The 16's Drill is a good warmup drill that takes 5-8 minutes depending on tempo and adds up to 1504 total strikes.
Step 1 - counting groups of 16 hits
For approximately 5 minutes, strike 16 hits R followed by 16 hits L.
Step 2 - "inbetween" hits
Practice the four key sets of inbetween hits.
- 1-&-2---3---4---
- 1-&-2-&-3---4---
- 1-&-2-&-3-&-4---
- 1-&-2-&-3-&-4-&-
Step 3 - full drill
one set = 16 R, 16 L, 16 R, 16L
Starting with no "inbetween" hits, add one inbetween after another until 15 inbetweens.
Related Challenges
- "Slap Happy": to teach the sticking to beginning players, have two students face each other and clap the patterns. Fun and clear!
- "Pass the Buck" game: one player gives the next a challenge number and a leading hand ("left" or "right"), for example, "7 inbetweens, left". The receiving player must play that perfectly before they give the next person another challenge.
- Ladders
-- "Ladders" helps practice counting in sets of 4. For example, "5 inbetweens" is related to "1 inbetween" because it is counted "1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 1 & 2 3 4...". The following sets are useful.
- Ladder of Ladders
-- 1-R, 5-L, 9-R, 13-L, 13-R, 9-L, 5-R, 1-L
-- 2-R, 6-L, 10-R, 14-L, 14-R, 10-L, 6-R, 2-L
-- 3-R, 7-L, 11-R, 15-L, 15-R, 11-L, 7-R, 3-L
Remaining questions
Q - How long until a new player can focus on the fundamentals (grip, R elbow, etc) without having to worry so much about the structure?
A - 10x through drill or 3 months?