A Whole Lot of Hockey at EFSC

We had so much fun playing Hockey last Saturday at Epping Forest Sportability Club that we didn't get to play any other sports that we had planned !
​Our session started as usual with a warm up  session starting with stretches, moving on to some light jogging around the hall and then on to some games of Tag and What's the Time Mr Wolf? The session was led by coaches Ray and Ciara ably assisted by Ollie.

Once everyone was fully warmed up it was straight in to the hockey. We play with plastic hockey sticks and tennis balls so first up was some practice controlling the ball with the stick, gradually moving around the ball. Once all the kids were comfortable with their ball control we stepped things up a bit with Ollie leading a Traffic Light game. This consisted of Ollie standing on a bench holding up either a red, yellow or green disk.  Red obviously means stop where you are with your ball; yellow means stand still moving the ball from side to side and green means go moving around controlling the ball. Once the kids got the hang of the game it was time to start the competition! This meant if you were caught moving on a red signal you were out. Similarly, if you were the last to get going on green or to switch to moving side to side on yellow you were out. The winner was the last person left in the game and for our game the winner was Lesley!

After a quick break for a drink it was straight on to a slalom game controlling the ball around cones as you went up and down the hall. This then moved on to some one on one games with the kids racing each other up the hall around cones and then competing for the ball as it is thrown it to play by a coach. They then have to control the ball back down the hall towards the goal and try and beat the goalie. The first to score is  the winner.
​Each player had two games in succession to try and allow them to play other players of similar size, age or ability so player A was up against player B then no matter the result player B then played player C and so on.....

After a final snack and drinks break we wrapped the session up with proper game with the kids splitting  in to two teams and having a good end to end battle using all the skills they had practiced throughout the session.
​At the conclusion of the session the coaches conferred and awarded the Star of the Week award to Hal for his great work throughout. Well done Hal!
​Join us again next Saturday to see what we have in store for the kids. What I do know it is the time of the year for us adults to have our Annual General Meeting where we welcome all parents and carers  to chat about how the club is doing and plan for the future. So hopefully we will see everyone at Oak View School on Saturday morning!

Our Star this Week was Hal, pictured with Kate (one of our helpers) and Anand