Soccer or bust? Bust.

Last night was our first night of soccer class. Imagine if you took 40 cats of all different sizes, colors, shapes, breeds, and levels of tameness (ok, probably not a word, but bear with me here), dropped either LSD or meth (or both) in their water, and tried to teach them to walk backward with their eyes closed while tossing a ball. You now have a rough idea of what my evening was like last night. This was complete order and tranquility by comparison.

Here are five reasons why I hated the soccer “classes” we started last night. Well, let me say, first of all, Natalie, if you read this, I don’t blame you. It seemed like a fun idea. So here we go:

1. There were waaaaay too many kids. The sign up said the class was limited to 30, but if that was 30 kids, I’m David Beckham.

2. The guy was trying to get these kids to do things that they are just not physically ready to do yet. Walk backward with your eyes closed while tossing and catching a ball?! I’m not sure I could do that.

3. He gave them NO time to practice these new skills. No activity lasted longer than, say, 30 seconds. OK, I get that they have tiny attention spans, but you have to give someone time to do something more than 1-2 times in order for them to get it. How about “let’s all do this together slowly” once or twice. It was like boot camp.

4. The instructions were way too complicated and moved too fast. An example: ok, we’re going to start walking backward, when I blow my whistle we’re going to run backward, when I blow my whistle again you’re going to turn around and run forward to the white line, but don’t touch the white line, just stand by it. Uh, dude, I’ve lost you. I promise you my 3 year old stopped listening at “run.”

5. There was no time for free play. It was a one hour (yes, ONE HOUR) workout with no fun! Gabe, Jake’s guitar teacher always says (and I agree) “if you’re not having fun, you’re not learning!”

So, in conclusion, we enjoyed the 15 minutes before Coach Doofus started talking when the kids could just play with soccer balls. But I can do that at home or in the park for free and I’m sincerely glad that this is just a 4 week class and not an entire season. Maybe somewhere else when he’s 5 or so. Meanwhile, I got a little workout and Jake and I will kick the ball around in the park more often. Soccer CAN be fun, despite the night of tripped out cat herding.