First Soccer Practice

Yesterday, we had our first official soccer practice. Well, actually I take that back. It turned out that they hadn't reserved the practice fields so our first official practice will be Thursday. But the practice fields were open so we used them. So I guess it was an unofficial practice? Well, whatever it was, it was our first practice.

Wow, what a lot of fun! I think everyone had a great time. First of all, we came up with a team name. All the boys had different ideas, so we mashed them all together. Now we're the Power Beaver Monster Trucks. I hope another team doesn't pick that name too.

We did a bunch of fun games. They got a lot of good practice with the ball, but it was while doing something fun, rather than something boring. For example, we did 'Red Light, Green Light' with the ball. They had to practice going fast with the ball (green light), going slow with the ball (yellow light), and quickly stopping with the ball (red light).

The boys all seem very nice. They get tired quickly though. I had to give them 3 water breaks. One boy asked for a break after our first activity. I looked at my schedule and I hadn't planned a water break for 10 minutes. I was concerned that if I gave too many water breaks, it would take up too much practice time. I remember when I coached at the YMCA, the water breaks would take like 5 minutes. So I started my stopwatch and said 'Ok, you have 1 minute to get a drink. GO!' And they took off. I think we ended up with a 40 second water break. Some of the kids had to go pretty far to get to where their parents were to get their water. They actually got some good exercise just getting water!

I'm really looking forward to the rest of the season. I think we're going to have a great time. LilKat2 is very sad that he is not old enough to be on the team. But after practice, I let him play with the cones and things. And we spent some extra time kicking the ball all around the practice field.

I asked LilKat1 if he had a good time at soccer practice and he gave a very enthusiastic 'Yes!' I think he's going to like this much more than his YMCA basketball experience. First of all, it's 3 v 3, rather than 5 v 5. 5 v 5 is way too many kids on the court with nothing to do. Also, in YMCA basketball, you can't steal the ball. So there really isn't anything to do on defense. Plus the drills that the team did were really boring. Now we do lots of fun drills, plus we have the benefit of having 2 coaches and only 6 kids. Which will hopefully mean no bored kids.

Also, LilKat1 loves his soccer stuff. He loves having his own ball. He loves having his own water bottle. He loves having his own soccer cleats. And he really loves having his own shin guards. He wears those things all the time. Just around the house, to the store, over his pajamas, whatever. He just loves wearing them. After practice, he wanted to go play on the playground equipment. Mrs BigKat said that he could, but he'd have to change into his regular shoes. He thought about it for a second and decided that he would just kick the ball around with his brother. He chose not to play at the playground because he didn't want to take off his soccer shoes! He's going to love it when he gets his official soccer jersey, sock, and shorts.

Oh, and I'm thinking of creating a Power Beaver Monster Truck t-shirt for myself to wear at practices. I could make a bunch of iron on patches so that the kids could make their own shirts if they wanted. That should be fun!