i am also new to the game. i am 6months in, but i was a pretty serious bowling during my teen years and had a good coaching type mentality. i use my competitive, mental strength, and stiff training aspects of bowling to my foosball training. My problem, which im guessing is the same as yours is that my area is foosballless! i have 1 bar with 1 crap table
within an hour drive. LOL my friends....(who introduced me in) are "speed ball" type players. although they are good at what they do(cream the **** out of the ball till it goes in, and strong D), it doesn't help my game all that much to play with them. and they refuse to play with a pin able ball!!! Soo, i went and bought 7red tornado balls and a crap harvard table to learn the basics by myself. i figured id reach a plateau of learning soon enough playing alone mainly, but that has yet to be the case, and im pretty sure im good for another 100% increase in my game in the upcoming 4-6 months. imo u should always be able to increase ur game practicing alone(at least in foosball)!
my progression went something like this:
At first i learned an offensive shot, because who don't play games or sports for the offensive aspects of it? although if it weren't just a game id say learn to pass and ball control first because they are more important to learn over shooting, and the abilities u will learn can and will be applied in shooting! but for starters Learn to shoot, this will keep a player interested at least at first. I learned snake because of its ease to learn(physically) and its phenomenal speed. having and executing options is a whole other story, but with repetition and smarts u can have a noob killing snake in ... idk ur 1st 5hrsish of solo practice. The difficulty of ur practice will determine ur results.
Even if u 5 minutes to practice every once in a while it can still be productive across time. You can take shots from any bar of ur choice, a bunch of passes, or a little of both. What I do is I always practice from back to front. ill move the other teams 3&5bar and push them dead against the far wall if im practicing near wall series, the space remaining on the near wall is all the space the opposing figures can guard! Now i choice a D, I usually guard the middle 1/3 of the goal and have the out side 2/3's open and bungee the opposing goalie rods. now with all the opposing teams men in place ill chuck the ball into my D area -capture then play from back to front. I try to practice forwarding the ball as fast as I can speed wise id suggest controlling the ball on the rod as long as legally allotted to simulate real play. If I feel one of my forwarding passes wasn't as aggressive as it could have been I reset the ball in my goal area then try it again with more effort. Make ur shot a reward for good passes. Like they say "you should be able to make all ur passes and shots W/ ease!" and what good is a shot if u cant even get the ball up front? this way i have a nice round game. If u wana sharpen a specific rod or shot then practice it separately. only shooting or only passing can hurt the other side of the game if ur to heavy in 1 aspect. but if u have a weaker rod it will get weeded out if u practice from back to front because ull just keep dropping the ball on that rod. lol i used to keep score on myself, if i dropped the ball it was a score for the other team lol. if u cant forward the ball all the way up front with the guys out of the way 10/19 time then u lost given u can hit the outside holes 100% of the time on a stationary D, which will also get weeded out across time this way. It shouldnt take long before u can 10-3, 10-1, 10 straight successful forwards .
when u get to a live D understand the range of the opposing men on that rod and ur chances of forwarding the ball to the next rod. remember he can only be watching 1 guy and he can only move 1 direction during ur pass, but u can go 2 ways up or down. I am learning now to use the overlapping areas as options, its nice to throw the attention of the D to a different man to guard with. but id say in general u should have more then a 50/50 chance to forward the ball (as my dad would say) the opponent will either be there, or he/ or she wont be. If ur continuously getting bricked on ur 2b-5b passes then u may need more or better options. so long as ur not being predictable in any way ur odds of 2b-5b pass are huge given the amount of rod the opposing 3b man has to cover vs ur brush up, brush down, or stick pass. The 5b id say is the bottle neck, the opposing 5b is equal in man coverage and range to move, so once again play the odds, either the D will be there or not, but ive found with the beauty of brush passing and using time to ur advantage guessing when and where the 5b pass is going is tough stuff! so another 50/50 chance but thats where the fun is.
now on to my shooting mentality. Very 1st thing after gaining control of the ball on the 3b is I check my D and position them in auto stuff position (mostly forward) center or corner D, then i set the ball center stage, take a breath and get comfortable, doing this EVERY TIME is important, shows discipline and will separate u from the others. most just blow away the time with a quick shot anyhow but ur D will be ready for there quick fire home if u miss ur shot. by now more then 3seconds(1/5th ur time) has gone by but lets say that that 15-3seconds leaves u 12 seconds(4/5ths ur time) to shoot. Now being as i always practice on a stationary D i need to recognize that and take it into consideration when choosing a shot on a live D. i shoot a front pin now so ill set up center front pin, what ever the D is doing it doesn't matter because im looking to play my game, not to play the D's game as he baits holes(tiring themselves out
) . At this point its a mental game! no matter what they cant cover the whole goal, using time again to ur advantage, i figure if u use 50% of ur remaining time(6seconds) before making a move for ur hole ull have a better analysis of the holes that are open and 2/5th's time left (6seconds) to hit it, i don't suggest getting much closer to the limit to leave time for error or to call time out. i suggest using timeouts to extend time looking for hole while shooting mostly, but im sure stuff will come up where u gotta use a time out pre 3b but anyhow. Ill count to 7ish in my head...TRUSTING my shot is faster then race able to both far and near side and no tells, after the 10ish second mark on ur shot the D should loosen then burst to the hole! then fluctuate the length of times u use(5,9,3,10seconds), id use the faster times later in the match because u have already analyzed the D at least a little, and its better then taking fast shots early on a D that unsure of. after u have taken 3 or more shots, if u think u can hit a fast 5b-3b smokin fast push/pull kick why not try? the D most likely has u tagged as a patient, long set up time type shooter they might at that point be vulnerable to a fast shot. id figure a D would be more focused on fast shot ur first few times up field, but after u train them with a few 10second + shots maybe they wont be ready. same applies with passing. A big difference between the best and everyone else is the time they take to advance and readjusting their rear. being strict on checking ur defense as u advance no matter ur level of skill is a strong discipline with not much off ur back.
continue ur internet research continuously on which ever ability it is ur working on always(or until mastered)!!! keep watching different pro's, see how each is different and which style interests u most and use that as a base. u can trust that they are the best for a reason, and mostly everything they do has been calculated and proven to be the most effective. So while on it, id say from what I've googled Frederic Collignon seems to be the best overall player(imo), so id use his tactics as a base or whoever u like. but not law! u would be amazed what u might learn from other ppl that are not ur base. this week i picked up angle toe passes which are a great compliment to my front pin mixed with varying my time taping around the goal front u can just angle tap pull/ push kick with great speed and unexpected because ur always tapping around the goal area while fishing for ur shot anyhow, but i learned that from some random video on google nobody specific. to close id say zeke's videos are the best ive found to learn from so far, they are in the video section on this sight if u havent come across them yet.
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