When I was just learning how to play soccer I couldn't kick the ball correctly. Every single time I tried to my foot would slide under the ball causing the ball to go straight up in the air. Due to that disheartening fact I tended to get made fun of.....ALOT. I mean who can't kick a soccer ball correctly. So the best way I saw fit to help fix the problem at hand, was to ask the coach, my dad, and my best friend for advice. That would hopefully help me kick the ball better. So one thing I think is very important to help anybody learn is to ask more than one person for advice that in the future can help guide you into making better choices.

The number one person I confide in, if I ever have any kind of issue is my dad. He honestly is my rock. So as the situation arose. He was the first person I was going to talk to. So later that afternoon we walked outside and grabbed a ball. He watched me kick the ball about ten to twelve times. And, as I was doing this he never once laughed or judged me instead he gave me a helping hand and tried to help me work though the problem. Eventually he told me to stop and helped explain to me that my planter foot was not in the right place when I kicked the ball. So naturally, I asked him what the planter foot was and he patiently and carefully explained to me that the planter foot helped guide the ball to were it is supposed to go. That it was, the foot next to the soccer ball. Sadly try as I might his solution helped but didn't fix the problem as a whole. So as I walked back inside I started to plan who was the next best person that could help me solve the issue.

So the next stop in my quest to improve my kick, was my coach. As much as my father's advice had helped my kick the ball it still did not fix it. So as time when on I knew I was letting down my team by not being able to really kick the soccer ball. So the next time we had practice I emailed the coach and asked him to come fifteen minutes early to see if he could help with the pressing issue. Again he listened to my issue with interest and politely asked me to kick the ball so he could watch the way I kicked it to help detect the problem. So after about five minutes of watching me kick the ball he asked me if I could just do my run up to the ball but not kick it. So I did, the next thing he said surprised me, he told me that I was not running up to the ball correctly. Instead of coming to the ball from an angle to the kick the ball, I was standing right behind it and then trying to kick it. So just like the last time I started to use his method to see if that would help. In the end it made my kick stronger but it still was going straight up. So just as before, I sucked it up and started to think of the next person I could ask.

By then I could feel myself losing hope there was only one more person I felt like I could turn to who would not laugh at me because I could not kick a soccer ball. So the next day at school I went up to a girl named Generic_Name. She was my best friend and lucky for me she was one of the best girls on the soccer team. So as quietly as I could, so no one would here me, I asked her for help. Luckily she said that she was free after school and that we could meet up at her place to help work on the problem. So later that day I stood in her backyard with little to no hope. Her approach however was different from both the coach and my dad. She went though each step of kicking a soccer ball correctly and which situation calls for how much power, where you kick the ball, and what part of the foot you kick it with. So after a long explanation she asked me to show her the way I kick the ball. Of course even after all that the ball still went up in the air, I groaned. Then she stood up quietly and pointed to my foot and said, "There."

The place were I was gong wrong was which part of the foot I was kicking the ball with. I was trying to toe ball it the entire time. When in reality I needed to kick the ball with my laces. So I scurried off and went to look for another soccer ball. The next time I kicked the ball I made sure to kick it with my laces. I couldn't believe my eyes the ball went straight instead of up. I was super happy I ran over to her and gave her a huge hug. The next this thing Generic_Name said was, "Don't thank just me, thank the people who got you to this point," of course as always she was right.

In the end I learned a valuable lesson for the problem, Which were advantages to asking more then one person for advice. Without the help from my dad, the coach, and of course Generic_Name, I wold have never been able to get there in the first place. After that I started to really understand the advantages of asking more than one person for advice. Without there advice I very might well have ended up quitting the sport that I now love. So without a doubt I think that asking more then one person will benefit you a lot more then asking just one person for advice to a problem. So the next time you feel like there is no one to turn to, or that no one else has faced the problem you are facing. Understand the possibilities that you may be giving away by not asking for advice from more then one person.