Soft Hands Training: Juggling Your Way To A Quiet Place In The Storm

Football players like Torrey Holt, Larry Fitzgerald, Micheal Irvin and others have a way of making circus catches in traffic that dazzle football audiences. The football seemed magnetically attracted to these magically handed individuals. Sports broadcasters attributed it to God-given talent and extreme concentration abilities. The broadcasters were right on both accounts. Firstly, all talents are gifts from God. Secondly, it requires concentration to make catches like that at full speed in the middle of traffic. It not easy to catch a multi-player juggled-ball, unless you are one of those gifted athletes or you have been trained, given a mindset, that this kind of ball is normal.

While you cannot show a player how to catch a juggled-ball, you can teach him the mindset needed to catch the multi-player juggled-ball. You must teach the player how to juggle. The Free Dictionary.Com offers a good definition of the word juggle: to keep (two or more objects) in the air at one time by alternately tossing and catching them. The football player, running back, wide receive, tight end, defensive back, linebacker, should be taught how to juggle at least three balls. Juggling two balls is easy because you have a matching number of balls to hands. When a third ball is introduced, the player has to have at least one ball in the air that has no matching hand to account for it. As a result of this mismatch, the player has to quickly do something with the two balls presently in his hands. If he mis-catches a ball or throws a ball in an uncatchable spot, it could ruin the juggling maneuver. When a player practices juggling three balls, he becomes accustomed to dealing with a seemingly uncontrollable situation.

In a football game where the football is tipped in the air by the defender or a combination of defensive/ offensive players. The ball is seemingly out of control to the untrained mind, but the trained juggler mind is accustomed to these situations and knows exactly where his hands should be now and in the near future. All through the perceived chaos, the wide receiver never waned in his confidence that he would catch the football. He hasn’t let the perceived storm around him stop him from being successful. Through training, he has found that quiet spot where he needed to be.

It is time for good players to join the circus. They don’t have to run away from home, they just have to catch the ball and run to the end zone. There will be clowns at the circus but they will be on the opposing team. In any event, the ability to juggle creates a quiet place in an otherwise stormy uncertain situation.

AJ Green juggles to improve hands: http://youtu.be/dUP5JeyYKAQ