Bored at home due to the coronavirus pandemic with a flat basketball in the garage somewhere?
Well, pump it up and check out DNA Basketball Hawaii on Instagram.
There, DNA club director Daphne Honma has posted challenges such as dribbling and passing, which recently concluded.
There are easy-to-follow videos for learning the fundamental basics while having a ton of fun.
When the coronavirus pandemic hit, Honma’s personal contact with her players stopped but not her teaching.
“I was thinking what are we going to do?” she said. “It made me think about our kids and physical activity. I thought we’d make a challenge every day.
“The Golden State Warriors had a one-hour clinic for kids. That’s interesting but ours is not that long. We could work on fundamental skills and think outside the box, how to do it with technology.”
Technology is so easy for the youngsters who don’t need an instruction manual to figure things out.
But for the older generation, born when there were rotary phones, it’s no piece of cake.
“To put emojis and stickers and learn how to post and type with no video took me hours,” Honma said. “Now I can post in 15 minutes.”
Let that be a lesson to the young whippersnappers: You can teach an old dog new tricks.
Not that Honma is old or incapable. She’s really good at teaching technical stuff, especially the passing drills. But not everyone is interested.
In one video, she uses a tennis ball for her passing drills and her dog looks on with mild disinterest. Sometimes, chill trumps chase ball in a canine’s world.
There are about 20 players, from ages 8 to 14 years old, who post pictures or videos on IG.
“It’s been a fun process. It’s something to incorporate after the whole thing is over,” she said. “It’s a fun thing to do. We could do once a week or once a month. At the end, we could make a slide show.
“We’ve got about 10 kids who are consistent, and the other 10 are off and on. It’s been hit or miss. I know the high school kids look at it and comment. But they don’t post. I’m not going to post it to the world. They never turn it in.”
The best part has been parent involvement. In the passing drills, a partner was required and parents jumped in.
“Last week was the passing challenge, and you had to have a partner,” she said. “It was cool that a lot of parents got involved. I was happy about that,” Honma said. “To have the parents be a part of it was pretty awesome.”
As a hoops enthusiast, she thinks the NBA season could be in doubt. So until then, grab a basketball and hit up DNA’s IG. That sure beats eating potato chips on the couch.
