin meant more waddling with the arms out and wasn't really applicable to soccer.

After the lesson was over, the coach huddled the kids together, got them to all place their hands in the center as he quietly shared some words of wisdom. Then they raised their hands and shouted Soccer!!!