I’m sure all of us reading this have little kids who could use some dribbling improvement. They either can only dribble with one hand, or they look at the ball all the time, or they can barely dribble at all. 🙂 I’ve found a way to combine dribbling practice, exercise, and just getting outside in general, it’s taking a basketball on your walk.
Dribbling outside
How does this work? Basically, it kind of depends on your area. For most people, it’s probably going to involve dribbling on the sidewalk or a park. Parents, you’ll want to with your kid when he’s doing this if there’s any chance of traffic being around. Basically, start developing a walking path, and have your child dribble the entire way. Instead of a walk where they get bored, all of sudden they’re more excited because they have something fun to do, and can work on all kinds of skills just randomly while you’re walking. They will lose the ball sometimes, which is why I say a parent must be there, as you don’t want to lose a ball into the street where a car might be driving by.
Since doing this with my kids, I can see a big difference in dribbling. My youngest used to dribble above his head once he started going faster. Now he’s a lot more under control, and is dribbling with a lot more skill than he was before. You can easily see how this would add up pretty quickly. A basketball court is about 100ft long. That means you’d have to dribble back and forth 52 to 53 times to get to a mile.
If you tell a kid to dribble back and forth that many times he’s going to look at you like you’re crazy. However, if you do a couple miles in the park, he’ll never say anything at all. It’s because dribbling back and forth becomes ‘work’ after a while, but dribbling during a walk is better than just walking. You’re providing an option that is more fun than the base option (walking) so it’s naturally a lot more fun.
Where we walk
We actually walk on a county asphalt road as there’s almost no traffic on it and we’re always with the kids, eliminating the lost ball/traffic risk. We walk around a mile a couple times a week when it’s nice out, you can see how that would quickly add up. It’s like a massive amount of dribbling all done within a span of 1/2 hour to an hour.
Do you have any non traditional ways that you’ve gotten your kids to practice basketball besides dribbling outside on a walk? Send them to me! I’ll post them on here for other people to see.
