Soccer: 1st 24 hours response to Dec 11 games

After the soccer games of December 11, I knew I was faced with a challenge. I had to devise drills that would correct weaknesses that I detected in my performance. Suspiciously, these weaknesses were in areas that are such that it is difficult to practice the skill involved when by oneself or when without a retinue of servants. In the hours after the game, I did not feel up to the task of coming up with the necessary new drills. I felt tired, time seemed to be flying by, the prospect of devoting my mental energy to coming up with drills that mimic activities that are difficult to mimic, did not thrill me. I tried to figure out what would be a good drill in my head, but basically I just drew a blank.

Then I arrived at the Waltham YMCA around 8 PM, the evening after the games of the evening before. At this point, I still had not figured out which drills would be an antidote for the weaknesses discovered the previous evening. During the previous 24 hours I had decided that I would not waste time trying to figure out what the necessary drills would be, while sitting at a table far from the gym, with a notebook and pens. I had decided that I would figure out the drills while working with a ball in the gym.

First I tried to figure out a drill that would mimic the action involved in dribbling forwards and then kicking the ball, not straight ahead, and not sideways at a 90 degree angle, but at a 45 degree angle. I began to come up with a solution mentally in the locker room. In the gym I continued working out this solution and implemented it. Then I realized after about 20 minutes, that this solution was an inferior solution and that the second idea that I had come up with, was better than the first idea. The first idea involved too much of activities that are unrelated to the primary purpose of the drill.

Next I ran my conditioning drill without the ball. This was unusually painful in the calves and the soles of the feet, I suspect because for the first time, I ran the drill wearing two pairs of socks on each foot.

Next I returned home and realized I still had plenty of work to do, simply to accomplish the goal of planning out an optimum practice for the next day, which would correct the weaknesses discovered Tuesday. I felt that it would not be wise to procrastinate perfecting the antidote to the problems discovered the previous day. Days rush by and suddenly the next week's game is upon me.

I gave the drill I invented in the gym, the second one that was the 'better' one, a name, and sketched it out in a notebook, and gave the notebook page a number. I invented a good drill for countering the weakness of not being able to accurately chip a ball that rolls towards me, on the first touch, and gave the variations of this drill names. I re-established a drill that I had done more than a year ago, which counteracts weakness when it comes to accurately kicking a bouncing airborne ball on the first touch, and gave the variants of this drill names. I researched my practice notes of Monday December 10 the day before the most recent games, so as to be able to estimate how long it would take to do a given number of variations with each of the new drills. And I planned out an optimal practice for Thursday December 13th.

The practice notes schedule me to do the following during the next approx four hours of practice:

SL-KR, low, 16H (p61)
SL-KR, high 16H
SR-KL, low, 16H
SR-KL, high 16H
AHC-0D-A 80H (p62)
AHC-0D-B 80H
(note: above drills are new)
C0D-H, 5 vars, 30H/var
(note: this drill was done in the past, but not recently)
Condit run with ball