I inflated the soccer ball that I have been using. I was surprised by the difficulty compared to the deflated ball. I am happy that I made this change sooner rather than later. I have worked very hard today to try and get back the progress I made on the deflated ball. I managed 11 touches today and consistently got around 5. This caused me to rethink the changes I made to the schedule earlier. I am determined to reach my goals. I will get 15 this cycle. I am not going to be discouraged by the difficulty of the inflated ball.

Yesterday (tuesday) I felt a big improvement in my juggling. I have started to alternate feet when I juggle (left, right, left, right). This style allows me to keep the ball in an imaginary box and makes it easier to control. I am getting about 7 consistently with my deflated ball. I think I am ready to move up to an inflated ball. I am very pleased with my recent progress.

It is now Sunday 2/22/15. I have achieved my goal of 10 juggle-touches in a single session. I achieved this multiple times. I am feeling very confident about the goals I set at the beginning of this project. If I am completely honest, I was nervous about the goals I set for myself at the beginning of this genius project. They seemed a little too ambitious to me. Now though, I am extremely pleased with the progress I have made and I am relieved that I was able to achieve my goals. In fact, I think I might be raising all of my future-goals for this project up a bit.

This was my schedule for the entire genius project,

• Cycle 1
• Achieve 150 touches while juggling (total)
• 10 in one session (seek help from experts)
• Cycle 2
• Get 150 more touches while juggling
• Begin head and chest touches (research tips on internet)
• Cycle 3
• Achieve 15 touches in one session
• Cycle 4
• 10 successful head and chest touches
• Cycle 5
• One successful “around the world”
• Cycle 6
• At least 20 touches per session (consistently)

As I mentioned earlier, I completed my cycle one goals and I think I should up the ante on my goals for the coming cycles.

This is what I think my new schedule should be,

• Cycle 1
• Achieve 150 touches while juggling (total)
• 10 in one session (seek help from experts)
• Cycle 2
• Get 250 more touches while juggling
• Begin head and chest touches (research tips on internet)
• Cycle 3
• Achieve 20 touches in one session
• Cycle 4
• 15 successful head and chest touches
• Cycle 5
• One successful “around the world”
• One successful heel touch
• Cycle 6
• At least 30 touches per session (consistently)

The "heel touch" is when you move your leg behind your back and touch the ball with your heel. Here is a video tutorial of the trick with some clips of it being performed by Brazilian soccer-star Neymar.

I chose to learn how to juggle a soccer ball because that was something I felt like I was always missing from the game of soccer. Whenever I played soccer with a new group of kids, I would always notice how they could juggle better than I could. When I say "juggle", I do not mean throwing soccer-balls in figure-eights with your hands. I mean keeping a soccer ball off the ground without using your arms.

Here is a video:

Juggling might seem like an unnecessarily flashy skill that serves no real purpose in the game of soccer. It is, however, great for helping players develop fundamental skills. These skills include balance, concentration, control, weak foot, and first touch

I have researched tips for improving your juggling.

Some common instructions that every guide I have found is to hold the ball, drop it, kick it back up, and catch it again. After you get good at this, you begin to kick once with each leg before catching it.

Here are some of the websites I found.

http://www.wikihow.com/Juggle-a-Soccer-Ball.

http://www.active.com/soccer/articles/5-tips-to-juggle-like-the-pros

I followed the advice of the top link (wikihow.com) and began to see slow improvements.

In the video above, I was using a slightly deflated soccer ball. This is a tip recommended by wikihow.

The bottom link (active.com) presented many tips to improve the routine that I had found on wikihow. These tips were things like

• Keep your toe down and ankle locked, and try to hit the ball with the laces of your shoe.
• Start with the ball in your hand, drop it to your dominant foot and hit it back into your hands. Then you can try to hit it twice with your dominant foot. Keep progressing.

I used these tips in the routine of dropping from chest height that was mentioned on wikihow.com.

On Saturday 2/20/15, I reached my goal of 150 touches. I do not mean 150 without the ball hitting the ground, I mean 150 touches total, not all at once. I do not see this as a reason to stop. I would like to get 10 touches at once by Sunday.

I already feel that my touches are getting more controlled and I am much better already at kicking the ball up with the correct amount of power.