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Kicking Longer Using your Weight

Kicking longer distances is an attribute many players strive for. Dave Walder from Newcastle Falcons explains how to use your weight to get those extra metres

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You go through stages where you think you've got it nailed and you can't miss and then within a week you wonder how you'd hit a barn door again. And the key is trust your technique, go back, strip it back to basics when you're struggling, you know, getting your way through the ball, which part of the foot you hitting on and then eventually it comes back to you. Trust your technique. You'll find that their most of my shoulders are pretty good. Okay and the cores not too bad, there's no one collapsing. Okay now we're kicking, I'd say we were probably about 80% of our range. Okay, so this time her, we can have as many steps. Take as many steps asyou want. You got to kick the ball before the 10 meter line. All right. Kick the ball before the 10 meter line. Okay, make sure you finish after the 10-meter line. That's all I'm saying. Kick before finish after.What we're trying to do now is make sure their weights going into the ball. Okay, so you obviously you'll see that some of them will kick, they'll go one step and then they'll start walking. You see when I kick I keep and in my natural habit, I've done it for years - actually justkeep going. Right make sure when you're kicking you stop when you're make a conscious effort to stop before you recoil because otherwise some of your weight is coming out of the ball. Okay, so we'll do a drill later where we'll be kicking it making sure we're actually going through the ball. Okay, again, you have a tendency, especially when we go around the corner or trying to kick distances, you kick it never and then go like that. Okay again, you'll see kick it it's even you have to make a conscious decision to break your weight going backwards if you kick it and take one step and then go back some of your weight has come out of the ball and that's what we're talking the extra two yards distance. So it still might be a good kick. You just going to lose your power and your distance okay. See so James' weight goes back to the ten.James trap two James get your weight off the ball. All right, get your weight right after the ball. So you've got to kick and chase this kick. You're going to chase this kick. Right the saying someone taught me about kicking which has stuck with me forever. Okay, it's all about keeping your foot in contact with the ball for as long as you want or as long as you can in the direction, you want it to travel right? So you want your foot to be in contact the ball as long as possible down the line you want it to travel. I learnt pretty quickly that it's importantI practice as much as possible but only maybe 10 15 minutes at a time pick one, maybe two skills to work on knowing that the end of the session you've covered both those off if your session goes well and you can cover more great. If not, make sure you nail that you're trying to trying to work on and then obviously there's a time of the week where you need to do the full picture as much as possible break it all down short and sharp and enjoy your practice.