What are some good kickball tips?

How do i get better with kickball?

• We always play kickball for P.E. and i suck at it. I suck at kicking, catching the ball, and i dont even know who i throw the ball to when i catch it LMAO. So please give me tips if you have any, i would appreciate it :)

• Answer:

  I LOVE to play kickball, I miss it so much! I'll assume you're using one of those bouncy red playground balls. The answer to skill problems is practice. Catching a playground ball is tricky because it's so bouncy. If you try to trap it against your chest it will bounce off and away before you can grab it and hold on. If you can you want to catch the ball with your hands, not trap it against your chest. Get a playground ball and practice throwing it back and forth with a friend. (Or against a wall to yourself if you can't find a friend to play with.) Start with short, easy arcs, concentrate on grabbing the ball with your hands before it can touch your chest. As you get better, increase the distance between you and your partner so that the ball is moving faster when it arrives. (This is the way the ball will usually arrive to you in the outfield.) Once you're able to catch the ball when it's thrown this way, start throwing the ball overhand back and forth, slowly at first but increasing the speed as you get better until you're flinging it as if you're playing dodgeball or bombardment (probably not allowed anymore). This is the way the ball usually arrives when you're playing infield. As the ball moves faster, you'll find that you can't catch it with hands only, but you'll be grabbing it with your hands and pulling it into your chest to catch it, instead of allowing it to hit your chest first and then trying to trap it before it bounces away. Practice, practice, practice. Consider this a training exercise. You can't build skill in a day, but if you practice every day, or even a couple three times a week, you'll become decidedly more skillful in handling the ball in a matter of weeks. Kicking is a coordination issue. Kick too late and the ball dribbles into the infield. Kick too early and you kick the top of the ball instead of kicking it solidly, and again the ball dribbles into the infield. If the ball is moving quickly it often takes weird bounces on the way from the pitcher, which makes coordination all the more important. Start with a friend who's willing to pitch you the ball, very slowly at first so you have plenty of time to pick your moment and so that the ball won't take an odd bounce. Try for distance, and practice until you can repeatedly drive the ball into the outfield. As before, increase the speed as you gain skill and confidence. Since kicking the ball well means running halfway to China to retrieve it, see if you can't borrow or buy several balls to practice with so that you can make better use of your practice time. (Explain to mom and dad how kickball skills are essential to getting into an Ivy League college, and they'll gladly buy some.) Knowing where to throw the ball is a matter of thinking out the possibilities before hand, and rehearsing them silently or aloud so that you don't have to think what to do when the time comes. Softball and baseball players routinely call out the runners' positions and the possible plays: "Runner on first, play's to second", that sort of thing. It's not a complicated game, so there aren't a lot of different possibilities at each step, and you do have time to consider what to do while the pitcher prepares to pitch the ball, so take advantage of that time and decide what you'll do if the ball flies into the air and you catch it, or if it flies into the air and you (or someone else) misses it, or if it rolls on the ground. You might also consider what you should do if an infield player moves off his or her base to field the ball. Should you move in to cover the base, or is that someone else's job? If you don't know at all what to do in a situation, talk to someone who does know (like your PE instructor, or Debbie the kickball queen) and ask them to help you. u