”Coach, I can’t do it.”

Bobby is standing there holding the basketball in his two hands and shaking his head. You have been showing your young players how to execute the two-hand chest pass. Now Bobby has made hundreds (thousands?) of underhand throws, and hundreds (thousands?) of overhand throws, and plenty of two-hand underhand throws, but he has never thrown a ball outward from his chest with that flicking two-hand motion.

Much of what we coaches of young children do is to enhance actions that children have made in the past such as throwing, catching, kicking balls. Now we are introducing them to the chest pass and the bounce pass and other actions that have not been part of their lives.

Angela is standing next to the soccer ball and you have been showing your charges how to kick the ball into the net. She has kicked many balls straight ahead with her toes but hasn’t done a lot of kicking with the inside of her foot. She needs help.

In every game we coach, we have to have our kids learn new ways to use actions that they have used many times in their growing up:

Throwing a football with that nice spiral.

Shooting that free throw with a nice, soft backward spin.

Leading your soccer mate with that nice, soft pass.

Throwing that ball that curves and evades the batter’s swing.

Chipping that golf ball so it rolls correctly.

Etc., etc., etc.

Now, what can we do for Bobby and Angela right now?

Demonstrate? That might help – you can do it but that may not help them do it.

You can actually move Bobby’s hands and Angela’s feet.

You can holler at them for not following your directions. (Not Advised Here or Ever!)

“Bobby, show me what you can do now.” That is the first comment to be made - These are the magic words.

“Angela, show me what you can do now.” And she shows you how she can kick it straight ahead. “Okay, that’s great. Now, I’m moving you to the side of the ball.” – and you have her try that and you build her kick into her correct kick with the side of her foot.