Well last night Coach Frank, our head coach, returned to practice from taking a short vacation. Overall, i think he was really pleased with the progress the rest of us made with the team.
After our normal warm-up, we proceeded to get into a tackling drill progression.
I'll call the first one- Hip Explosions...
One player stands with his arms raised in front of another player, the "down" player. The down player should be on one knee with the other foot right next to the down knee, arms by their sides. You could actually say that the down player is heel-to-knee. On a whistle, the down player shoots his arms around the up player and explodes his hips towards the up player. When done correctly, the down player should be grabbing numbers on the backside and be in a belly-to-belly position with the standing player. Do 3-5 reps and switch sides.
The second part of the progression I'll call, Up/Down Hip Explosions...
We start with the same concept as above, two players, however this time both players are standing to start with. In this exercise, the active participant upon a whistle shall take a step forward, bounce the knee off the ground, striking the up player on the rise. The same coaching points go for this drill as above; "grabbing numbers" and "belly-to-belly" finishing alignment. If your players are not finishing belly-to-belly than i promise you you are not getting a hip explosion.
To finish off the practice we did an open-field hitting drill. We marked off a box about 5-7 yards wide and 10 yards long. One side carries and the other hits. In drills like this you must be patient with your players because they rarely get the point at first.
Coaching Points
Close the distance quickly...
Body under control...
Arms wide open....
Tackler must focus on the belly and NOTHING ELSE...
Proper form tackling...
My Thoughts
I love the hitting drills, personally. I was always a defensive player anyway. I really like the progression drills to start off practice and was really pleased with the results of the open-field tackling drill.
One change that I would make myself is to progress to a third level in the tackling drill. I would start out as in level two, but in level three the active player would actually lift the ball carrier off the ground and drive him for three yards.
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