Throwing, catching and kicking
Physical Education · Early Years · The School
Watch the ball
The single biggest fix for catching is to keep watching the ball right into your hands. Most drops happen because eyes look away early to see where to run next. Practise with a big soft ball first — the bigger and slower, the more time to watch.
Hands ready
Hands up and open, fingers spread, elbows soft so they can absorb the ball. Stiff straight arms make the ball bounce out. Catching is cushioning, not blocking.
Aiming
Point at your target with your non-throwing hand, then throw. Roll a ball at a skittle from three steps away, then five, then seven. Keeping score turns practice into a game, and a game is practised for far longer.
Stand still with hands ready and have a ball thrown slightly to one side: you stretch, and usually drop it. Now do it again but MOVE — take a step so the ball is coming straight at your middle, hands up, and give a little as it arrives. Far more catches. Most drops happen before the ball gets there, because the feet never moved.
Kicking: look down, then look up
Kicking has the same two halves as throwing. Plant your standing foot beside the ball rather than behind it, and strike with the SIDE of your foot instead of your toes, because the side is flat and a flat surface sends the ball where you meant it to go. Look at the ball as you kick it, then look up to see where it went — in that order. Toe-punting sends the ball high and more or less anywhere; a side-foot pass rolls where you aimed it. Practise against a wall, because a wall always passes it back.