Bike Polo Workshop

I suppose how long you want to hold this class for comes down to who your teaching. Will it be adults who have an interest in the sport or like 8 year olds who just want to be outside and run around? Also, i would try to hold the class for as long as the city will pay you for. Beginning drills I like to imagine would be watch you move with the ball, give them each their own ball and have them imitate, monkey see, monkey do. Here in Austin, Rob is working with the Boys and Girls club on a kids summer camp class and its cool to see other cities thinking along the same lines.

There is soooooooooo much you'd have to think about off the bat, but I think as long as you put the inexperienced players in with experienced players (i.e. 2 experienced players on both teams, and 1 inexperienced player with those two) , or give them a chance to watch experienced players have a solid game, they'll pick it up as they go along. make sure to time the games, and if there is a 0-0 score at the end, give them a 5 minute overtime and if it's still tied at the end of that, just call it off... worst thing to do is have newbies ride for 35 minutes, get overly tired, and probably injure themselves/others.

To start with: Give them a survey so you understand the riding skills/sports history/etc.of each person... 1(worst)-5(best), let's say someone has bmx'ed a bit, so they'll probably be at a 2-3 realm of riding skills. Arguably, nobody starts higher than 2-3( learning bike handling in terms of polo is always a challenge) but if you have someone who's around 1, you need to make sure to watch them so they don't ride straight into a wall.... then you might find it useful to relate to a sport like hockey, soccer, football, basketball so you can tell them "it's like a one timer in soccer/hockey, you pass to the guy and he takes a shot at the goal immediately" etc etc.

Best drills: While they are not on the bike, give them a ball and mallet and tell them to shuffle it to each other while in a circle, then do the same thing but with shot ends... this will help them realize they can use any side of the mallet at any point...but also that shuffling is really easy, and the open end is a bit harder. You can also use this exercise to do ball joints and show them the point of it and explain the rules for jointing. you can also take this exercise to the court and have the shuffle be the focus, etc.

you can also line up a ball and have them ride at it and try to shoot it into the net. remind them that a soft tap is sometimes easier and more accurate than a hard swing. this is where you can show examples of five hole shots, back door shots, etc. nobody really thinks about where they are shooting when they start, but it doesn't hurt to try and get that into their heads early.

My best tip is along these lines: Your bike and the ball have to be going at the same speed in order for you to play the game properly. if the ball is going faster than the bike, you're gonna lose it, and likewise, if your bike goes faster than the ball, you're probably gonna overshoot it.

safety first bro, get those bar ends capped, make sure they have their helmet, knee guards that extend over the shins will probably be useful as hell because pedal strikes/falling on my knees is all I remember from the first 6 months of trying to play polo. Also, I'd encourage a back brake only rule, since a front brake might cause endos and pain. (this is dependant on bike handling skills, I'd think a 3 would be fine...)

congrats nanaimo for being so badass. I hope this advice helps, print it out if you want. make sure to show them the fixcraft videos of various bike polo games (mr. do's videos are also extremely useful too, the helmet cam is nice to illustrate how a player thinks, except that one with chris robertson, who knows what he was thinking...)