Four Top Soccer Presents For 2009

1. The Perfect Kick!™ Soccer Ball: Learn how to “practice perfection” every time you kick a ball. Poor practice leads to life-long bad habits. The patented Perfect Kick! Ball gives you “color fusion” real-time training feedback so you quickly break bad habits and start making perfect kicks. Free online QuickStart Training Guide has instructions to help players perfect their push passes, backspin passes, inside spin kicks, and outside spin kicks.
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2. Triple-Target™ Cleat Socks: Learn how to strike the ball with the right part of your foot (Slip on these cleat socks and you’re suddenly aware of what part of the foot you’re using to strike the ball. Start with a simple push pass and you’ll be amazed by how many times you’re striking the ball with your heel or your toe  (why? you’re eye’s not on the ball or you’re lifting your head!), but a few sessions with the cleat sock on and you’ll start breaking these bad habits.
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3. Portable Net (6′): If you can afford it buy your favorite soccer player two of these. Why two? Because most players have a bad habit of shooting right at the goalie. Playing with one small portable net just strengthens this bad habit. How to break it? Place two 6′ (actually 6′ 6″) portable goals 12 feet apart. Make your goalie stand in the gap and your players shoot for the corners: soon they’ll be doing it in the games. Pop-up goals are best because they’re easy to carry so people don’t think twice about bringing them to play. But if your favorite soccer player plays in the street (or on a hard-surface where you can’t use pegs) the skip the pop-up and get this weighted goal.
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4. “Really Bend it Like Beckham” Training Video: Beckham was never the fastest player and never the best dribbler–he has always lived off his incredible skills. Learn how he developed them by watching this video (it turns out he’s a very good teacher).

The PerfectKick™ Training Ball

patent pending

Your Perfect Kick is Our Goal!™

How to make a perfect kick, every time? Easy, with the PerfectKick™ Training Ball there are 3 Steps to a Perfect Kick:

1. Keep your eye on the PK! Target;
2. Keep your head down; and
3. Follow through properly.

If their form is correct,  player– and  coach– will see a pure color stripe as the PK!™ Ball flies away. If the technique is not correct, they will see a “Mixed Colors” Ball.

Using this real-time training feedback–and the free training videos and  QuickStart Training Guide– players  soon learn to adjust their kicks to get it right, every time!

Falling in Love With Practice™

Kids of all ages are immediately attracted to the PerfectKick™ Ball (and will choose it out of a crowd of other balls). They soon get caught up in the game of trying to make a Perfect Kick so they can see the patented ‘color fusion” pure color stripe.

PerfectKick™ Triple-Target Cleat Sleeves

Every PK! Ball comes with one Triple-Target!™ Cleat Sleeve set….

Notice there are three targets on the cleats (a big improvement on the cleats or cleat sleeves with one-target–often in the wrong place!– for only one kind of kick). With the PerfectKick™ Cleat Sleeve players get:

1. Inner Target: for Push Passes; for Inner Spin Kicks (Bending it around the wall on a Free Kick or into the goal on Corner Kicks).
2. Center Target: for Power Shots on Goal, and lining up BackSpin Kicks (follow the dotted line!)
3. Outer  Target: for Outside Spin passes or shots.

What is “Color Fusion”? This is Color Fusion!

The PerfectKick!™ Ball
With Color Fusion real-time feedback for a perfect kick every time.
Passes Long & Short, Shots on Goals, Corner and Free Kicks where you need to “Bend it Like Beckham”!

If you make a Perfect Kick– (1) Hit the right target (2) Keep your head down, and (3) follow through–You, or your coach, will see a pure color stripe (Orange, Blue, or Green, depending on which target you hit) that means you are practicing perfection!

Video: This is a Perfect Kick!

What’s the PerfectKick! Soccer Advantage? Real-time Training Feedback!

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A perfect Push Pass…         Set up for the Outside Spin…

Video: “Soccer: The PerfectKick! Ball”

How “Color Fusion” Training Feedback Works

Here’s a newer (and better) video of the color fusion in action:

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Below is a very rough cut (one of the first times we captured the color fusion on film) — filmed at night–but it does answer a Question we’ve had from visitors: What does it look like when you mis-kick a ball? Answer: You see a “Mixed Colors” ball…

Watch the Video! to see how Real-Time Training Feedback works:

See how the “Color Fusion” real-time feedback you get practicing with a PerfectKick! Ball helps you “Practice Perfection” every time! This video covers the Push Pass:

1. A “Mixed Color” ball tells you you need to work on your form (head down, strike ball on PK! Target, follow-thru)
2. A “Color Fusion” Pure Color Stripe means you made a perfect kick!

Look for other videos to learn how to make a perfect Inside Spin Kick, Backspin Kick, and Outside Spin Kick.

Dribbling and Bravery: The Two Most Important Soccer Skills?

Note From David. I think dribbling is the most important skill to teach young soccer players and Bravery and Winning the Ball are probably second – players can’t be successful without those 2 skills. A soccer player can’t be confident with the ball unless he or she can dribble in a crowd and protect the ball when under pressure, and you won’t ever win a game if you can’t Win the Ball. My recommendation to coaches of young players is “play a lot of SoccerHelp Practice Games that involve dribbling in traffic (Control Dribbling) and accelerating into Open Space (Speed Dribbling)”.

See Soccer Help Website for more…

Change the Brain!–Learning, Pain–intensity, frequency and duration

The brain cares about the sensory input parameters: intensity, frequency and duration. The reason? Read on.

via The View from Sports Center:.

via The View from Sports Center:.

Ten Psychology Studies 2009-Train with Specificity

6. If you’re preparing for a specific challenge, make sure you prep for that challenge and not just ones like it. A study published in the journal Cognitive Science found that chess players who practice specific moves in preparation for a match—as opposed to practicing general chess skills—not only performed better in the match, but actually performed better than they were expected to given their general skill level. In other words, specialization trumped general problem solving and made the players better than anyone thought they were.

via Ten Psychology Studies from 2009 Worth Knowing About – David Disalvo – Brainspin – True/Slant.

Firm that created Nike’s 1 minute ads

Levis commercials, now starring Walt Whitman. – By Seth Stevenson – Slate Magazine

In December 2008, Levis ditched its old ad agency and signed on with Wieden + Kennedy the talented ad makers responsible for creating many of Nikes epic, stirring, one-minute anthems. The spots that W+K came up with—this new campaign is labeled “Go Forth”—have been running since the summer in movie theaters and, increasingly, on television. From the moment we see that “America” sign half-sunk in inky water, we know were watching something new. The campaign inhabits a different universe from the one depicted in “Live Unbuttoned.”For one thing, its a universe in which the ever-present soundtrack is Walt Whitman poetry. This spot uses a wax cylinder recording believed to be audio of Whitman himself reading from his poem “America.” The second spot in the campaign employs a recording of an actor reading Whitmans “Pioneers! O Pioneers!”

via Levis commercials, now starring Walt Whitman. – By Seth Stevenson – Slate Magazine.

via Levis commercials, now starring Walt Whitman. – By Seth Stevenson – Slate Magazine.

How to Evaluate Your Soccer Players

Great Suggestions from the SoccerHelp.com forum

I suggest you ask a few more questions to get some specifics about the players. Here are some ideas for you to play with that might help you balance the teams:

1. Speed (circle one) — very fast… fast… average, slow
2. Aggressiveness/Bravery — tough and aggressive… average… timid and afraid of contact
3. Attitude and Attendance — Great attitude and comes to 90% of practices and games… average… bad attitude or rarely shows up
4. Skills — Excellent… Average… Weak
5. Best position — This player is best at: Goalie… Defense… Midfield… Forward
6. Can this player score? (circle one) Great scorer… Good scorer… Maybe… No
7. Can this player play Goalie? (circle one) Great Goalie… Good Goalie…Average Goalie… Not a Goalie

As for the coaches evaluation form, I think it’s a good idea for 2 reasons

My partners and I are now selling a new patented Soccer Training Ball (the PerfectKick!™ Ball) and Coaching System (Practice Perfect!™ Training).

Why this product? It’s really cool, I love coaching and know how hard it is to get kids to “practice perfection” in any sport, and… our stuff really works. But seeing is believing–watch the videos on our site or get a ball and take it out on the field. Today we’re…

Announcing!

* Updates to Perfect Kick web site:
New downloadable PerfectKick!™ QuickStart Field Guide: How to Kick a Perfect Push Pass, Backspin Pass, Inside Spin Kick, Outside Spin Kick

* New Video on PerfectKick Soccer YouTube channel showing how “Color Fusion” real-time training feedback works:
See how the real-time feedback you get practicing with a PerfectKick! Ball helps you “Practice Perfection” every time! This video covers the Push Pass:

• (1) a “Mixed Color” ball tells you you need to work on your form
• (2) A “Color Fusion” Pure Color Stripe means you made a perfect kick! Look for other videos to learn how to make a perfect Inside Spin Kick, Backspin Kick, and Outside Spin Kick.

(Not impressed by our videos?! Don’t worry, we’ve hiring a professional to do our first commercial (English and Spanish) and reshoot the training videos– these 3 videos will be my last efforts, so enjoy them as collector’s items!… and don’t forget to watch for the “pure color stripe” that means you made a perfect kick!)

Great Coaching Blog: “Games Approach” to Learning Soccer

Some great posts on this Soccer Coaching blog by Jeff Pil (a New Hampshire coach)–especially the one about Mentoring Coaches

(and the lessons–use a Games Approach to coaching: lots of solving problems, very few drills...– not sinking in when the young coach goes on to train their own team! I’ve seen this with young teachers–sometimes you hesitate to spell things out with an adult–thinking they’re not a child you shouldn’t… but they are beginners and though they might see your class working perfectly they can’t read your mind and will miss many of the elements that make your learning environment (or coaching environment on the soccer field) work unless you make them explicit!

And this one  Guiding Principles of Youth Soccer: by Dean Conway… again…emphasis on “Games Approach” to teaching/learning soccer:

PracticePERFECT!™ Training Field

This Training Field is designed to develop habits and instincts to complement a players PerfectKick!™ Skills. More detail in second diagram and pdf.

Links to PerfectKick! Soccer Web Site Pages

PerfectKick!™ Ball

PerfectKick!™ Soccer Products

PerfectKick!™ Soccer “Color Fusion” Real-time Training Feedback

PerfectKick!™ Shopping Cart