How to Learn to Dribble a Basketball

Dribbling is a core skill in the game of basketball. As effortless as it looks for the experienced player, it is actually the result of learning the proper method and practicing for many years. In this article I will focus on stationary dribbling, which must be mastered before advancing to higher level dribbling skills.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Basketball
• Hard surface

1. Warm up your hands and increase the tactility of your fingertips by slapping the basketball with alternating hands for about 15 seconds.

2. Put your feet shoulder width apart.

3. Determine what hand you will dribble with first. If you choose right handed, put your left foot about 6 inches in front of you. Your right leg should be 6 inches back (or about 12 inches behind your left foot). Do the opposite if you choose your left hand.

4. Bend at your knees, be on the balls of your feet and keep your back straight. You should be in a very strong position and it should be difficult for someone to push you over.

5. Keep your head up; by focusing on keeping your chin up you insure that your head is in the proper position.

6. Hold the basketball with both hands.

7. Drop the ball to the floor and wait for it to bounce back up to you.

8. Extend your arm down so your wrist is at knee level just outside your right knee.

9. Your palm and fingers should be facing the floor with your hand slightly cupped.

10. As the ball reaches your knee level, make contact with just the last section of the fingers of your right hand. Transferring the strength from your forearm to your wrist, rotate your wrist downward to push the ball back to the floor.

11. When the ball comes back up to knee level, repeat the wrist movement while contacting the ball with your fingertips.

12. Continue this process while maintaining the proper body position described above. For beginners, you may need to watch the ball for the first few times you do it, but then you need to focus on keeping your head up and feel for the ball.

13. Switch to your other hand and shift your body accordingly.

Tips & Warnings

• If you want to make sure you are doing it correctly, rub dirt all over your basketball and dribble--if the dirt only appears on your fingertips, you are doing it correctly.
• Be sure to master stationary dribbling before proceeding to more advanced dribbling. You will see that when you are speed dribbling, the ball will come higher than your knee.