The “Bowl Of Soup” Technique for Fielding Ground Balls

The “Bowl Of Soup” is an important technique that all of your players need to understand and implement when they are fielding the ball.

Setup

Players should begin with a good athletic position (which means a slight bend at the hips and a slight bend in the leg in a balanced position, so that the player can go left, right, forward or back very efficiently.

A great technique is to draw a triangle on the ground in front of the player, and the player should focus on fielding the ball at the tip of the triangle.

Key Points

• Head down, Glove Out, Bottom Down
• Back nice and straight. If the back is rounded with the legs straight, that is when the ball will come too close to the feet.
• The body is going to follow the head — if the head pulls up, so will the glove.
• The palm should be up, facing the ground ball, ready to receive the ball
• You are going to field from the ground up.   Pay close attention to your players and be sure they are not doing a “glove flip”, where the back of the hand flips open to catch the ball.
• When you receive the ball, use two hands — either 2 palms open with the bare hand closing over the top or the bare hand at the top of the glove ready to close on the catch.
• Once you receive the ball, you are then going to bring the bare hand and the glove into the throwing position as quickly as possible. You do NOT want to break and have the bare hand come up by itself. By bringing the glove hand up at the same time, you will close off the front side of the body, leaving you in a good position, ready to throw that ball.

Video Demonstration

Looking for more awesome softball fielding tips?   Then be sure to check out  Championship Coach Sue Enquist’s other  Softball Coaching Videos!   Sue will share some great tips and softball pitching, hitting and much more!   And don’t forget to  Like Us on Facebook, where we share more great drills, tips and suggestions.