We use cardboard as well. We have a long piece of furniture cardboard and another small piece of cardboard on top. Works great! They actually land on the top of the small piece which lowers resistance and produces a good feel for the slide.
We also used this for learning head first sliding. My girls are 9 so I stress that they can only slide back to the bag and not into the bag at this point. To many girls covering bases stand right on the base at this age, and I don't want to carry all of that speed into the bag leading to a neck injury. With that being said here's how the head first sliding process goes:
1. Start with your knees and feet on the grass, and place your hands on the small piece of cardboard (on top of the long piece).
2. Now push out with your hands to full extension to get the feel.
3. Next, start in the same position but lift your knees off of the ground, and push with your feet while pushing with your hands to full extension.
4. Next, in same position as above push as hard as you can and see how for you can go. We made a contest of this.
5. Next, start from a base running (leadoff) position and yell "BACK" for the full experience.
I did this with my 8 year old rec ball team last season and though they were very afraid to start they all ended up loving it. When I decided to give this a shot my coaches thought I was crazy and frankly so did I! I told my coaches "we will give this a shot, but there is no way this is going to work at this age". To my surprise, with the above process, most got it the first day and the rest the next day. I even had the siblings of all ages and parents joining in and making a game of it. Did it once a week after practice as my go to tool. If they were horsing off too much no sliding. Worked great. They even wanted to do it during games when nobody was on the bases behind them just to get dirty. Good thing is that they get a lot more confidence with bigger leads knowing they could get back quick, and younger girls always tag up not down. The result better base running with less force outs and more stolen bases.
We also used this for learning head first sliding. My girls are 9 so I stress that they can only slide back to the bag and not into the bag at this point. To many girls covering bases stand right on the base at this age, and I don't want to carry all of that speed into the bag leading to a neck injury. With that being said here's how the head first sliding process goes:
1. Start with your knees and feet on the grass, and place your hands on the small piece of cardboard (on top of the long piece).
2. Now push out with your hands to full extension to get the feel.
3. Next, start in the same position but lift your knees off of the ground, and push with your feet while pushing with your hands to full extension.
4. Next, in same position as above push as hard as you can and see how for you can go. We made a contest of this.
5. Next, start from a base running (leadoff) position and yell "BACK" for the full experience.
I did this with my 8 year old rec ball team last season and though they were very afraid to start they all ended up loving it. When I decided to give this a shot my coaches thought I was crazy and frankly so did I! I told my coaches "we will give this a shot, but there is no way this is going to work at this age". To my surprise, with the above process, most got it the first day and the rest the next day. I even had the siblings of all ages and parents joining in and making a game of it. Did it once a week after practice as my go to tool. If they were horsing off too much no sliding. Worked great. They even wanted to do it during games when nobody was on the bases behind them just to get dirty. Good thing is that they get a lot more confidence with bigger leads knowing they could get back quick, and younger girls always tag up not down. The result better base running with less force outs and more stolen bases.
