On coaching nine-year-old girls

They are different from nine-year-old boys. Here's a recent conversation I had with young Kimby, who is talented but who has not yet grasped the basic differences between the way an athlete moves on the field and the way someone who isn't an athlete moves (what in my youth we would have called the difference between "playing like a boy" and "playing like a girl"):

ME (trying to find a way to explain that Kimby should always be balanced on her toes, knees bent, muscles coiled, instead of standing straight up with her knees locked whenever she isn't actually trying to kick the ball): Look, Kimby, you've seen how dogs and cats move, right? You know how the dogs just sort of bounce around cheerfully without a thought in their heads [demonstrating with a prancing little poodle-ish straight-legged jaunt]? But cats -- [dropping into a ready stance] cats are always ready to pounce. Even when they're just walking through the room [I start prowling in circles around Kimby as if adjusting my position in a zone defence], they're always on the prowl. Well, you have to be like a cat, not a dog; you have to always be ready. That ball is like a mouse, and you never know when it's going to pop out from the other girls unexpectedly and suddenly you could be open for just a moment, and when that happens you have to be ready to pounce right then. Or else some other girl will get there first and you've lost your chance. So, you have to always be on the prowl, like a cat, almost like your tail is always twitching. Do you see what I mean?

KIMBY [seriously and somewhat disconsolately]: But I don't like cats.