adjustment stepscontact spacingclean contact
Why Contact Breaks Down Even After You Reach the Ball
If you skip the final two or three steps after the initial move, you cannot fine-tune the distance between your body and the ball.
Start with this check
Keeping a long stride while rushing to arrive leaves no way to adjust to a changing bounce, resulting in contact that is jammed or too far away.
Try these steps in order
- First close the distance with larger steps, including crossover steps when appropriate.
- Around the bounce, shorten your stride to fine-tune the spacing to the ball.
- After contact, push off the outside leg and connect that action to the first recovery step.
Bottom line
Clean contact depends less on reaching the ball quickly than on adjustment steps that set the spacing just before contact.
Reviewed sources
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Technical evidence
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