Freestyle Soccer World Champion Caitlyn Schrepfer demonstrates and explains her freestyle soccer skills in 25 levels of difficulty, from the easiest to most complex.
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00:00 My name's Kaitlyn Schripper.
00:01 I've been challenged to do freestyle soccer skills
00:03 in 25 levels of increasing complexity.
00:05 (upbeat music)
00:08 Freestyle soccer is unique in that
00:14 it really is the art of movement with the ball.
00:17 To me, complexity is increasingly difficult techniques
00:20 and fluidity of movement.
00:22 There truly are an unlimited amount of tricks,
00:24 but this is my personal interpretation of the challenge.
00:27 Level one, knee juggles.
00:29 We're starting with knee juggles
00:30 because they are the simplest thing
00:32 for an absolute beginner to learn.
00:34 The most common mistake is people actually make contact
00:37 with their literal knee,
00:38 but it's actually on the thigh
00:40 where you wanna hit the ball.
00:41 You will drop it from your hands,
00:42 bring your leg up to contact the ball
00:45 with about the middle of your thigh.
00:46 You wanna start with one juggle at a time,
00:48 right back to your hands,
00:49 and then do two, and then alternating right, left
00:53 before you start doing multiple knee juggles.
00:55 Most people tend to bend over just a little bit,
00:57 but make sure you're not bringing your chest
00:59 down to the ball, but you're bringing your knees up.
01:02 Level two, feet juggles.
01:03 Feet juggles require a couple of more techniques
01:06 than just knee juggles.
01:07 It's about the positioning of your foot.
01:09 It's locking your ankle.
01:10 It's striking the ball right on the knuckle of your big toe.
01:14 And you'll know if you make proper contact
01:16 because the ball shouldn't have too much backspin on it.
01:18 You want 50% or less of your power when you're juggling.
01:22 It's not striking the ball like you would in soccer,
01:24 but it's also not a hacky sack lift.
01:26 It's a light swing as if you were sitting in your chair
01:29 just like this.
01:31 Level three, foot stalls.
01:32 The techniques in order to learn a foot stall
01:34 and balance a foot stall really come in helpful
01:36 for later levels when you get into things like head stalls
01:39 and things like that.
01:40 The best way to start is to start with the ball
01:42 in your hands and literally place it onto your foot.
01:45 Sometimes you wanna pull your toe back
01:46 to help cushion the ball and control it right there
01:49 between your toes and your shin.
01:51 You'll know you have the foot stall down
01:53 when you can just kind of stand there more relaxed
01:55 and you don't really ever feel out of control.
01:58 Now that we've got foot stalls, knees, and feet juggles,
02:01 let's move on to level four, flick ups.
02:03 Flick ups are the techniques that you use
02:06 to get the ball from the ground into the air
02:08 to start freestyle.
02:09 For the most basic flick up, you roll the ball back
02:12 and you just chip your toe right underneath the ball
02:15 to pop it in the air a little bit.
02:16 When you wanna get a little bit more interesting,
02:18 you go from the inside, from the outside.
02:20 You can even flick it up with your heel,
02:22 but that becomes a little bit more complicated.
02:24 There's a whole spectrum of flick ups.
02:27 One of my favorite flick ups is called a slap.
02:29 You start with the ball in between your ankles.
02:31 You roll your right foot behind your left
02:34 and with your right foot, you roll the ball
02:36 up your left leg to flick the ball up in the air
02:38 and start juggling.
02:39 Level five, blocks.
02:41 Sidebar, freestyle can be broken down
02:43 into four different categories.
02:44 Lowers, any sort of revolutions and tricks you do
02:48 standing up.
02:48 Uppers, which are tricks that you do chest and above.
02:51 Sit downs, which are any tricks you do
02:53 when you're sitting or laying down on the ground.
02:55 Blocks are any sorts of catches with the ball,
02:58 whether it's your knees, ankles, that's a block.
03:01 The knee catch.
03:02 Drop the ball with some backspin, let it bounce,
03:04 and then catch the ball nice and gently between your knees.
03:07 So with the ankle catch, you want the ball
03:08 in between your ankles, right on the bone,
03:11 whereas a foot stall, the ball's staying
03:12 right on top of your foot.
03:13 The key with blocks is everything is gentle.
03:16 You don't wanna squeeze the ball too hard.
03:17 So even with these five levels, you can already start
03:20 to build your own freestyle combo.
03:21 As simple as a flick up into a couple of juggles.
03:24 Level six, crossovers.
03:26 They're our introduction to lowers.
03:28 They're what we call a half revolution trick.
03:30 You can do it off of a juggle or even off foot stalls.
03:33 After you flick that ball up, you wanna swing your left foot
03:35 over the ball and then you hop up to make contact
03:38 with the ball.
03:39 You wanna make sure your body weight is centered still
03:41 and you're standing mostly upright,
03:42 if not a little bent over.
03:44 You wanna hit about the same place that you do
03:46 when you're juggling.
03:47 So when you juggle, your foot is about parallel
03:49 to the ground.
03:50 When you do crossovers, you wanna pull your toe back
03:52 just a little bit to keep the ball closer.
03:54 Level seven, hop the world.
03:56 We're moving from a .5 revolution trick
03:58 into the hop the world, which is one full revolution.
04:02 Hop the world is a little more complicated
04:04 because you actually incorporate both feet.
04:06 You start with your left foot and you end
04:08 with your right foot.
04:09 With crossover, the left foot is there,
04:11 but it doesn't actually touch the ball at any point.
04:13 From here, we can start to build a more interesting combo.
04:16 You have a couple of lowers tricks now
04:18 and we can build with what we call the basics of freestyle.
04:22 Level eight, around the world.
04:23 Around the world is the most famous trick
04:26 in freestyle soccer.
04:27 You might have seen Ronaldinho do it.
04:29 You've seen it from the Jogo Bonito ads.
04:31 It is a one revolution lowers trick
04:33 where you start with, say, your right foot,
04:35 one revolution around the ball,
04:37 and then you end with a touch with your right foot.
04:39 When you're normally juggling with the ball,
04:40 you hit just like this.
04:42 But when you're doing an around the world,
04:44 you're slicing, which gives it a little bit of spin.
04:47 A lot of the times, people will kick the ball
04:49 and then try to get their foot around.
04:50 That presents a couple of issues.
04:52 One, the ball tends to go too high.
04:54 And then two, in splitting that into two different motions,
04:58 the kick and then the revolution,
05:00 you lose time and it's a lot harder
05:01 to get your foot around in time.
05:02 When you do it in one fluid motion,
05:04 you get the ball with the right height
05:06 and you have the time to get your foot all the way over.
05:08 Level nine, Touzani around the world.
05:10 Touzani is actually the name of the creator of this trick,
05:14 one of the more notable figures in freestyle.
05:16 The Touzani around the world is a 1.5 revolution trick,
05:20 which is one full revolution
05:22 and then a half a revolution to finish.
05:24 So you strike with the knuckle of your small toe right here,
05:28 one full revolution around, like an around the world,
05:30 and then to finish, it's a crossover motion at the end.
05:33 The difficulty with this is striking the ball
05:35 with the outside of your foot is a smaller surface
05:39 and a lot less room for error
05:41 than it is with the inside of your foot.
05:43 Level 10, lemons around the world.
05:45 Lemons around the world is the most recognizable
05:48 two revolution trick.
05:49 Imagine your right foot is starting in the air
05:51 and that's the one that's going to be
05:53 interacting with the ball.
05:54 You're jumping off your left foot
05:55 and doing the revolutions with your right.
05:57 It's the same striking technique as the around the world,
06:00 but the difference with this one,
06:02 as you make contact with that ball,
06:04 you wanna hop up off your other foot
06:06 to give you a little more height.
06:07 You're making contact here,
06:08 but at the same time, you're jumping
06:10 and you make that first revolution,
06:12 complete the second revolution as you come down
06:14 and then you finish the trick.
06:16 Level 11, advanced blocks.
06:18 Advanced blocks, you can take the basic blocks
06:21 and then you start to spice it up a little bit.
06:22 So rather than knee catch straight down to an ankle catch,
06:26 you would go from a knee catch into a crossed ankle catch.
06:29 Or you could do things like a thigh grab
06:31 and then pop the ball back up to start juggling.
06:33 Advanced blocks could come in in a routine,
06:36 say after a basic block like a knee catch.
06:38 You go knee to like X ankle catch, a slap flick up.
06:43 It is the spice of the routine
06:45 rather than just the building blocks.
06:46 Level 12, clipper.
06:48 Clipper is one of the more famous tricks in freestyle.
06:52 It is a stall the same way that you do a foot stall,
06:55 but with clipper, it's on the inside of your foot
06:58 while your right leg is wrapped behind your left leg.
07:01 The biggest difficulty when it comes to clipper
07:04 is your foot positioning,
07:06 because you have to flex your ankle
07:08 so that it sits parallel to the ground
07:10 with the inside of your foot face up,
07:12 which is actually not a natural position
07:14 for anybody's foot to do.
07:15 So a lot of people have to stretch their foot
07:18 in order to get it to reach that position.
07:20 Now that we've started to incorporate
07:21 a little bit of spice into our routine,
07:23 we can get a little more interesting.
07:24 Now we're gonna move to the floor
07:26 and we're gonna do level 13 sit downs.
07:28 Sit down crossovers are one of the simplest tricks
07:31 that you can learn sitting down.
07:33 You wanna be sitting upright,
07:34 hands on the floor behind you,
07:36 cross your left leg over the top
07:37 and make contact with your right foot.
07:39 When it comes to sit downs,
07:40 the biggest difference is in the foot positioning.
07:42 Lock your ankle still,
07:43 but rather than parallel to the floor,
07:45 it's a little bit more pointed
07:47 and you wanna make contact with the same part of your foot.
07:50 But the key with this is your foot
07:52 can't be super far from you.
07:53 You need to keep your knees bent
07:55 and your feet close to your chest.
07:56 Whenever I think of sit down crossovers,
07:58 I always remember the show when I had to learn them.
08:01 I was front and center on the stage on Broadway
08:04 and I was probably about six, seven months into freestyle.
08:08 I had to do sit down crossovers
08:11 never having learned them before.
08:12 And so now every time I do them,
08:14 I just get a nice little flashback.
08:15 Level 14, sole stall.
08:17 So with sole stall, you're going to be laying on your back.
08:20 Your leg's going to be up in the air, almost locked out,
08:23 and the ball's going to be balancing
08:24 on the sole of your foot while it's right above you.
08:27 The easiest way to train this
08:29 is to just place the ball on top of your sole
08:31 and learn to balance it.
08:32 It's an awkward thing for most people
08:34 and you really have to learn the technique
08:36 of just balancing the ball at first.
08:37 You're ready to learn a sole stall
08:39 when you have basic sit downs down.
08:42 You need the patience that it takes
08:44 to learn all of the previous tricks
08:45 in order to learn sole stall.
08:46 It took me eight months.
08:48 Level 15, raised sole stall swipes.
08:52 Same technique as a sole stall,
08:53 except now you're rolling back
08:55 so you're just balancing on your shoulders.
08:57 Your hands are supporting your waist
08:59 and your leg is going to be a little bit higher up in the air.
09:02 You have that ball balanced in a stall.
09:04 You're going to pop the ball up
09:05 and you're going to swipe your left leg
09:07 underneath the ball and then catch it again.
09:09 So it's here, pop the ball up,
09:12 swipe under and catch.
09:13 Level 16, thigh pop.
09:17 Thigh pop is often used
09:19 as one of the most beginner transitions,
09:21 but it can be used just as a trick in and of itself.
09:24 So with the thigh pop, you'll start sitting down.
09:26 You'll catch the ball right behind your leg in a thigh grab.
09:29 You want to roll onto your side,
09:31 point the ball up towards the sky
09:33 and you'll straighten your leg to pop the ball up.
09:35 Level 17, no touch combo.
09:38 No touch combos are combinations of two or more tricks.
09:42 Take a crossover and a Touzani,
09:43 but the difference here is that
09:45 you're not doing the two tricks individually.
09:47 You're taking out all of the excess touches
09:49 to make it one fluid combination.
09:51 To do a no touch combo,
09:52 you take out the extra trick in the middle, crossover,
09:55 and you would go straight into a Touzani.
09:58 Level 18, head stall.
10:00 Now we're moving on to uppers
10:02 and head stall is the most basic uppers
10:04 building block to learn.
10:05 The ball is on your hairline.
10:07 You want to make sure you're looking up at the ball
10:09 the whole time and you want to stand a little bit upright
10:12 with your head tilted back
10:14 and your knees bent just a little bit.
10:15 Head stall is coming in at level 18
10:17 because in a combo, you would be kicking the ball up
10:20 and then balancing the ball from there,
10:22 but you're working with your head here.
10:24 So you can't really flex your head or things like that.
10:27 And it's really about using your entire body
10:30 to cushion the ball and you shift your whole body weight
10:33 to balance the ball.
10:34 Level 19, around the moon.
10:36 When around the moon, your head is moving around the ball
10:39 rather than the ball moving around your head this time.
10:42 You would start from a neck stall.
10:44 You would flick it up to the side
10:45 and your head and your chest rotate around the ball
10:49 to catch again on the back of your neck.
10:51 The way I explain to everyone
10:52 is you kind of have chicken wings.
10:54 The ball is sitting on the back of your neck.
10:55 From there, rotate off to the side
10:57 and flick the ball up at the same time,
10:59 almost like tossing it up to the side.
11:01 You're really just isolating your upper body.
11:03 Your feet should stay planted
11:04 and it's just your chest and head that are moving.
11:08 Level 20, lip stall.
11:10 Lip stall is a little bit harder than around the moon
11:12 because you're working with a very small surface
11:14 to balance the ball with and it's not flat.
11:16 Your lips are in an odd place
11:18 where there's not a lot of body behind it.
11:21 When you're doing it, you're tilted back
11:23 and your lips are right here.
11:24 You really have to get the perfect positioning
11:26 to stall that ball for more than say a second at a time.
11:30 To do a combo incorporating a lip stall,
11:32 typically I would do something like neck stall
11:34 around the moon into a head stall.
11:37 And then the simplest way to transition
11:39 into a lip stall would be tilt your head back
11:41 and let the ball roll down right onto your lips.
11:43 Level 21, Lemon's Mitch Around the World.
11:46 The Lemon's Mitch name comes from the creators
11:49 of two individual tricks with the techniques combined.
11:52 So a Lemon's Mitch Around the World
11:54 is a 2.5 revolution trick.
11:56 You jump off your left foot, you make the two revolutions.
11:59 That last revolution has to be a little bit quicker
12:02 because at the same time,
12:03 that left leg will come over the ball,
12:05 cross over the top, and then you pop the ball up.
12:07 This one is a little bit more complex
12:09 because it requires a lot more speed.
12:11 It requires a little bit more power in your jump
12:14 than say a Lemon's Around the World.
12:16 If you're trying to become a complete,
12:17 well-rounded freestyler,
12:18 learning all of the different four categories,
12:20 you would want to learn the basics of every category
12:23 before you start incorporating the higher difficulty tricks.
12:27 Things like anything above a two revolution trick
12:29 that require weeks and months of practice.
12:32 Level 22, Transitions.
12:34 Transition is any trick that will take you
12:37 from one category to another,
12:38 whether it's lowers to sit downs, sit downs to lowers.
12:42 So we briefly mentioned transition tricks before,
12:45 but we're putting it as level 22
12:47 because now you're starting to incorporate it fluidly
12:50 in the middle of a combo, not just at the end.
12:52 For this one, it would be a step over slap into sitting down.
12:56 You would go from a knee catch,
12:57 drop it like you're doing a crossed ankle catch,
12:59 but right away, you're going to roll the ball
13:02 up the back of your left leg, duck under the ball,
13:04 and then transition to sitting down.
13:06 There's really no set in stone number of transition tricks.
13:10 They are how everyone expresses their own personal style.
13:13 It is kind of the pinnacle of personal flair
13:17 when it comes to freestyle.
13:19 These advanced combos become a lot more complex
13:22 because you're taking out all of the unnecessary touches
13:25 and you're replacing them
13:26 with little bits of personal flares.
13:28 Level 23, acrobatic tricks.
13:36 These tricks are anything from like flips to handstands.
13:40 I used to be a gymnast,
13:41 so I incorporate a lot of gymnastic movements
13:43 into my tricks.
13:44 Flip tricks are anything like a kip up.
13:48 When you're laying on your back,
13:49 the ball is stalled in a sole stall,
13:51 roll back a little bit, push off of your hands,
13:54 kick up into a standing position.
13:56 Level 24 is my signature trick, cat flip.
13:58 It comes from rhythmic gymnastics.
14:00 You start with the ball in a neck stall
14:02 and you will kick up into a handstand.
14:04 The ball is still stalled on the back of your neck.
14:06 Flip your feet over your head into a back bend.
14:09 The ball is still caught between the back of your neck
14:12 and the lower part of your back.
14:14 From there, you'll stand up and drop it into a thigh catch.
14:17 (upbeat music)
14:19 Level 25, the final combo.
14:28 The point of the final combo is to fully express yourself.
14:32 It's really about taking all of the small techniques
14:36 that you can and incorporating as many as you possibly can.
14:39 You wanna do the big tricks,
14:40 the lemons mitched around the world, the transitions,
14:43 but what really creates the full combo
14:46 is the small style points that you add in between.
14:49 You don't wanna see a seam.
14:51 It's like when you create clothing,
14:52 you don't wanna see the seam of the clothing.
14:54 It's one fluid, almost dance routine.
14:57 (upbeat music)
15:00 The beauty of freestyle is that there's no limits to it.
15:09 We're constantly inventing new tricks,
15:11 more revolutions, more acrobatics, more unique tricks.
15:15 This challenge was so interesting to do
15:18 because it kind of felt like a very condensed journey
15:22 through all of my 10 years of freestyle,
15:25 but also it's making me re-examine freestyle
15:29 through the lens of someone just starting it all over again.
15:32 Now that I have all of these techniques,
15:34 now that I've incorporated my own personal style,
15:36 it's making me see how I can share that with you
15:39 and see what kind of freestylers we can create.
15:42 Take your time, be patient, and you'll get there.
15:44 (upbeat music)