Kicking on your non-preferred

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cptkirk said:
don't bother with standing start kicks cos in a game you'll kick them on your good foot rather practice kicking them on the run
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I cant agree with this, sorry mate.

You need to learn to stand before you walk. You need to learn to walk before you run. Its the same with learning to kick on your non preferred foot.

Stand on your right leg, bend your left back into kicking position, extend your right arm out for balance, hold your form until you get balance. Drop the ball on your foot, head down, head over the ball. Get your form right. Get used to the left hand ball drop. Get used to extending your right arm out for balance. Get used to keeping your head over the ball.

When you feel like you are doing this well (have someone comment on your form), stat practicing kicking at walking pace. Concentrating on all the fore mentioned form habits. Balance, right arm out, head over the ball, left hand ball drop.

Again, when you feel comfortable, and someone says your form looks natural, try it jogging. Again, concentrate on the basics, balance, arm extended, head over the ball, left hand ball drop, etc.

Then make yourself use only your left foot in 9s footy, pre-season, until it becomes natural.
 
I play soccer and I dramatically improved my weaker foot (left) by practising in my backyard with a small sized soccer ball.

Not sure if this would help in afl footy, but I found it definitely helped me.
 
Frisky Dingo said:
I hope this is the right place to post this.
I am 18, and I have been playing AFL for 3 years now after 8 years of playing Rugby. It took me probably a full season to learn how to kick properly and to hit targets on my preferred foot (right foot). I like to think I have a pretty accurate kick now, and I have been trying to learn on my left a bit more. I find I am very inconsistent and it still feels weird when I use my left. Does anyone on here have any good tips on how to kick on your non-preferred? Or is it just the painful task of practice practice practice?
Any help would be much appreciated
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Unfortunately, like most things, it just comes down to practice!! since you said you have a pretty good right leg kick...imitate exactly what your doing on your right with your leg. I have head amazing reviews coming from a kicking academy in Sydney called Kicking Dynamics. Maybe worth checking out them and contacting them
 

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I'm a lefty and I had a hamstring strain when I was young. I used to do sprinting.

I practiced with my right non-stop for a good 2 months while I was recovering to the point where I felt that I was more confident on my right than on my left upon returning to football.

Start by getting your ball handling and dropping in tune. From there practice short 10 metre drop punts making sure you get your ball drop proper and in coordination with your kicking. Gradually you should move onto 15m and 20m kicks, then kicking on the run and kicking under pressure or in training-like simulations.

I'm naturally a right-hand writer so my ball handling is very good on my right which makes it easier to control the ball and getting it into position while kicking. Remember how you learned how to kick on your preferred side and go from there and in no time you'll have a very good non-preferred.
 
I'm okay at kicking on my no preferred right foot at training. I've got on the run and standing an snaps all down pat but In a game I never have an opportunity to use them or I just naturally try and run on my left.
 
I'm terrible on my left and live pretty Rural in SA so its hard to practice my lefties to a target etc, anyone got any ideas to practice lefties by yourself?
 
best way to learn to kick on the opposite is just get the ball drop right, for a start just do little mini kicks to yourself, little ones over and over from foot to chest, when you've done it enough, trust me your ball drop will be like second nature.
 
Yep, it's all about the ball drop. It feels incredibly unnatural initially. I trained myself quite young, and my hands weren't big enough to hold the ball properly left handed, so I started with a tennis ball, just to get the action of dropping the ball right (and avoid turning my hand and ruining my ball drop), either kicking it up to myself, or against a wall. Then progressed to one of those Auskick footies until competent, then up again to a full size Sherrin. Ball drop is key, try to replicate your dominant side action as much as possible, and over emphasize guiding the ball down to your boot.
 
Bobby_ said:
and very important to use the left hand when guiding the ball down onto the boot just as you would the right for the right foot. I also found the last stride before going to kick the most unnatural process of it all. Some people are natural and can garner the ability to kick both feet quite early on.
I don't think young people practice enough on their opposite as we are seeing more and more footballers come into the league and get exposed a lot more frequently due to the professionalism of the sport today.
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Absolutely, in my mind it was implied, but cheers for the clarity.
It's a gradual process, start with stationary kicking to yourself, then replicating the kicking step etc. up to kicking on the run. I was taught to kick on my non-preferred pretty early. It's astonishing how many AFL players can't even use their non-preferred side just to get out of trouble. Although when looking at the foot skills of some of the players on their preferred sides, perhaps it's not so astonishing...
 
Burty4 said:
I'm terrible on my left and live pretty Rural in SA so its hard to practice my lefties to a target etc, anyone got any ideas to practice lefties by yourself?
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Kick the ball to yourself up in the air. It's not going to do much for distance/accuracy, but that's not really important at that stage of learning anyway. Also helps develop a bit of feel for the little chip kicks.

You can even take that further and practice roosting the ball and marking one handed for its own sake, or to further improve the "touch" in your left hand.

All it is is practice.
 
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frotherr_ said:
I find it hard to guide with one hand on my oppo
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Study everything about about your ball drop with your preffered hand and try to implement it on your oppo. I found out I wasn't using my thumb for support in my oppo, once I fixed that up guiding became less difficult.

Edit: I meant less difficult not more.
 
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Learning to do something on the opposite side of your body requires you build new Neuro pathways between the two hemespheres of your brain. A good way to establish more of these and speed up your kicking on your non preferred foot is learning to Juggle. There are plenty of instructional videos on the net.

Its no coincidence Gary Ablett jr juggles very well.





.
 
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I agree with the one hand behind the back thing. First try just kicking with your non-preferred on the spot, and then as you get more comfortable try running and snapping with it.

In games, you'll mainly need to use the non-preferred foot for snaps at goal or kicking on an angle trying to get round a player.

These are actually some of the more difficult kinds of kicks, and so much practice is required. I got to the stage where I could kick a left foot snap from about 40 metres out fairly accurately. However, it still doesn't feel as natural as my right foot.

As a kid I used to kick with my left foot a lot because I wanted to be different / have an advantage. As it turns out, luckily I did that because otherwise I might not be so good on my left.
 
Frisky Dingo said:
I hope this is the right place to post this.
I am 18, and I have been playing AFL for 3 years now after 8 years of playing Rugby. It took me probably a full season to learn how to kick properly and to hit targets on my preferred foot (right foot). I like to think I have a pretty accurate kick now, and I have been trying to learn on my left a bit more. I find I am very inconsistent and it still feels weird when I use my left. Does anyone on here have any good tips on how to kick on your non-preferred? Or is it just the painful task of practice practice practice?
Any help would be much appreciated
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mark out a target against a wall of some form. stand 15 or 20 meters back & work on the basics in getting the coordination right & practice hitting the target. then go from there
 
Had a junior coach who'd drag you if you came back onside onto your preferred and got caught holding the ball or stuff the kick up because of incoming pressure.... If you kicked on your non-preferred, he didn't care if it went out on the full (well, not really, but he wouldn't drag you for it)

Same thing happened at training, except he'd make you do pushups -

I started kicking grubbers with my left to avoid the push-ups... Now they ain't too shabby because I've kept doing them...
 
I kicked a goal on my opposite the other week, was one of the best highlights of my career as I was under a lot of pressure snap it threw on an angle in a critical moment to get us a goal up and some breathing space. No way I could of got it on my preferred as player block me on that side.

You never realise how important it is until those moments.
I'm at the end of my career now but if I ever get into coaching I'm going to drill it into my players to start using it especially in training, who care if you look awkward or stuff up, practice will get you their.
 
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