 Hi, during these trying times of the pandemic, the City of Columbia Parks and Recreation Department realizes that choices can be limited in enhancing one's physical, social, and mental well-being. The Parks and Recreation staff have been involved in developing a number of videos in which citizens can participate in and enjoy in the privacy of their own home. These videos consist of arts and crafts, gardening, physical activity, and sports instruction, with many more to come as we work through this pandemic. Our videos will be available to you on a number of our social media outlets. We hope you enjoy and thank you very much. Hey, Columbia, this is Joel Najoku with the City of Columbia Parks and Recreation. I'm a park specialist at Martin Luther King Park, and today we're going to do soccer. So in order to get it started, you need something basic, soccer ball and some space. Before we start doing our drills, we're going to do some warm-ups. Like I said, you can do this with your family, or you can do this by yourself. Take the soccer ball, place it in front of you, and we're just going to do some up and downs with our knees. So we're going to start with our right leg and rotate to our left leg, and we're going to bring our knees up and touch the top of the soccer ball. So here we go. We're going to do 20, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. It wasn't that fun, but we're just getting started now. The next drill we're going to do is about controlling soccer. So we want to be able to pass the ball from our right leg to our left leg and keep it in control. So we're going to place the ball right here on the ground, put our right leg on this side of the ball, our left leg on this side of the ball, and we're going to pass the ball, tap it back and forth between our legs, like this. Now when you first get started, you're probably going to look down because you're not going to trust yourself. But as you continue on, you'll get better at it, and you'll be able to look up and go back and forth with the ball. Keep your legs, bounce on the tip of your toes, move your legs back and forth. Right, left, right, left, right, left, now stop. So those are two drills. Those are warm-ups, but you'll be able to incorporate those into the soccer drills. The next thing we're going to do in soccer, just like in basketball, is about dribbling and controlling the ball. So we're going to take the soccer ball and I'm going to back up a little bit, and I'm going to dribble towards the camera. Watch my feet. Because I bring the ball in right, left, right, left, right, left, keeping it in control, stop. Once we dribble five feet, ten feet, twenty feet, we're going to place the top of our foot on top of the soccer ball and roll it. Turn around and go the other way. Same motion, right, left, right, left, dribbling the soccer ball. Stop, roll it, come back again, stop, roll the other way. Now it's important, we've done three drills. We've touched the ball with the top of our feet. We've gone back and forth and we dribbled the ball forward and rolling it. Now let's see if we can combine these drills together and create a little routine. So once again, we're going to start here with the ball. I'm going to touch the top of the soccer ball with my right leg and my left leg. Then I'm going to go back and forth, dribble, and bring the ball back. So let's see if I can make this combination. Here we go. One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. I'm going to dribble forward, back, dribble forward, back. One, two, three, four, five, six, one, two, three, four, five, six. I'm going to dribble, roll it back and go forward. Get deep breath, relax. Now by the time you're doing this, your cardio is going to be moving. You're going to be feeling really good about yourself. It's important, especially during these times that we need to get out and exercise. Now soccer, just like in basketball, there are different ways that you can maneuver the ball. In basketball, people have crossover dribbles. They have behind-the-back passes. You can do the same thing in soccer. The only thing is you're using your feet. So one of the moves that you can do in soccer, your opponent's in front of you. And as you're dribbling the soccer ball, you step over with your dominant foot, which most people is the right leg. So you step over with your dominant leg, over the ball. You bring your left leg behind and pass it to the side. Now once you tap it to the side, you must follow the soccer ball. Don't just admire your beautiful tap to the side. I'm like, oh, I just juke somebody out. No, you have to follow the ball to make the move complete. So we're going to try this. I dribble towards my opponent. I step over, pass it to the side. I follow the ball. Again, I dribble towards my opponent. I step over, pass the ball to the side. Follow the ball. Like I said, it's important to follow the ball. A moving soccer, just like a moving basketball, doesn't mean a thing if you don't follow the ball. Now let's see if we can combine some of this together. Remember the drills that we did earlier, where we pass the ball back and forth like this, and we tap the ball like this, and we dribble the ball forward. Let's see if we can add that and combine it into another move. So I'm going to back up. I'm going to dribble the ball towards the camera. Do the move so you can see it. Here we go. Dribbling towards my opponent. Stop. One, two, three, four, five, six. One, two, three, four, five, six. Step over, follow, and go. Now you won't be able to do all this in a game, but this is one of the ways that you can do exercises so that you can practice control of the ball so that in the game, the ball will be your friend. The ball won't be far into your feet. You'll be able to control it and do different moves on your opponent. Another thing that you can do while you're at home, you can take the soccer ball and you can practice a juggling technique. Take the ball in your hand and just drop it to your right leg. Catch it. Alternate to your left leg. Catch it. Try it again. Right, left. Right, left. Now we're going to take our hands away and we're going to try to bounce it. Right leg, left leg, right leg, left leg. See how many times you can do it. Once we get the hang of it, we're going right leg, left leg. Now we're going to try to see if we can bring the ball from our right leg to our left leg and then kick it with our feet. We'll try to move right foot first, left foot second. Let's see if we can do it. Hold the ball in your hand. Another drill that we can do with soccer is practice passing the ball. Now, a lot of times when we're outside playing with our friends, we get so caught up in kicking the ball because in our minds, we think soccer kicked the ball. We end up using our toe. That's not what we do in soccer. In order to pass and receive the ball, we need to use the inside of our foot. So if I want to pass the ball to my teammate, Chris pass like that. Once again, in order to make a proper passing soccer, we use the inside of our foot. Not the toe. If we use the toe, we have no control over where the ball is going. It can shoot this way, it can shoot that way. What we want to do is use the inside of our foot and make a Chris pass. Once we've worked on our passing, the next thing is to take a shot. Now, once again, just like we're passing, we don't use our toe. If we use our toe, the ball goes all over the place. If I kick it with my toe, it can go that way, it can go this way. In order to do a proper shot, once again, use the inside of our foot. We need to come in, strike right here and bring our leg up. So we come in, strike. These are just some of the basic soccer skills. If you want to learn more about soccer or play soccer, contact the City of Columbia Parks and Recreation. We have a wonderful fall soccer program, ages 3 to 12. Thank you.