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Put the ball on. Pick a speed. Kick it. Setup takes about thirty seconds, and a child can do it without help.
Start fast, then work down. Training starts at the top speed, where the machine supplies almost all of the spin and your child learns only the part they control: where to strike the ball and how to swing through it. Once that is reliable, the speed drops a level. To keep the same flight, their body makes up the difference without being told to. Level by level the machine does less, until the dial reads zero and the curl is theirs.
A session is twenty minutes.
- 3 minutes to loosen up: a handful of easy strikes with no target.
- 12 minutes of work: four sets of ten strikes, a minute’s rest between sets.
- 5 minutes of match kicks: ten attempts, one each, pick a target, no do-overs.
Which speed for which player. 400 to 600 rpm for the less experienced, where the machine does most of the spin. 200 to 400 as they improve. 100 to 200 for the dead-ball specialist, where the curl is nearly all theirs. Experience, not age.
Three sessions a week, in the backyard, is the whole commitment. Then leave it alone. Children lock in new movement between sessions, not during them, so the days off are doing work too.
