Indoor soccer shoes for narrow but wide feet

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8/11/15
The new Champion brand 'Gusto' model shoes are fabulously comfortable, feel like the best shoes I ever had. They may be cheap and lacking in longevity but thats the way to go, because it gives you a welcome chance to make small adjustments in size when you get the next pair of shoes. When I walk outside my feet don't hurt for the first 1000 yards anymore. When I walk up the stairs, my feet don't hurt anymore. My calves don't hurt anymore because the pain in the feet is what led to the pain in the calves. Its such a weird feeling, its as if I'd forgotten what its like to to these things painlessly. I'd been mystified as to why, even after training hard to become fit doing things with the feet, there would be pain doing simple stuff like walking up the stairs.

I never experienced foot/calf pain until years after college, never was finicky about shoes. But I now weigh 50 lbs more than I did then when I weighed approx 140 lbs. Since I'm much faster now, the PSI type pressure hitting my feet when I run is greater than it used to be. I officially measure at size 10.5, width C narrow, and low-arched but not flat footed. Loosening up the shoelaces always reduced the pain. The confusion lay in the fact that I am very wide (7.4 cm)  at the point where the foot is the narrowest, yet narrow (9.4 cm) at the ball of the foot where the foot is the widest.

One woman had told me I had 'Plantar Fasciitis', but judging from what I knew re the are effected by such I thought she was wrong. Then a Y staffer thought I needed to roll the soles of my feet over things like big beer cans. I kept blaming the problem on a lack of conditioning and aging.

Now I understand, important points to remember: 1) as our bodies develop, our tolerance for misfit shoes can decrease; 2) looking at shoes, the officially designated width of the shoe means little, one needs to measure the shoe width at the base of the toes and at the narrowest part of the shoe; 3) measuring one's own feet, the official width measurement derived from the width of the foot at base of the toes means little, one also needs to know the width of the foot at the point where the f oot is the narrowest; 4: one needs to outline one's foot with a perpendicular pencil and then take measurements adjusting for the width of the pencil;

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8/2/15
My soccer shoes had not worn out but I had to get new ones. Because after 6 minutes running around on the indoor soccer court, the pain in the soles of my feet and my calves became debilitating. Whichever pair of shoes I tried for tennis or running, pain in the soles of the feet and the calves became disruptive. This problem had been going on for years. So I decided to pay serious attention to it, and buy a new pair of shoes. People were developing the misconception that I am a sluggish person who lacks energy.

So I measured my feet: 28 cm long, 9.7 cm wide at the ball of the foot the widest point, 8.4 cm wide at the midpoint between heel and toe; 7.4 cm wide at the narrowest point. Both feet were the same.

I found out that this classified me as a "narrow", size-C in width, which I could not understand, because I had noted that the pain in the feet/calves decreased whenever I loosened up the shoelaces as much as possible.

So off I went to the Arsenal & Watertown malls in Watertown to buy a pair of shoes to be used for indoor soccer. Shoes that work for indoor soccer can be used for tennis running basketball, but shoes that work for tennis running & basketball don't necessarily work for indoor soccer, because I play an aerial-game, & I need a low toe area so that I can flip the soccer ball into the air.

Looking at the shows featuring low-toes, I discovered that they were all too narrow for me at the longitudinal midpoint. Some shoes were labeled 'W' or '4E' indicating that they were extra-wide to some extent. I found that the ones labeled 'W' were too narrow at the longitudinal midpoint, and the ones labeled 4E were too wide at the ball of the foot point.

As I continued with the search, my focus shifted to finding shoes that were wide enough at the point where the foot is narrowest; seemed less than 5% of the shoes satisfied this criteria.

At Payless Shoes in the Watertown Mall, I told Joel, the salesman, that I was looking for wide shoes. Right away, displaying competence, he pointed me at the Champion 'Gustos'.  I was suprised because the shoes were not labeled 'wide'. He said they were shoes that were wide in their medium-width version. The Gustos were 7.4 cm wide at the narrowest point, exact same width as my feet at their narrowest point; they cost $25.

Moving on to the Arsenal Mall across the street, at the Reebok outlet I found two low-toed shoes that were approx wide enough at the narrowest point: the Reebok Zquick TR 2.0 (on clearance at $50, 7.0 cm wide at narrowest point, not labeled as 'wide'), & the Reebok Royal Simple (on clearance at $30, 7.0 cm wide at narrowest point, not labeled as 'wide'). Also somewhere I found the Nike 'Flex Experience', size 4E, which was approx wide enough at the narrowest point, low-toed, but which cost $65.

In the end I bought the Champion brand 'Gustos', size 11, because though I am a size 10.5, the Gustos run a half-size larger than normal. This because they were 7.4 cm wide at the narrowest point. But when I got home I was thinking, that maybe I should have bought one of the Reeboks because they had a lower toe.

Points to remember:

1. The fact that technically speaking one's feet are 'narrow' at the ball of the foot point is deceptive. The width at the ball of the foot is not the only width that should be taken into account. Previously I had gladly bought shoes without considering their width, simply because officially speaking, my feet are 'narrow'; but they ended up being a source of much torment.

2. Whether or not a shoe is officially labeled as an 'indoor soccer shoe', is beside the point. Any shoe that resembles an indoor soccer shoe and has a low front toe will do.

3. The fact that a shoe is inexpensive and has a reputation for not lasting, is not necessarily a negative. When finding a shoe that fits is tricky, a cheap shoe that doesn't last, could be an advantage.

4. Whether a shoe is labeled as 'wide' is not the issue. Some shoes are wide without being labeled as wide.

5. It can be dangerous to buy shoes online through the internet, especially when you don't know what the perfect brand/model is for you. Once I bought a soccer-ball online: it finally arrived very late, the company in Texas did not respond to emails, and when I got the ball, it did not hold air for more than a few minutes (good ol' Texas boys). The width of the shoe at various longitudinal points cannot be determined via the internet. One can end up surprised that a certain brand runs a half-size larger.

Relevant Links:

Wide Soccer Cleats
Everything But Nike: Champion Gusto Runner
Mens Gusto Runner | Champion | Payless Shoes
Amazon.com: Champion Men's Gusto Runner: Shoes

This 857 word post was written in 80 minutes.

World Soccer Futebol World Cup Copa Mundial 2014 My Pages Emails

I have created a page (5:56 AM 6/13/2014) linking to pages I've created related to the 2014 FIFA Soccer (Futebol) World Cup (Copa Mundial). Some of the pages are emails I've sent to World Cup personalities, in html format:

World Cup Copa Mundial Soccer Futebol 2014 Pages of David Virgil Hobbs 

Looks as intended in IE8, a little weird in Chrome.

My All-Sports Calendar With Links to Personal Sports Logs

I became confused regarding which sport I practiced on which day. Reading through scribblings in spiral notebooks, & looking at seven different personal sports logs (running, swimming, weightlifting, basketball, soccer, baseball, tennis) and then integrating them mentally, have been inadequate methods. I needed a better record of which sport I practiced on which day in order to better plan my practices. 

So I produced:

May 2014 Sports Calendar for David Virgil Hobbs

In the future I will post links to such monthly calendars here. 

This calendar should be useful for anyone following along.

The CSS & the HTML in this calendar are notable for the result produced, which allows for highly-controlled sophisticated record-keeping involving a minimal amount of work & technological sophistication.

Sports Participation Rates Estimates

Given the amount of time and energy I've been putting into sports, I felt I needed a clear idea regarding what percent of the various age/gender groups in the US population, have a serious interest in the various sports. I wanted to know, what percent of the age/gender group had an interest in at least one of seven sports I've recently been participating in.

I realized, that I had to process the stats which give how many people participate in a sport, to account for the fact that the total of this stat for all the sports, is 4.1 times larger than the population of active-athletes. This because many people participate in more than one sport. The 4.1 figure indicates that on average the physically active participate in 4 different sports. I wanted to process out, if the participant figures for seven different sports add up to 165 million, then what percent of the population is involved in at least one of those sports?

The number of persons at the gym had begun to seem small to me, the people at the gym, had begun to seem suspiciously un-typical. I was wondering: am I being deceived by all the media hoopla about sports?; could it be, that the actual truth, is that there is a small minority of individuals who each engage in lots of sports, thereby making it seem as if sports is more popular than it actually is?; could it be, that most of the people involved in sports are children and that the normal adult ignores sports?

I started out building a table that (as of now) gives the Participation rates in absolute and percent terms, for seven different sports, for several different age/gender groups. This required combining incomplete information available from the National Sporting Goods Association (the leading source of such info), with Census Data and the art of math:

Sports Participation & Fandom Rates for Various age/gender Groups

The next problem, was figuring out what percent of the 'active' persons, are what I would call 'seriously' active in their sport, active enough to take an interest in literature and coaching in the sport.

In the 2013 PAC Overview Report, I noted on page 8, the  '2012 level of activity':

Active to a Healthy Level and Beyond (151+ times/yr) High Calorie Activity: 32.9%.

Active (51~150 times) High Calorie Activity: 11.2%.

Casual (1~50 times) High Calorie Activity 9.3%.

Low to Medium calorie activities: 18.6%.

None 28.0%.

According to the NSGA's definition, someone is active in a sport if he participates in it more than once a year. Based on these above PAC stats, I concluded that 80% of those who the NSGA rates as active in a sport, have a serious interest in the sport.

The next problem, was, how can I estimate the participation rate for an age-group, if the only stats available are the participation rate in the population at large?

In the 2013 PAC Overview Report , I noted on page 7, the  'Inactivity Levels (by age-group)'. On this basis I estimated that:

Given that ps = the percent of the age 6+ population involved in sports, the percent that is involved in sports age 6-17 would be 1.12(ps); the percent age 18-54 involved in sports would be 1.02(ps), the percent age 55-64 involved in sports would be 0.9(ps), and the percent age 65+ involved in exercise/sports would be 0.85(ps).

I decided to apply these statistical adjustments to each sport on a uniform basis, in determining my estimate for the percent of an age/gender group involved in a given sport. So for example, given that the (extrapolated from NSGA data) reported rate of participation for males 6 years old and older in running was 15%, I estimated that the participation rate for males age 6-17 was 1.12(15%)= 16.8% (this aside from the separate issue of 80% of the active being 'seriously active'.

Combining the adjustment for seriousness of activity, the adjustment for age-groups, and the info I had for percent of population 6+ active in a sport, I came up with estimates for what percent of a gender/age-group is seriously active in a sport:

My Estimates (actual data lacking) of Percent of Persons with Serious Participatory Interest in Certain Sports, and in one of a Group of Sports, for Age/Gender Groups, 2012

The final problem of the evening, was: so I know how many people are involved in running, how many are involved in swimming, how many in weightlifting, how many in basketball, how many in soccer, how many in tennis. From this information, how can I estimate, how many are involved in at least one of the seven sports?

I had the following info: the total of the NSGA participation figures (age 7+) for the 7 sports came to 165 million; the total of the participation stats for all the 45 or so sports tabulated by the NSGA came to (age 7+) 823 million; the total of active persons (age 6+) according to the PAC was 199 million; 823/199 = 4.1; a sports participant by definition participates in at least one sport. I came up with the following formula and math:

165.3/823=0.20.

4.1-1.0=3.1.

0.20 x 3.1 = 0.62.

1+0.62 = 1.62.

Hence I concluded that the total of the various number of participants figures for the 7 sports I was focusing on, should be divided by 1.6, to get an estimate of how many different individual persons participated in at least one of the 7 sports (because some participate in more than one sport).

There are various advantages to making estimates: you have something to work with when data is nonexistent or unavailable; you learn how to make estimates in situations where data is nonexistent or unavailable; you have something to work with if you feel like checking the veracity of some statistic.

Soccer- detailed observations made of Eagle & Wildcat pattern aerial-dribble runs

This morning I worked for 3 hours in the YMCA gym, on the two soccer aerial-dribble patterns which are most ready to be implemented in actual games, the 'Wildcat', & the 'Eagle' patterns. Both patterns involve 4 touches on the ball and one bounce.

I felt that though I had advanced far in my understanding of the application of aerial-dribble to actual games, I was in danger of using my sense of accomplishment as an excuse for resting from and avoiding further mental activity regarding the implementation of aerial dribble in actual games.

I wanted to measure out exactly what happens where on the court, during the Eagle & Wildcat aerial-dribbles. I had no access to an overhead camera to record my movements. I set up a grid using colored cones and colored rubber plate-like-things, to mark off various positions on the court. My intent was to, after each aerial-dribble run, note down the coordinates of where on the court each event took place during the course of the aerial dribble run. Before I started I felt like I would not be intellectually speaking be up to the task remembering the exact location of the four events in the run that come after the initial starting kick of the run.

I found to my surprise, that I was able to record each event in the run from the very beginning (I admit sometimes my memory of an event was relatively uncertain). At first I found it useful to map the events out on graph paper. I placed a chair with my notebook pen and pencil on it near the end of the course I was running, so that I would have access to the paper and pen immediately after the run ended as opposed to having to walk back to the desk at the start-point to start writing in the notebook. I worked backwards, noting down first the last event in the run, then the second-last, and so forth. The first event of the run was always the hardest event to remember.

I took notes on 27 Eagle-pattern runs, and 25 Wildcat-pattern runs.

My ideas were: Knowing what a typical natural Eagle or Wildcat run is like, will help me set up the cones and markers for practicing such runs; marker targets for such runs should at first reflect what such runs are naturally like; practicing using markers that reflect natural typical runs will strengthen the skills involved with such natural/typical runs; I will be able to use my refined improved natural/typical skills, to perform new variations of the Eagle and the Wildcat; I need to know how far away an opponent should be if I am to commence an Eagle or Wildcat run; I need to know at which point the ball is airborne above everybody's head during such runs.

In general I was thinking along short-term lines hoping to be able to implement the runs in games next month, as opposed to long-term development of dazzling new tricks that will not be ready for a year. Hence I felt inclined to focus on skills that are relatively speaking more ready to be implemented during an actual game compared to other skills.

Facts I discovered re how things are initially and naturally with the 'Eagle' & 'Wildcat' Patterns:

Eagle: ideally, ends in ball being trapped to ground as soon as it bounces; on average covers 33 feet in distance from start to end; on average ball is chipped up at point 13 feet from start point; average chip to re-entry reception distance-- 20 feet; direction imparted to run via chip; angle of turn or slant relative to direction at start-- 18 degrees [http://www.visualtrig.com] (in fighter-pilot lingo, given 12:00 as straight ahead, to 11:30 or 12:30); suited for use when no defender in direction of movement for at least 10 feet; ball is airborne above players' heads from point 16 feet from start of run to point 26 feet from start of run.

Wildcat: on averages covers 32 feet in distance from start to end; on average ball is naturally headed at point 9 feet from start point; average header to kick distance-- 11 feet; average kick to bounce distance-- 7 feet; average bounce to kick distance-- 5 feet; direction imparted to run via header; angle of turn or slant relative to direction at start: 18 degrees (in fighter-pilot lingo, given 12:00 as straight ahead, to 11:30 or 12:30); suited for use when no defender in direction of movement for at least 6 feet; ball is airborne above players' heads from point 6 feet from start of run to point 16 feet from start of run.

Looking at the facts I now can see, that I should experiment with changing the Eagle pattern, so as to reduce the distance an opponent who is in the direction I intend to go, must be from me when I start the run. Such changes could involve changing events in the run, or changing how those events are performed.

Long distances between touches are glamorous and something I naturally strive for. Attempting to achieve long distances between touches produces acceleration in rate of skill improvement. Yet paradoxically in actual indoor games, conditions are crowded and short distances between t0uches are advantageous.

During the practice I discovered that I now have a natural ability I never knew I had: the ability to chip the ball up in the air to a point so it eventually reaches a point on the floor 20 feet away, sprint at full speed, and then trap the ball as soon as it hits the ground. Of the Eagle pattern runs done during the practice, the following numbered runs featured both sprint at full speed and also the ball being trapped as soon as it hit the ground, after the chip: 12, 13, 16, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27. 11 out of 27 or 41% of the Eagle runs, manifested high speed and the ball trapped against the ground after the chip. This skill/ability does not manifest until I have been warmed up, but after I have been warmed up, becomes almost ever-present.

I was thinking, how did I develop this ability to chip the ball up, sprint at full speed, and then trap it against the ground at a point about 20 feet away as soon as it hits the ground? Then I realized that previously for a long time, my practices had consisted of air-dribbling the ball, keeping the ball under tight control whil I ran, without letting it bounce. When the ball is in such fashion air-dribbled without bounces, the foot usually hits the ball when the ball is close to just a foot above the ground. Similarly, when I trap the ball to the ground after I chip it, the timing is such that my foot reaches the ball when it is close to the ground.

Soccer Offensive Teamwork Notes

My thoughts as of 9:16 AM 12/4/2012

Seems many of the young men participating in soccer games at the Oak Square YMCA, are not adept at the art of pass receiving, even though pass receiving requires minimal physical or mental talent or skill.

This is because of mental error; they have not devoted any thought to the art of pass receiving. They have never been on hard-driven, uniformed, official, coached, soccer teams.

Everyone on my high school soccer team knew that if a pass to you did not come directly at you, you still chased after the ball. Everyone chased after the ball when the pass to them was a little off. This often ended up in goals being scored by us, or us preventing them from scoring goals.

Chasing After balls passed to you that are slightly 'off-target'

Not so the Oak Square boys. If You pass the ball to them and the ball misses the spot on the floor that is directly under their behind by more than one foot, they will make no movement in the direction of the ball.

These same boys rush up to play offense at the start of a game and never participate in playing defense. Their excuse is that they are allegedly more perky than us defenders, so they should play offense. If indeed they have more endurance than us, why then do they fail to show any hustle with regards to balls passed to them that are even just slightly off-target directionally?

In part it's because they are obsessed with dribbling, and shooting. Being obsessed with dribbling and shooting, they have forgotten the art of pass-receiving. They despise making passes, and pass-receiving is the partner of passing. Defenders contribute to offense by passing but the boy-wonders have become enamored of 3-second video clips showing stars dribbling and shooting. The 'bigot' within wonders whether their little brown ethnic mommies spank them.

By failing to show any hustle with regards to balls passed to them that are not perfectly on-target, these sluggards make great passers look like losers.

Often the perfect pass is not sent directly to the recipient, but to a spot a little away from the recipient, so that the pass-recipient can hook up with the pass on the run. But the sloths will not chase after a pass that is not sent directly to them.

Could be that their reflexes are simply slow. You send them a lobbed lead-pass. It sails to the perfect point where, if their reflexes were quick, they could have caught the pass on the run. But by the time the ball gets to that perfect point a few feet away from them, they have not moved and are still standing there watching the ball.

They reserve their energy for dribbling and shooting; they refuse to chase passes or play defense because such would leave them with less energy for dribbling and shooting.

Last week or the week before, I was on the right side in my half of the court. I chip-passed the ball, the ball sailed about 30 yards into the opponent's right half, diagonally across the court. Such is hard to do on a basketball court, because there is no grass to hold the ball up so the foot can get beneath the ball.

The ball reached an apex height of at least 20 feet, and maintained that 20-foot altitude for a few feet of horizontal movement through the air. The ball 'hung' in the air, the way American tackle-football players try to 'hang' the ball in the air when they punt the ball, so as to allow their team-mates to catch up with the ball. One of the players watching on the sideline gave a hoot as the ball sailed through the air.

The ball finally bounced, but almost straight up towards the ceiling. As the ball bounced, my team-mate closest to where the ball bounced was still watching the ball and had not moved from where he was standing when I first kicked the ball. Finally he started chasing the ball, and got the ball away from the defender, who had to deal with a bounce straight up with my team-mate on top of him just after the bounce. Next, the ball was loose, neither team had possession, the ball was near the opponent goal, the other team was in chaos. But nobody from my team had run forwards to follow up the action behind the player who was closest to the ball.

Following your team-mate's dribbling charge

Similarly when I went on runs of at least 30 feet in distance last week from my defender position, both times, in the end I and one of the second line of Dutch defenders got our feet on the ball at the same time, and the ball ended up loose, not in possession of either team, close to and in front of the opponent goal.

If a team-mate had followed me even at a slow jog as I sped up the Dutch middle on the dribbling runs, he could have pounced on an open ball in front of and close to the opponent goal and scored.

My team-mates did an impressive job of falling back on defense to compensate for my run up to offense from my defensive position. But they overcompensated. Seemed my whole team dropped back to defense, when I went on a dribbling run that carried me into the Dutch territory. All it takes is for one of my 3 non-goalie team-mates on the court, to fall back when I go on an offensive run. If just one of the 3 had followed me on my dribbling run, both dribbling runs could have ended in goals.

Finished this essay in 34 minutes, @ 9:50 AM 12/4/2012

Soccer @ Oak Sq Y October 8 2012

Note: I myself dreamed up the names given the teams. Colors in names were based on color of jerseys the team started out wearing.

Oak Sq Y Soccer Tuesday October 8 2012 contains a table showing the soccer games played evening of Tuesday October 8. One can see looking at the table, that the Andre Blacks, one of 8 teams that participated, played in 6 of the 12 games played, which was twice as many games played as any of the other teams.

I now believe the number of games played per team can be made more just if: when a game is a tie, instead of both teams leaving the court, the team that was on the court in the game preceding the tied game, leaves the court.

Overall the Andre Blacks dominated the tourney, winning five, losing none, and tying one. The game they were tied, was their game against my team the Blues. My positioning, dribble-disruption, & shot-blocking on defense kept them at just 0 goals scored, despite completely crazy defensive positioning perpetrated by my team-mates. I played mostly defense, a little offense, and a little goalie during the three games I played in; my team allowed only 1 goal per game on average.

Today I was planning on doing 2.5 hours of soccer practice before the evening Oak Sq Y games, but I was too tired so the only practice was about 75 minutes at the Waltham Y after the Oak Sq Y games.

I was on a team designated the 'Blues'. But the only blue jersey was way too tight for me. I had not brought any blue shirt with me.

My first game with the Blues was the fourth five-minute game of the evening. We tied the Andre Blacks, 0-0, with me playing defense. I stole the ball from Andre, blocked an Andre shot. I deflected an incoming shot. A right-footed 45 foot chip pass I attempted was intercepted by Andre. A left-footed forward pass down the left-wing I attempted, was slightly deflected by a quick defender but made it to its target anyway. The 3 minutes or so I was out on defense seemed like an hour; it seemed as though I was accomplishing very little per minute. But actually in retrospect, I was deflecting about one shot per 1.5 minutes, & disrupting an opponent dribble (ball knocked away or stolen from opponent) about once per 1.5 minutes--a rate that computes to 60 shot deflections & 60 dribble disruptions per 90 minute game.

My second game was the eighth 5-minute game of the evening. This time the Andre Blacks beat us 2-0. I blocked shots. My fast 60-foot dribble the length of the court up the west wing just sort of swept by the defenders unchallenged, only to end when a 'team-mate', in the far left corner, simply waited in the corner as I dribbled towards him, and then sort of insisted on taking the ball away from me in a kind of of tackle-football-type hand-off. On another occasion, I dribbled up the middle and took a 45-foot left-footed shot with the toe; the ball reached an apex of about 3 feet as it curved about two-feet towards my right as I faced the 12-foot-wide goal; the ball was moving towards the goalie's left, towards the lower corner, but the goalie made a diving save, it would have gone in were it not for his hustle. Also, on a bouncer that came towards me as I was on defense, I kicked the bouncer with my right-foot, attempting to bounce the ball off the far wall and back out for my team-mates on offense to make use of. The ball moved about 80 feet on the fly & hit the opposite wall about 20 feet high, and bounced back out as I had intended; however my team-mate who was marked by one defender, was unable to make use of the rebounded ball. This game, they scored their one-touch-shot goals despite my presence as a defender in their proximity, by way of me the defender being left to mark two or three opponents all by myself right in front of the goal, when the opponents received a centering pass.

My third game was the twelfth and final game of the evening. All I remember about this game, was that I took about a 25 foot low backspinning shot with my left-foot, shooting the ball through a crowd of team-mates & opponents. I aimed for the corner to the goalie's lower right. The goalie had this corner blocked off, in a crouch, but due to all the team-mates & opponents hanging around (?!) in front of the opponent goal, that was the only spot I could aim for. I was sort of hoping that the goalie would not be able to catch the ball and the rebound off the goalie's hands would create an opportunity. The ball moved like a backspinning low line drive that never rose more than a foot above the ground towards the goalie. The goalie stopped the shot, but as hoped the ball rebounded off his hands. However, before anything could happen the goalie moved forwards to grab the ball.

Overall the usual tricks employed by perpetrators to negate competitor skill advantages seemed to be in effect. The ball was only at approx 2 PSI, not the approx 4 PSI it was at last week. This week the ball had a thick soft skin last week it did not. After the first three or so games, the players stopped bothering with colored jerseys and there were not enough colored jerseys that fit, available for the circumstances. This resulted for me in confusion regarding who was on my team, and who was on the other team. This confusion was aggravated by the fact that games only lasted 5 minutes, so by the time I was beginning to differentiate between teammate and opponent, the game was over. The confusion was exacerbated by the fact that I was playing on a team that was composed of persons who did not know each other, whereas several of the other teams were composed of cliques of friends who arrived at the gym having pre-decided who the members of their team would be.

Technical note re change of goalie during game: During my first game, with about 2 minute to go, the man we had in goal, the Zidane-type North African who calls himself 'Red', & who also played on another team who joined our team because we were short of players, simply ran away from the goal to play goalie; this forced me to play the last 2 minutes of the game in goalie, but unable to use my hands. Andre who was in charge of the games and also participating, agreed with me that the current rule is, that the organizer-ref has to be notified if there is a change in terms of who the goalie is, and until that notice is given, only the previously officially designated goalie can use his hands. In one of the games Andre moved out of goalie and I moved into goal to take his place and the only person notified was Andre himself. According to the N. Africans Marty etc., Andre proclaims the rule of official notification of goalie change as necessary, but in practice does not himself follow the rule. However I note that since Andre was the official ref and organizer in charge as well as a participant, sometimes the participant is the one notified of the goalie change. We need a clarification re what rules re goalie change we actually are going to play by.

New soccer aerial stop & go off-footed tricks--success on first attempts

I tend to develop a gloomy feeling about things like my progress in soccer, as a result of focusing mentally on my failures, and ignoring my successes. Demanding impossible rate of progress from myself, I continually disappoint myself.

I felt I needed to remind myself in writing regarding how the first hour of evening soccer practice today, was actually bright, even though the day as a whole was gloomy. This written record will serve to remind me of my natural strengths.

Although I had not worked with my right foot (I am left-footed) for a few days, first hour of evening practice today, things went well with the right foot on the second and third touches of the runs, without warmup, and with difficult new tricks being accomplished on the first attempt.

I surprised myself at my ability to succeed doing new never attempted before stop and go type aerial dribble patterns with my right foot.

By aerial dribble I mean moving around at a brisk speed while keeping the ball off the ground but under control. By stop and go, I mean that what I was attempting and succeeding with on the first or second attempt, with no warmup, was air dribbling a few feet at a brisk speed, coming to a stop while air-dribbling, and then air-dribbling in forwards again at a brisk speed.

Evening practice started at 751 PM. My intent was always to keep the ball off the ground between touches, and to be moving at a rapid speed. I counted an attempt a success if I kept the ball off the ground between touches, covered approx the intended distances between touches, and moved at speed between touches when such was prescribed by the intended pattern.

The first run of the day (no preceding warmup work) at 752 PM, my intent was to: kick the ball with my LF forwards 6' (T1); chip the ball up & over the imaginary defender with my RF, about 9' forwards (T2); kick the ball forwards with my RF (T3) while maintaining control. I succeeded on the first attempt.

2nd run of the day, 755 PM, my intent was to: kick the ball with my LF forwards 6' (T1); touch the ball without moving forwards with the RF (T2.0); kick the ball forwards 9' with the RF (T2.1); kick the ball forwards with the RF while maintaining control (T3). I succeeded on the first attempt.

3rd run of the day, 757 PM, my intent was to: kick the ball with my LF forwards 6' (T1); touch the ball without moving forwards with the RF (T2.0); touch the ball again with RF without moving forwards (T2.2); kick the ball forwards 9' with the RF (T2.3); touch the ball with the RF (T3). I succeeded on the first attempt.

These 2nd & 3rd runs of the day on the first attempt I succeeded with a trick I had never attempted before.

800 PM, my intent was to: kick the ball with my LF forwards 6' (T1); touch the ball without moving forwards with the RF (T2.0); touch the ball with the LF without moving forwards (T2.1); kick the ball forwards 9' with the RF (T2.2); touch the ball with the RF (T3). I succeeded on the 2nd attempt doing this never before attempted trick.

827 PM, my intent was to: kick the ball with my LF forwards 6' (T1); kick the ball forwards 9' with the RF (T2); touch the ball without moving forwards with the RF (T3.1); kick the ball forwards with the RF (T3.2). I succeeded on the 1st attempt doing this never before attempted trick.

841 PM, my intent was to: kick the ball with my LF forwards 6' (T1); kick the ball forwards 9' with the RF (T2); kick the ball about 9' to my left with the RF (T3); touch the ball again with a foot (T4). I succeeded on the 1st attempt doing this never before attempted trick.

My personal soccer exploits over the past two months

June 24, about two months ago, I became serious about getting an air-dribble attack ready to the point where I could confidently implement it in games (air-dribble = ball is kept in the air and under control while body and ball move at up to high speeds and long distances).

I had over the previous year managed to get myself involved in lots of actual indoor soccer games with other players; this experience had taught me, that although I had developed impressive air-dribble abilities in practice (to the point where spectators scoffed at the greatest players of all-time when watching me), the abilities I had developed were futuristic and not ready to be implemented in games. I learned that I needed to polish to a high degree of reliability and perfection, aerial dribble attacks that actually could be with confidence implemented in games in the present tense; I realized that moves I had been practicing were dependent upon starting, preceding touches that had to be polished up to the point where they could be implemented with a high degree of confidence.

Starting June 24 I was carefully recording the results of my attempts at air dribble runs in a straight line, involving: 20 to 40 foot distance covered with ball off ground and close to body; ball touched 5 to 7 times with left or right foot; chip over imaginary defender on 4th or 6th touch.

Over the past two months:

I decided to use thoughtful cleverness to improve my rate of improvement in terms of skill in the air-dribble maneuvers.

I utilized lessons learned regarding how to accelerate skill improvement, that I had learned last year when involved in my 'quixotic', 'bridge over the river kwai-type' effort to develop the ability to make 90 degree aerial turns with the ball touched on every step before and after the turn during the aerial run.

I stuck with a determination to develop my right-footed skills (I am naturally left-footed), having learned during the 'quixotic' 90-degree-turn-ball-touched-on-every-pace phase, that even hopelessly difficult tricks can be mastered with the off-foot (the clumsy foot). My success in terms of developing my right-handed shot in basketball had taught me that with patience I can accomplish the unbelievable with my right hand even though I am left-handed.

I applied a thoughtful carefully-developed methodology to development of my right-footed skills.

I successfully implemented the 'automatic mastery' trick of skill development acceleration: mastery of the use of the right-foot on the first touch of the runs, automatically created improvement on right-footed touches that came after the first touch.

The result after the past two months of the application of various carefully-thought-out tactics designed to accelerate improvement in development of skill, have been fantastic: fast runs, low failure rate on runs, precise accurate ball placement, long distances achieved on runs, tightly controlled runs.

I only regret that due to: my own reluctance to drive my body and mind too hard, & the lack of open gym time, the amount of practice time I have gotten in has been far below 24 hours per week.

I score 5 goals & 4 assists in indoor soccer

Thursday evening (June 14), from 817 PM to 950 PM (93 minutes), I played in indoor soccer games at the Waltham Y sponsored by the Irish Village Soccer Club.

The first two games were played from 817 PM to 853 PM (36 minutes); these were like one game in that the break in between the two games was only about one minute. My team lost the first game to what I call the 'Arsenal' team 6-3. Then I was moved to the 'Arsenal' team and 'Arsenal' won 9-7. These were 4 on 4 games. During these two games I had 3 goals and 2 assists. I estimate I played about two-thirds of the time on offense.

I felt debilitating pain in my calves and the soles of my feet during these first two games and for the rest of the evening. The pain was like that described in the blog entry for the practice last week, except not as severe.

The pain was not always present, however the greater the exertion on the stressed muscles ligaments tendons etc., the greater the pain. The pain would subside with decreased exertion, and then start up again upon exertion. I did not feel pain while exerting myself by running but in-between exertions (I noticed this anesthetic effect of exertion when doing the wind-sprints I designed for indoor soccer fitness also).

I call the team I played on after the first game 'Arsenal' because Greg, who wore a red and white 'Arsenal' T-shirt, was always on that team this evening, and so was I after the first game. Greg is the tallest player in these games; he is skilled at dribbling the ball in the air with his feet while moving over the floor slowly, and good at dribbling and shooting.

Next tall 'Arsenal' Greg decided that henceforth, shots taken from beyond the midline in the center of the court, would be scored as goals if they went in.

Next after just a 3 minute break, from 856-910 PM (14 minutes), my team 'Arsenal' won a game 4-3; I did not have any goals or assists this game. I played mostly back on defense. During this game we had 5 players and they 4, best I can recall.

Next after a 2 minute break, from 912-934 PM (22 minutes), and for the rest of the evening, there were 5 players on each side, and my team 'Arsenal' won 6-4. I had 2 goals and 1 assist. I played mostly defense during this game. I achieved a high scores/assists per minute rate spent playing offense during this game. I blocked a lot of shots per minute spent playing defense. In other words, 'Arsenal' was basically me during this game (50th minute played to 72nd minute played).

Note: according to the traditional Irish-Village way of scoring, this 6-4 game was actually a game that ended when 'Arsenal' reached 5 goals, and then subsequently a second game, because a game ends according to their traditional way of thinking, when one team scores 5 goals.

Next after a break of just 2 minutes, from 936-950 (14 minutes) my team 'Arsenal' won 3-1, I had one assist, playing mostly defense.

So in total in 93 minutes I was on the floor playing for 86 minutes, constantly having to battle with the pain that I would feel in my calves (front-side of calf especially) and the soles of my feet after exerting myself by running. Nevertheless I achieved much both on offense and on defense. In total I scored 5 goals and I had 4 assists. The goals I scored were mostly one-touch angled shots off of passes; (estimate) at least half of them were scored with the right foot although I am left-footed.

Along this line during the games, I suggested to left-footed 'Will', that he work on his one-touch right-footed shooting ability. That does not mean that I thought Will did not play well overall. I could see that since he could not shoot with his right foot he was flubbing opportunities that I was not flubbing since I was shooting accurately with both feet.

Thus the weighted average is that overall there were 9 players on court during a typical minute of play. In total 46 goals were scored. Assuming that the assists per goals rate was the same as was the case with me personally, there were in total 37 assists. Thus the average player had 5 goals and 4 assists, just as I had 5 goals and 4 assists. Thus it seems I was just average.

However: I spent (estimate) only 40% of my playing time playing offense; my mobility was constantly hobbled by the pain that was produced in my calves and soles of my feet as a result of running; the hobbling of mobility was especially acute after the first 36 minutes.

If I had kept up the scores/assists rate of the first 36 minutes the entire game, I would have had 7 goals, and 5 assists in total.

I felt as if having practiced basketball a couple of times a week this month, for about 35 minutes each time, improved me as an offensive soccer player. Shooting in soccer is a percentage thing. I suspect that I tend to: get too inhibited about shooting simply because I often fail to score on a shot; get discouraged and fail to shoot & become inaccurate when I'm missing shots; fail to shoot when I should be shooting. I now believe that the basketball shooting practice helped me to properly develop a more cavalier attitude regarding shooting in soccer, as a result of which I was not shooting less than I should be shooting, given my shooting percentage.

On defense I was burned once by Matty. He dribbled down the right wing. I approached him from the center-area to confront him. He feinted as if he was about to dribble the ball right into me, dribbled towards the endline instead, shot and scored from almost a 90 degree angle. I played him the way I did because that is the way I play an attacker when a team-mate is paying attention and helping out like they should be & like they often actually are in such a situation. If a team-mate had been hustling, Matty would not have been able to score from the difficult low angle, almost like shooting from the corner.

In retrospect, I wonder how Matty was able to freeze me momentarily before speeding down the sideline, by feinting dribbling the ball right into my feet, because if he had actually done what he feinted he would do, he would have simply dribbled the ball right into my feet.

Generally I found that after having spent alot of time playing at midfield & on offense and not playing defense. it took me about 20 minutes of playing defense to get used to playing defense again. At first my usual confidence as a defender when in a one on one situation with a dribbler was not there, resulting in a lack of aggression with dribblers. After about 20 minutes playing defense the confidence and the intuitive ability came back, and I began to steal the ball from dribblers & force them to pass off suboptimally, as has been characteristic of my play on defense.

My performance blocking shots similarly improved after the first 20 minutes back on defense. There were times when the number of shots I was blocking per minute played was enormous.

For some reason it seems that there is nothing glamorous about blocking shots. Nevertheless, one can improve a surprising amount in terms of shot-blocking performance, there is a high level of skill in shot blocking performance, and there is also a low level of skill in shot blocking performance. It's not true that it is simply very easy to block shots while guarding a 4 foot high 6 foot wide goal as a no-hands-allowed goalie/sweeper/defender, and that therefore there is no such thing as superior shot-blocking when performing the task.

Overall, I felt that the players on the court played better than they ever have in these Irish Village indoor soccer games at the Waltham Y.

soccer games, two on two, indoors; hobbled by pain in feet and calves

From 810-915 PM, I played in two-on-two soccer games sponsored by the Irish Village Soccer Club indoors at the Waltham Y. We played ten minute games with about two minutes of breaks in between.

Sean told me that we would be using the games to practice passing and getting open for a pass, so that's the way I played the games. He also told me not to lag back to guard the goal (each goal was just a standard size chair), and that's the way I played it also.

During the games I noticed regarding us as players: we were making passes that would have been great passes if only the point the passes we made arrived at had been six inches away from the point the passes actually arrived at; with the passage of time we will develop into impressive passers, if we practice passing enough.

There were only four of us: Sean, Peter, Jose, and myself. Sean said that only four people showed up, because most of those who usually play, were drinking in a bar watching the Boston Celtics playoff game on TV.

From beginning to end I was plagued by pain in the soles of both feet and the calves of both legs. The pain was worse than what I used to experience previously months ago when attempting to play in games; the pain was worse than what I used to experience when run-walking (alternating between mile run and mile walked) six miles straight nonstop while wearing thigh-weights, ankle-weights, and weight-vest.

As a result of the pain, most of the time though I could dribble pass and shoot, I could do little more than walk.

At first I could not understand the pain. I thought maybe it was because we were playing with just two on each side, half-court. Then I realized that when we were playing full-court four on a side there was much less such pain. Then I thought maybe the problem was something that I had consumed in the previous 24 hours.

Finally I felt that I had mentally fingered the guilty suspect, namely: the new drills I did yesterday evening, involving a heavy cylindrical punching bag (a 'punching bag' of the 'heavy bag' type) hanging from the ceiling, and a 6-lb medicine ball.

Drills done yesterday evening involved me--for 2 hours from 740-940 PM, dribbling a 6 lb medicine ball with my feet, while repeatedly colliding with the hanging swinging punching bag if the 'heavy bag' type; I've been thinking that these punching-bag/medicine-ball drills are clever original inventions which will significantly improve my performance as a player; I was eager to get on with them. Doing the punching-bag/medicine-ball drills did not produce any pain in the soles of the feet or the calves until the pain felt during the games today.

I figure I should have been wiser and postponed the new punching-bag/medicine-ball drill until after the weekly soccer games.

The fact that evidently the punching-bag/medicine-ball drills produced pain in the exact areas where pain has been a problem for me during games (soles of feet & calves), indicates to me that the punching-bag/medicine-ball drills eventually if repeated enough, will help to prevent the occurrence of such pain during games in the future.

Soccer Game Courtesy Irish Village Soccer Club, May 31

This evening indoors on the basketball court at the Waltham Y from 808-932 PM (84 minutes), I played in soccer games organized by the 'Irish Village Soccer Club'. I scored one goal, hit the post once on a shot, and had four assists. I was part of the action on 36% of the goals my team scored, though on average, I myself constituted only 21.5% of my team's total manpower. This despite me playing mostly defense.

Game 1 lasted 26 minutes; score-- Us 5, Them 4 (I played defense, scored 1 goal, had 2 assists). Game 2 lasted 21 minutes, score us 2, Them 10 (I played offense, hit the post on a shot). Some changes were made in the composition of the teams after this drubbing. Game 3: 10 minutes, Us 3, Them 2 (I played defense). Game 4: 17 minutes, Us 4, Them 7 (I played defense, had two assists). During the 84 minutes there were breaks between games that totalled 10 minutes-- I was playing in a game, on-court, 88% of the time.

My performance tailed off after the first game, which went on for 26 minutes nonstop, with just 4 players on each team.

Various factors come to mind as having produced an impairment in performance. Highlights and so-to-speak lowlights come to mind with regards to my play come to mind. Lessons learned come to mind.

Possible factors impairing performance: extremely soft ball-pressure (0.5 Psi); being unused to playing for 84 minutes nonstop with only a tenth of the time being rest-time between games. being unused to playing the forward position, which I had to do when two of my team-mated dropped back to play defense.

American Goofiness RE Indoor ball PSI

Usually these days I practice indoors using a standard outdoors size 5 ball inflatedto 8.0 PSI. During the Irish Village games May 24 a week ago, I could not put my pressure gage needle into their green fuzzy ball, because previously I had caused permanent collapse in the bladder of a twin ball by putting the pressure gage needle into it. I now estimate the ball PSI was only 1.0 PSI on May 24. I estimate the Irish Village soccer club's beloved old pet the green fuzzy ball was only 0.5 PSI today May 31.

By way of contrast, according to the official rules of the world soccer governing body FIFA: for standard full-size field outdoors soccer the size 5 soccer ball PSI should be 8.5 – 15.6 PSI (average 12.05 PSI); and, for indoors FUTSAL play the size 4 soccer ball PSI should be 8.8 – 13.2 PSI (average 11.0 PSI).

According to the official rules of the USA national Futsal governing body US Futsal: for indoors FUTSAL play the size 4 soccer ball PSI should be 5.9 – 8.8 PSI (average 7.35 PSI).

Thus we see that the average of the required PSI range for an outdoor full-size-field ball according to FIFA is 12.05 PSI; and the average of the required PSI-range averages for FIFA-FUTSAL and US Futsal is 9.2 PSI (11.0+7.35/2=9.2).

The midpoint between the FIFA outdoors PSI specification of 12.05 PSI and the FIFA-Futsal/US-Futsal average spec of 9.2 PSI is 10.6 PSI.

Yet: the Irish Village (IV) Soccer Club is playing with an ancient green fuzzy ball whose PSI is only 0.5-1.0 PSI; the IV soccer club is apparently satisfied with not being able to gauge or change the ball pressure due to fear of the ball-bladder collapsing.

After the game I suggested to 'Peter' (who was wearing an official England soccer jersey with the three lions) that the PSI of the ball they were using be increased. His answer was (best I can recall), to display a big toothy smile on his wet white face & proclaim through his red lips: 'no, we're doing fine with it (the extremely soft, very old, fuzzy green ball)'. Whenever I volunteer that my black and white Adidas Replique ball be used, they decline. Seems they are happy that the ball disadvantages me while advantaging them, despite the fact that its PSI is so below the lowest PSI tolerated by any official indoor-soccer/Futsal type governing body.

Seemingly in the spirit of this carefree-re-ball-PSI 'Peter', is the internet world; I found it to be surprisingly time-consuming & frustrating, to nail down information regarding what the PSI of a Futsal ball should be.

Time after time I ran across the following info supplied re official Futsal ball requirements: "Bounce: 55-65 cm on first bounce". Problem is that this data re cm bounce on first bounce is meaningless outside the context of from where the ball is dropped when the bounce is tested. Finally I found that the key omitted fact is that the ball should bounce 55-65 cm when dropped from a height of 2 meters.

So: 'Peter' likes the ultra-soft ball because they're doing fine using it; the internet world makes it difficult to find out what the PSI of a Futsal ball should be; the internet world obfuscates by talking about required bounce without mentioning height from which bounced, while neglecting PSI. Seems America in general, is goofy about things like PSI of ball used for indoor soccer.

Personally I find, that practicing with a ball deflated to a low PSI of 2-2.5, puts more stress on my knees not less. When the ball is soft, the impact point on the foot is wider, which increases stress on the knee.

Exhaustion Due to 84 minutes of almost non-stop play

Having to play for 84 minutes nonstop with only 10 minutes of break-time on the last day in May in a warm humid gym, impaired my performance; during the first 26 minute game I scored 1 goal and achieved 2 assists; by way of contrast during the final 48 minutes of game-time I achieved just 2 assists.

A young-adult prime-of-life type guy arrived after game 1, which was a 4 on 4 game, concluded. He joined the other team, whereas a relatively-speaking slow weak unfit middle-aged type joined ours. This young guy who joined the other team really took advantage of the fact that we were all tired due to having played in game 1, to help produce a tremendous 10-2 victory for his team over ours, in game 2.

While the drubbing was going on, my team was in a daze, we could not figure out why we were being beaten so badly. I felt as if my defensive and offensive skills were in decline while we were being smashed. During the game I was not smart enough to figure out that if the other team can last longer endurance-wise to begin with, and is then joined by a fit young man who did not play during the first 30 minutes while we did, the result can of course be a 10-2 loss disaster.

I believe that we would have all played better, if we had realized how endurance-level and rest can effect player and team performance resulting in lots of goals for this or that team. Since during the hustle-bustle and exhaustion of the game we failed to realize this, we became demoralized, lost confidence, and performed even worse than we otherwise would have.

After the humiliating loss, Jose, who was playing defense while they scored 10 goals, looked at me intently and said (exact words?): 'you are running...they are not running'. But I felt as if my team-mates were hustling at least as much as I was. I told Jose that my team-mates run and hustle when they are dribbling and shooting. Actually in retrospect, of Jose, Sean, Matty, me, and the guy who joined us after the first game, the only hustler doing much running aside from me best I can recall was Matty, and actually Matty did most of his running when dribbling or shooting.

I expect that the endurance problem can be fixed if: I do my wind-sprints fitness routine (my personal speed record doing it is about 25 minutes) three times in a row with minimal breaks between each repetition of the routine; and/or, I exploit my continued improvement in terms of ball control while doing corner dribble & pass drills with the ball kept on or close to the ground.

I've been doing these corner drills involving striking the ball at the walls and dribbling a little between kicks. As my skills have been improving, the amount of time that a repetition of the drill continues without a break due to the ball becoming unplayable, has been increasing. As this amount of time has been increasing, the endurance-improvement effect on my body has been increasing also.

Playing Forward is Now Strange for Me

Although when playing on the University High School soccer team, I played left-wing forward, during the games over the past few years I've mostly been playing defense. I've gotten used to playing defense. But recently I've found that I've been literally forced to go up to play offense, because my team-mates have been dropping back to play defense.

The change has been awkwards because it involves my body being in a new and different position relative to the incoming ball I am receiving and the defender, when I get the ball. I expect that I can solve the problem by putting mental and physical time into 'moves' involving me getting the ball with my body in new positions relative to the incoming pass. For example, I could change from body facing incoming ball to body facing away from incoming ball during practice.

(related) Problem is that this evening, my team-mates did not show themselves to be adept in the art of sending 'lead-passes' (ball is passed ahead of moving pass-recipient in direction of pass-recipient's movement) to their forwards. This evening, the defenders (including this white-haired clean-shaven lean/athletic older-guy wearing a red shirt that said 'coach' on it) were closely marking the forwards, even when they the forwards did not have the ball.

The effective counter-attack for this kind of close-marking defense, is to lob or roll a lead-pass to the forward as the forward runs in the general direction of the goal. However, if players lack the range and accuracy and chip/volley ability to make such passes, the lead-pass attempts result in failure.

When a team is unable to produce lead-passes of range and accuracy, the defenders are free to stick to the forwards like glue. If a team when on the attack shows the ability to generate lead-passes of range and accuracy, the defenders have to back off, not mark the forwards so closely, which would produce a defensive situation similar to what existed in the Irish Village soccer club games up to this week.

Playing back on defense, I had gotten used to successfully faking the pass and dribbling. Now I have to mentally translate that into, when playing forward, faking the shot and dribbling. This evening once the athletic hustling soccer-wise old man was guarding me; with my back to him on the first touch I cut the ball to my right at a 90 degree angle and got clean away from him; next I shot the ball into a second defender when I should have dribbled the second defender, perhaps after first faking the shot (the defender was in a sort of standing foetal-position when the ball I shot hit him).

During the incident I did not want to stick out from the crowd; I had seen how most players will just fire off a shot that is wide or blocked rather than succumb to the possible indignity of attempting a dribble and having the ball stolen; I decided to be like the others and play it safe and fire off a shot when I should have faked a shot and dribbled or just dribbled.

Generally regarding me dribbling, it became clear to me this evening that often the composition of my team is such that me attempting to dribble by the defenders is the superior alternative compared to my team-mates trying to score a goal, and that this is especially true when I initiate the dribble as a defender (for me now starting a dribble as a defender is differerent compared to, and probably easier than, starting a dribble as a forward). Nevertheless, there will be those who complain.

Many persons cannot distinguish between: A) a player dribbling when such can reasonably be expected to be more effective than his team-mates attempting to score, and, B) a player dribbling when such CANNOT reasonably be expected to be more effective than his team-mates attempting to score. In reality, A is a good team-player whereas B is a ball-hog. The common error is to label both A and B as ball-hogs.

Personal Highlights

The lean athletic tall old white-haired man wearing the red 'Coach' shirt tormented me all evening by 'marking' me closely, textbook style. I decided I had to implement the dribble on the first touch in some direction approach, which I'd been practicing earlier in the week. Once I beat him by dribbling right at a 90 degree angle (relative to incoming pass) on the first touch and then shooting when I could have beaten the second defender completely by faking the shot and dribbling.

Another time I dribbled right at a 90 degree angle on the first touch, through a gap in the defense; I hit the ball a little too hard, the old man rushed up and got his foot on it at the same time I got my foot on it, the old man went down, I found myself victoriously in possession of the ball, and I passed it off. I felt as the games progressed this evening, a need to transition from shooting on the first touch, to dribbling once and then shooting.

I made at least two long (approx 25 yds) chip passes that were accurately placed and that led the defender perfectly. One resulted in an assist, the other a pass to Jose, would have been a goal if Jose had played the ball better. I used the wall and backboard well on at least a couple of passes that were at least 15 yards in length, one of these produced an assist for me. Once I led Matty with a short lead-pass, the ball led him perfectly though he was running at top speed; he headed it and lost control of it.

Personal Lowlights

My defensive 'errors' mostly involved me restraining myself from pushing myself to 100% exertion all the time.

Generally I felt I was not taking a good enough look at the goal/defenders prior to shooting/dribbling the ball. A quick glance around slows down the subsequent move by a fraction of a second. When I played in high school I habitually did not take a good enough look around before passing/shooting because I was slow, a weak physical lightweight, and not a good dribbler; a glance around before passing/dribbling posed a danger of the ball being taken by the other team. But times have changed and I have to notify myself mentally of the fact that I am quicker, stronger, and a better dribbler compared to what I used to be and so can now benefit from taking a look around before passing/dribbling/shooting.

General Notes

I was surprised, almost shocked, at how physically the opponents, both young and old played. There was plenty of bulling the other team out of the way with the body and the arms. The ball being at a pillow-like PSI of about 0.5, increased the level of physicality. It was hard for me to change gear, and get physical in retaliation, because for a long time I had been in the habit of restraining myself so as not to offend--not to offend the referee, the small foreign primadonna striker/forward, the woman, the old person.

Possible solutions: dribble a medicine ball at and past a hanging punching-bag.


@2012 David Virgil Hobbs

Soccer game with Irish Village Soccer Club, May 24

Thursday May 24, from 803 - 945 PM (102 minutes), I played in in an indoor soccer game at the Waltham Y (Irish Village Soccer Club). I was on court for approx 82 minutes (80% of the time), and off-court on the sideline for 14 minutes (20% of the time). The timeline today was (on-court= +, off court= -): +25, -2, +17, -3, +5, -2, +6, -4, +3, -3, +4, -1, +2, -5, +25.

The majority of the time I was playing defense or no-hands goalie.

I scored 3 goals (one-touch, 5-15 yard shots) and achieved approx 3 assists. One hard accurate 15 yard shot that went in did not count because time had expired or had not started yet.

One of the assists was a long one-touch chip pass, the other was a short outside of the right foot wall pass. More than half of the shots I took resulted in a goal.

I dribbled by a defender about 5 times (usually started with a fake pass which the defender thought they were intercepting).

I was never beaten on the dribble; I was almost beaten once. The perp dribbled horizontally to my right, then made a 180 degree turn and dribbled to my left, and then shot and hit the goal-post, but a goal was not scored. I fault myself for not having blocked his shot, but my presence was enough to force his shot off to the side.

I made many good one-touch (no preliminary dribble) passes, involving me getting a pass and then immediately passing off, or me getting a chance ball and immediately passing off. I felt my passing was much improved because I was remembering to scan the field to see where everyone was, so that when I got the ball, I would no where my team-mates and the defenders were.

On defense, there were some goals scored while I was dropping back to cover the goal, which was often. These were primarily a result of me having decided that I was not going to over-exert myself as defensive peon.

Having not played in a few weeks, I had forgotten how no-hands-goalie is different compared to hands-allowed goalie, and slipped back into the hands-allowed-goalie mentality I became accustomed to when I was playing goalie in the Oak Sq Y games before I started playing in the Irish Village Soccer Club games.

At least half the time during the games this evening I forgot that as a no-use-of-hands-allowed goalie, I needed to come out and charge the attacker who had the ball.

On defense-- I blocked some shots; I forced a player to pass the ball to a team-mate by frightening him by rushing him; I forced players into making bad shots; I disrupted dribbles without gaining control of the ball; I stole the ball from a female player.

During the first game which lasted for about 25 minutes, a six on six game, I felt happy because I was getting to touch the ball fairly often. After this I was assigned to a new team, featuring myself, Jose, and 3 energetic, at least average-size 'gringos'.

Plaing on the second team I felt unhappy because I did not get to touch the ball much. Jose showed himself inclined to play some defense (unusual that anyone would show any voluntary interest in defense in such games); I touch the ball more when I am the only player inclined to play defense.

The players on this second team passed the ball to me much less than the players on the first team did.

I started off giving myself the job of being the person on my team who has the most responsibility for preventing goals. During this time my team's record was 7-0-2 (7 wins, 0 losses, 2 ties).

Then later for various reasons I spent about half the time playing midfield and up on offense. During this time my team's record was 2-4-1.

The problem was that my 4 team-mates (especially the 3 'gringos'), did not do a good job of playing defense (Jose played defense competently when he was playing defense, but when he got interested in playing offense, his defensive competence declined).

This lack of defense competence amongst my team-mates was due to(?): laziness, lack of willpower, lack of interest, lack of understanding regarding wise defensive field position, lack of quickness, lack of skill.

During the games this evening the winning team stayed on-court. I was put into a position of choosing between my team losing as a result of me going up to play midfield and offense on the one hand, and staying back on defense the result being my team winning or tying on the other. I don't like to have to choose between playing offense result being having to go off-court and sit on the sidelines because my team loses, and playing defense, result being my team wins and we stay on court.

I felt angry during the games after the first game, because I felt as if my team-mates were brattishly throwing the game to the other team when they played defense, so as to force us to let them play offense all the time.

For about a month I had been experiencing some kind of psychological blockage as a result of which I avoided these indoor games and instead simply worked on conditioning and skills.

Then last week I watched the games for a couple of hours without playing, in part because I thought such would decrease the psychological association between playing in games and stress that had developed within my mind.

Before the game I commanded or ordered myself to: relax, rest, enjoy myself. I succeeded in carrying out this command; I made good passes, I did not torture myself with hustle, I played good defense; when I had the ball I did not panic and get rid of it prematurely; I experimented with ways of beating the defender in relaxed fashion, which is what I want to do in such practice games.

But after the first six on six game it became difficult to enjoy and relax because the compositiion of my team changed after the first six on six game into a team featuring mostly guys who were into dribbling and shooting, and who repeatedly failed in the sense that instead of making a pass which would be the optimal choice, they dribbled or shot.

To me it seemed that usually my teammates on this second team, were not aware of where their team-mates were on the court, when they chose their inferior options of shooting or dribbling instead of passing, and which resulted in the other team gaining possession of the ball.

My Team-mates on this second team, repeatedly choosing to dribble or shoot when they should pass, resulted in the other team gaining possession of the ball in advantageous circumstances and positions, which in turn put pressure on the defense. This pressure resulted in the defense having less opportunities to go up and play offense.

I estimate that all except one or two of my passing errors (such as slightly inaccurate passes) today, were due to the fact that we were using a green fuzzy soccer ball which was very soft, at about 2.5 PSI (these days the ball I practice with is at 8.0 PSI). Still it was hard to get over this depressed irrational feeling that the errors were my fault & due to a lack of skill, even though I knew better.

Overall I came away from the game feeling as if I had a message for certain types of team-mates:

Yea, you are of at least average height, yea you are fit energetic and athletic, but that does not give you the right to play offense all the time, that does not give you license to dribble or shoot when you should be passing, that does not give you the right to deliberately cause defeat when you play defense, so that we are forced to let you play offense all the time. Did'nt your parents spank you? Being competent on offense involves alot more than simply being very energetic, hustling, and scoring more goals than others. It's not how many goals you score that make you a respectable player, it's the percentage of shots that go in, and the percentage of dribbles that result in the defender being beaten. I realize that I myself previously in one game emphasized the solitary ball-hogging dribble as a way to develop my skill, however during that game I also ordered myself to not overdo the dribbling, and followed that order; I did not choose the dribble or the shot when a pass to a team-mate was clearly the superior alternative. You, by way of contrast, in the process of focusing on developing your dribbling game, greatly overdo the dribbling to the point of being ball-hogs and trigger-happy on the shots.

Adidas Top Sala X IN my choice for soccer shoes

Today I bought, for my new pair of soccer shoes, a pair of Adidas Top Sala X IN indoor soccer shoes. Since June 2010 I had been using Adidas Predator Absolado X IN indoor soccer shoes, which lasted for 23 months before beginning to fall apart in the right heel area (one reason for the problem in the right heel area, I suspect, was a shock absorbing layer I added to the inside of the shoe).

In June 2010, I explained my reasoning behind getting the Adidas Predator Absolado X indoor shoes, in a blog-post entitled, "Adidas Absolado X IN my choice for soccer shoes".

Since the previous post re choosing the Absolado, my reasoning regarding soccer shoes has changed as a result of experience.

Previously I felt that shoelaces running down the outside of the foot would be an advantage, because they would provide grip and spin for the ball, when I used the foot to kick an airborne ball outwards at a 90 degree angle. However with the passage of time I learned that this outwards aerial turn, is best accomplished by contacting the ball with the front top of the foot, not the side of the foot.

While using the Predator Absolados, which feature the shoelaces running down the outside of the foot, I came to realize that because of the shoelaces running down the outside of the foot, I was experiencing performance impairment doing one of my most impressive, important aerial tricks.

The impaired aerial trick involves: touching the ball on every step while keeping the ball in the air while moving forwards at a brisk pace; (optionally) skipping on every step; the ball being kept approx one foot above the ground the entire time; strong backspin being put on the ball. I came to realize that the shoelaces running down the outside of the shoe, resulted in impairment of the backspin that is a natural intrinsic element of this and other similar tricks.

In general I arrived at the conclusion that the shoelaces running down the outside of the foot (Predator Absolado) is an option that is in a sense inferior to the shoelaces running down the middle of the foot, because of the mental confusion and complexity created by the lack of symmetry.

Performing difficult aerial tricks like sprinting 15 meters touching the ball with alternating left and right feet every three paces while keeping the ball close to the body but off the ground, while zig-zagging, involves split-second calculations that are already complex enough, without the entire matter being complicated even further, due to the inside of the foot interacting with the ball differently than the outside of the foot does (because of the shoelaces running down the outside of the foot).

I found that the best technique for aerial turns to the outside, involved striking the ball with the front top of the foot. I could find on the internet only two "indoor" shoes which combined unusual surfacing on the front top of the foot (which might be expected to increase control when the ball is struck with the front top of the foot), with ALSO the shoelaces running down the middle.

The two were the Adidas Top Sala and the Adidas Adi5 Xite. The Top Sala features a "mesh" type surface on the top front, and the Adi5 features a "touch compound grid" type surface on the top front of the foot.

But as it turned out, at the store, I saw that the official Adidas sign under the Adi5 said that the shoe was designed for "artificial grass".

The sole of the Adi5 contains lots of little knobs, like miniature cleats. The man at the store told me such would leave markings on a basketball court floor and not be allowed by the court management.

I could not find any shoes designed for the basketball court with soles like the Adi5. But there were many basketball shoes with soles similar to those found on the Top Sala.

I am convinced people understimate the advantages of practicing soccer on an indoor basketball court. For example, on an indoor basketball court, one can execute corner drills, involving facing a corner, and alternating between kicking the ball at the left wall and the right wall. A couple of hours spent doing such corner drills, can improve one's skills more than ten hours spent booting the ball around outdoors.

Indoor shoes can be used on any surface. But outdoors shoes, cannot be used indoors.

@2012 David Virgil Hobbs

World Cup 2010 Final Match Spain vs Netherlands Notes

Version 1, 6:28 AM 7/12/2010

I still have not watched the first half of the 2010 final between Spain and Netherlands, and I have watched the second half and the overtime only once. When I do some more watching of the game I will revise this blog-post and report the revision in this post.

Spain and the Netherlands both failed when the attacker was near the goal and had only the goalie to beat, or only the goalie and one defender to beat. The mistakes consisted of: shooting instead of cutting to the left or right with the ball (NED); dribbling straight ahead instead of cutting left or right (ESP); cutting to the right into a goalie or the defender when the proper course of action would have been to dribble straight ahead or shoot (ESP, NED, ESP).

In my previous blog-post I discussed how in the semifinal, Spain had an advantage over Germany derived from the Spanish dribbler moving towards the German defender, which gave the dribble the choice of cutting either to the left or to the right. Seems that my advice re this advantage was taken too literally. Repeatedly players dribbling the ball, unaccountably and strangely, dribbled the ball towards the goalie or defender when they should have shot the ball or cut away from the goalie or defender and then shot the ball.

Although advantage can be derived by dribbling the ball towards the defender before making cutting left or right with the ball, such is not always the wise thing to do.
Generally, dribbling towards the defender before cutting this way or that, is a good choice for a dribbler when the dribbler is too far away from the goal to shoot, and the defender is in front of the dribbler. When the dribbler is close enough to the goal to shoot, and the defender it to the side of the dribbler as opposed to in front of the defender, dribbling towards the defender is less often the wise choice.

Repeatedly, shots were taken close to the goal, and were stopped by the goalie's feet with the goalie's body lying on the ground. This should not happen as it is not that difficult to loft the ball over the goalie's feet when the goalie is lying on the ground.

Three times Spaniards had the ball in a position where the smart thing to do would have been to cut to the left, fake a shot, and cut back to the right, or, cut to the right, fake a shot, and cut back to the left. This they did not do, result shot blocked, shot missed, ball lost etc. This dribbling on a slant faking a shot and cutting back is something even us Americans could do in high school.

Villa missed an easy shot near the Dutch goal, and Ramos missed a relatively easy header off a cross near the Dutch goal. Villa also tried to volley a long cross into the Dutch goal and missed badly.

Seems Villa like the rest of us has seen too many videos featuring the '100 greatest goals of all time' etc. One of these video clips featured an English player volleying a long cross into the goal, Villa apparently attempted to imitate the incredible shot.

When watching such videos, we should stop and realize that just as in music in America there have been these musical artists known as 'one hit wonders', who produced one great song and nothing else of note, so also, many of these 'greatest goals of all time', were freaks involving players doing something that they were able to do only once in their entire careers. I don't see it as wise to imitate such freak events. It would be smarter to imitate 'great goals', of the type that players have been able to accomplish repeatedly.

We've often read of how persons have been just once in their lives filled with superhuman strength and done things like lift a car off of an accident victim beneath the car--we should not forget that these heroic persons were able to achieve superhuman strength only once in their entire lives.

Simply from timing the speed of my shots with a stopwatch, I've noticed that about one in a hundred shots accidentally features very high speed with little effort, due to that rare combination accidentally coming together featuring the ball the body the foot all in exactly the right positions.

Apparently again watching the FIFA 2010 Finals, we witnessed the phenomenon wherein due to concentration on more difficult skills, the basic easy skills acquired early in youth become rusty, decline in terms of competence-level. Again we saw how the basic underemphasized strategic wisdom, is to in practice spend neither too much or too little time working on a given skill.

Twice I saw Spaniards making a mistake which I had noted in a previous blog-post re the 2010 World Cup: failing to anticipate defensive movements that were predictable. As a result, their passes were intercepted.

Both Spanish and Dutch players manifested a certain level of a lack of competence with bouncing balls. In one instance, a Dutchman got a bouncer near the goal, with time and without a Spaniard near him, but he was too clumsy and slow controlling the bouncer. A bouncer came to a Spaniard after the ball bounced off the Dutch goalie after the Dutch goalie fisted the ball away; the Spaniard had plenty of time and space to start something tricky like an aerial dribble towards the Dutch goal, but he just shot the bouncer and the shot did not even come close to scoring.


I napped through the entire game, not watching it, until about five minutes before the winning goal in the 116th minute, which occurred about five minutes after I started watching the game, which was after the Red Card evicted Heitinga of the Netherlands.

I wonder, was it coincidence that the one goal of the game was not scored until five minutes after I started watching the game about 110 minutes after the game started? Was is it coincidence, that the winning goal was similar to the first shot I took in front of the scoffer the Spanish/Guatemalan gentleman named 'Biro' (in front of Biro, I shot a bouncer into the right side of the goal from the left of the goal with my left from about 20 yards out, see June 30 entry of my soccer log).

Was it a coincidence that the referee of the match was Howard Webb, who looked almost like a twin of my uncle when my uncle was a young man? Was it a coincidence, that while I was sleeping prior to starting to watch the match after the match was already in overtime, I dreamt that the day of the match was my father's birthday even though actually it was not my father's birthday?

@2010 David Virgil Hobbs

WC 2010 Semifinals Notes

I watched most of the Netherlands vs Uruguay and Spain vs Germany matches (the semifinals of the 2010 World Cup), and took some notes. I did not watch either match twice.

Overall I was mystified at how the media announcers failed to mention things regarding the events during the games which I felt were relatively speaking important.

The media announcers manifested a prejudice in the direction of praising the players as opposed to criticizing them. For example for a few minutes they were claiming that a Netherlands goal involving a Uruguay player deflecting the ball into his own goal, was actually skillfully deflected into the Uruguay goal by a Netherlands players. This kind of sycophantic prejudice may make sense from the business point of view (convincing the audience they are watching great athletes), but it is a potential pitfall for players and coaches.

Uruguay vs Netherlands:

Both teams were repeatedly offsides on plays involving a pass recipient running towards the goal.

Both teams scored on similar goals.

Forlan cut to his left, and fired a long distance shot with his left foot. Bronckhorst cut to his left, and fired a long distance shot with his left foot.

Both these goals took advantage of the long range with the Jabulani ball. Both shots were done with the same style, crouched hunchback multi-step approach to ball, body rising up as ball shot.

A few days ago I had commented regarding taking advantage of the Jabulani's longer range.

Also I mentioned earlier that England suffered from a fear of using the left foot. I was talking about right-footed persons not using their left-foot, whereas Bronckhorst is left-footed, but the point remains, that left-footed approaches had been neglected previously. The right footed Forlan scored his big shot with his left foot.

It was surprising how the goalies were getting only one hand on the shot balls. Perhaps this is because of players obscuring visibility and thus delaying reaction times. The computer program I wrote that I am using to estimate if a practice shot would have been a goal assumes that if the goalie gets to the ball the shot will not be a goal. Seeing how the goalies have been getting to the ball with only one hand, it appears that often when the goalie is able to reach the ball the shot will be a goal or a rebound leading to a goal anyway. I read somewhere that most of the goals in soccer are off rebounds.

Seemed to me that shots that the laws of physics would declare to be failed shots blocked by the goalie, were going in anyway.

Spain vs Germany

At least throughout the first half, Spain kept the ball in the German half the clear majority of the time.

Spain was aggressive on defense, rushing up to the German player who had the ball and challenging him, Germany was different, laying back and giving the Spanish players time. This was an indirect effect of the Spanish dribbling skills, which Germany had to respect.

The Spanish players when they had the ball, would initially face the defender and move at the defender, in this they very closely resembled the individual style of dribbling I have developed for myself, a style that is not consciously based on imitation of Spaniards. Moving directly at the defender freezes the defender, and opens up both the cut to the defender's left possibility and also the cut to the defender's right possibility.

Germany more resembled the style in which if one has the ball and the defender is to one's left, one scurries to one's right; and if one has the ball and the defender is to one's right, one scampers off to one's left. The disadvantage with this latter style is that one is left with only one directional alternative, which leaves one usually attempting to rectify the situation with last minute feints this way or that which are off balance and ignored by the defenders, movement in one direction being obviously more amenable to circumstance than movement in another direction.

My style of dribbling and apparently that of the Spaniards also, is to naturally open up more than one directional alternative by moving at the defender, and then at the last minute choosing which direction to cut, all the while ignoring feints (recently I've been developing individual set plays involving pre-decided feints, but such is a new thing with me, without this new thing I've already developed the ability to dribble by defenders).

The Spanish showed tricky dribbling involving kicking the ball to the left with the right foot when the right foot is behind the left foot, and the reverse of this. There was a great example of this 18 minutes into the game, when an aerial line drive pass sailed at a Spanish player and the Spaniard with his trailing right foot (best I could tell), deflected it to his left right to a team-mate.

@2010 David Virgil Hobbs

Soccer long range shooting tactical lessons of 2010 World Cup

The outstanding events of the Netherlands vs Uruguay contest, were the goals by Bronckhorst for the Netherlands, and Forlan for Uruguay. These goals resembled each other they were almost like twins.

That the soccer world is in a state of confusion is evinced by: the conflicting reports re the distance of the shots, how far they traveled from shot-point to target; the lack of attention to detail in terms of exactly how the shot distance is measured (shot-point to middle goal-line or shot-point to goalie?); and, the lack of attention to whether the kmh reports for the speed of the shots reflected the average speed in flight or the max speed during flight.

Best I can determine looking at the conflicting reports and the low quality (given the equipment I am using) video clips on the internet, the distance from shot-point to goalie on the Bronckhorst shot was 33 meters, and the distance from shot-point to goalie on the Forlan shot was 21 meters.

There are several reports that the Bronckhorst shot was 68 mph, and a couple of reports state that the Forlan shot was at 45 mph. I believe these speeds refer (for a change) to average speed of ball in flight not max speed of ball in flight; if these figures were for max speed of ball in flight, one would never expect the shots to have managed to result in goals.

I estimate the Forlan shot at 45 mph average speed and 64 mph top speed in flight, traveling in the air for 1.11 seconds during flight.

I estimate the Bronckhorst shot as at 68 mph average speed, and as at 109 mph in terms of max speed during flight, traveling in the air for 1.12 seconds during flight.

The Bronckhorst shot then seems to have been right on the borderline in the sense that if it had been faster it would have been impossible for the goalie to stop. Seems the goalie hesitated for an unusually long amount of time before leaping towards the ball, which makes the goalie's achievement in getting as close as he did to the ball with his hand, notable.

The Bronckhorst shot was spinning in a motion somewhere between a backspin and a spin to the left. Bronkhorst shot the ball at about a 20 degrees right angle relative to the ball movement before the shot, with the front inside of his left foot.

Judging from the spin on Bronckhorst's shot, I estimate that from the goalie's point of view, the ball swerved to the goalie's right as it came at that goalie, and swerved upwards compared to a ball without swerve. The ball ended up above the goalie's hand and from the goalie's perspective to the left of the goalie's hand. seems the goalie was fooled by the backspin on the ball sending the ball upwards, and that the goalie from a horizontal perspective overcompensated for the swerve on the ball which sent the ball on a curve towards the goalie.

The Bronckhorst shot appears to have been a case of a team and a player being aware of exactly how much range their shooting had given the power of their shots and the peculiar characteristics of the Jabulani ball (lighter and with less seems than previous World Cup ball); it was shot from the maximum of this range. The Bronckhorst shot appears to have been a very skillful achievement combining tactical wisdom, power of shot, and good aim. It reminds me of the earlier long shot by Oscar Perez of Argentina, which similarly appears to have been shot from maximum range and placed accurately.


In the Forlan case, from the goalie's perspective the ball passed slightly to the left of the goalie's outstretched hand and so was not stopped from entering the net. In this case it appears the goalie undercompensated for the (from the goalie's perspective) swerve of the ball to the goalie's left , which was caused in part by the ball spinning to the right (from the shooter's perspective). The goalie positioned himself initially directly in the path of where the ball would have gone had it not swerved to the goalie's left; the goalie was then caught off guard to the point of being able to get only one hand in the direction of the swerving ball. Forlan's shot would not have been a goal absent the swerve on the ball which confused the goalie, given the speed of the shot, the distance between the shot-point and the goal, and the distance between the goalie's position at shot-time and the position of the ball as it crossed the goal-line.

All this reminds me that the computer program I wrote which estimates whether a practice shot would have been stoppable by a goalie, does not take into account confusion caused by swerve and has so far been used only with a replica of the 2006 World Cup ball, not with the replica of the 2010 Jabulani ball.

There is alot of talk about the 2010 Jabulani moving in ways that deviate from the straight line; I've found that my shots with the replica of the 2006 World Cup ball from about 20 meters produce swerves of up to four feet left or right.

A tactical lesson here appears to be: a player's maximum range is the distance from which a well-placed shot of his would be unstoppable by a goalie; players should figure out what their maximum range in terms of shooting is; players should fire shots from this maximum range; an advantage of long range shots is that the longer the shot, the greater the swerve on the ball.

@2010 David Virgil Hobbs