Question:
Coach I've got 4 weeks untill conditioning starts. i'm in eighth grade and I'm not that great a goalie. What can I do to get ready. Any tips, drills, suggestions would be appreciated.
Answer:
Matt my best advice is to get a stick in your handa a soon as possible.
Now I'm not sure if you've played lacrosse before. But whether you have or haven't my advice will still be the same.
1) Get a goalie stick in your hand and start throwing. Throw every day. I don't care if it's cold out, find a wall and start throwing. You need to get your confidence up and getting your stick skills better will help.
2) Start working out to get your body in shape. If your body is in shape your mind will be as well. You'll feel more confident and you'll play better.
3) Read everything you can here and on my blog at www.lacrossegoaltending.blogspot.com Read everything you can on goaltending. This will give you a chance
4) If you can, have a buddy shoot on you daily. This might be difficult I know but it's better than nothing. Have him take twenty shots in a row to a spot on the cage. Work on moving properly to he ball. Have him shootall those shots in a row, you're trying to work on seeing the ball and moving properly. You'll have plenty of time and shots later but if you can do this on thing even once a week it will help.
5) Get plenty of equipment to protect you. This is a very important step. It's important you are protected so make sure you have the right equipment before they throw you to the wolves in practice.
Hope that helps Matt. Email me if you've got any more questions at jone94@shaw.ca
Good luck!
Jonathan Edwards
www.LacrosseGoaltending.blogspot.com
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Freshman Daughter Trying Out For The Varsity. Any Advice?
Question:
Jonathan,
My daughter is a freshman in high school she will be trying out for the Varsity in the spring. Can you help me with some drills to sharpen her skills? My son plays middie and shoots on her, but anything that you have would be great.
Thanks,
Answer:
Thanks for the email and congrats to your daughter for taking up the best position in the game.
Two major things that will help her:
One: Build her confidence. With a brother shooting on her the potential for her to get stung by a few balls is very high. This can lead to fear of the ball which will destroy a lot of her learning curve. Make sure he shoots from far enough away but is accurate with his shots. He's going to want to come in and fake and shoot, but I'd rather see him back up and pick the corners. It's great for him to work on his accuracy and it's awesome for her.
Two: Make sure she knows where the ball is going before he shoots it. This is imperative for the learning goalie. If you've read some of my posts at AllExperts.com and my blog www.lacrossegoaltending.blogspot.com I'm sure you've heard me explain this. If not I'll explain again: For the new goalie there is a ton of things going through her mind. First: Where is the ball going? How am I going to move to the ball to make the save? Is it going to hurt? By letting her know where the ball is going, and by making sure the shooter is a safe distance she can focus on moving properly to the ball. What we are trying to do is wire her like we would wire a computer. Ball-goes-high-stick-side-enter. Goalie responds with the program to save that ball. What can happen with a new goalie is if there is too much input the system will not respond properly. If we can limit the amount of input the chances for the output to be correct goes up. Does that make sense?
The question is always: But in a game she won't know where the ball is going until the shot is taken and the shooters don't tell her where the ball is going to go? That is completely true. But our goal here is to give her he best chance to save that ball in the game and by doing that we are trying to wire her body to make the right response in the game. In the game her eyes will see where the ball is going and her body will do the thing it has been programmed to do in practice. It is an amazing thing to see when a young goalie gets it.
Three: I think this is three, I made a bunch of points in that last one. Ok, here it is...get her in a weight room with a strength and conditioning coach and possibly one who can teach her the Olympic lifts. If you remember high school physics at all you may remember the Force equation? Force equals mass multiplied by velocity. So in this case the mass she needs to move is the stick. Velocity is actually distance divided by time. So the more force she can apply to the stick, and to her body the faster that stick will move over a certain distance? Make sense? The stronger she is physically the faster she will be able to move.
Most young goalies can see the ball coming at them. And they know how they need to move, they just don't always move fast enough. The stronger she is the faster she will move. The faster she moves the more balls she saves. The more balls she saves the more her confidence goes up. The more confidence she has the more relaxed she is in the cage. And the more relaxed she is the more she can focus on the ball and make even more saves. It's a pretty cool process and an empowering one for all goalies. (And especially with the girls.)
I'm not sure where you are in the country but if you let me know where you are I may be able to put you in touch with someone, or at least give you some guidelines.
Building her strength also has a ton of benefits off the field as well. Stronger body. Stronger mind. Empowered athlete. Empowered person. It's pretty cool.
As far as specific drills go my biggest recommendation is to spend time moving to the ball properly. You do this by first having her make saves without a ball. Just have her move to a space. I don't have enough space here to go over how to move to every save. You may already have an understanding of that, if you don't just email me back. I'm working on an ebook and I'll send you that chapter as soon as I get it completed.
By having her visualize a ball coming at her, and then her moving properly she can train her body to move without the stress of getting hit with the ball or the ball going by her. The goal here is to have her perfect moving properly and then her body knows what to do when she finally gets in front of the ball. If she spends a couple minutes a day doing that she will be miles ahead of all the other goalies who never do it.
My other suggestion for drills is to pick one shot and work on that shot for ten minutes. Don't try to hit everything in the same session. Maybe its a shooter sweeping around the front of the cage from right to left and then shooting at her feet. Have her focus on taking small steps to follow the shooter and then exploding down to the ball and making the save. Hands out in front. Head and chest over the ball. Then in another session you can work on something else. Maybe a shot in close. It's endless what you can do really.
Ken I hope this gives you some ideas to start with. Any drill will help her as long as you follow the principles I've given you. On the other hand every drill if done impoperly will destroy her confidence and stifle her progress and potentially lead her to quit. I don't ever want to see that happen.
Please feel free to email me with more questions. I'd love to know how things go and how your daughter is improving. It's great to get the feedback. If you have anything else just let me know.
Have a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year.
All the best,
Jonathan Edwards - Olympian
www.LacrosseGoaltending.blogspot.com
Jonathan,
My daughter is a freshman in high school she will be trying out for the Varsity in the spring. Can you help me with some drills to sharpen her skills? My son plays middie and shoots on her, but anything that you have would be great.
Thanks,
Answer:
Thanks for the email and congrats to your daughter for taking up the best position in the game.
Two major things that will help her:
One: Build her confidence. With a brother shooting on her the potential for her to get stung by a few balls is very high. This can lead to fear of the ball which will destroy a lot of her learning curve. Make sure he shoots from far enough away but is accurate with his shots. He's going to want to come in and fake and shoot, but I'd rather see him back up and pick the corners. It's great for him to work on his accuracy and it's awesome for her.
Two: Make sure she knows where the ball is going before he shoots it. This is imperative for the learning goalie. If you've read some of my posts at AllExperts.com and my blog www.lacrossegoaltending.blogspot.com I'm sure you've heard me explain this. If not I'll explain again: For the new goalie there is a ton of things going through her mind. First: Where is the ball going? How am I going to move to the ball to make the save? Is it going to hurt? By letting her know where the ball is going, and by making sure the shooter is a safe distance she can focus on moving properly to the ball. What we are trying to do is wire her like we would wire a computer. Ball-goes-high-stick-side-enter. Goalie responds with the program to save that ball. What can happen with a new goalie is if there is too much input the system will not respond properly. If we can limit the amount of input the chances for the output to be correct goes up. Does that make sense?
The question is always: But in a game she won't know where the ball is going until the shot is taken and the shooters don't tell her where the ball is going to go? That is completely true. But our goal here is to give her he best chance to save that ball in the game and by doing that we are trying to wire her body to make the right response in the game. In the game her eyes will see where the ball is going and her body will do the thing it has been programmed to do in practice. It is an amazing thing to see when a young goalie gets it.
Three: I think this is three, I made a bunch of points in that last one. Ok, here it is...get her in a weight room with a strength and conditioning coach and possibly one who can teach her the Olympic lifts. If you remember high school physics at all you may remember the Force equation? Force equals mass multiplied by velocity. So in this case the mass she needs to move is the stick. Velocity is actually distance divided by time. So the more force she can apply to the stick, and to her body the faster that stick will move over a certain distance? Make sense? The stronger she is physically the faster she will be able to move.
Most young goalies can see the ball coming at them. And they know how they need to move, they just don't always move fast enough. The stronger she is the faster she will move. The faster she moves the more balls she saves. The more balls she saves the more her confidence goes up. The more confidence she has the more relaxed she is in the cage. And the more relaxed she is the more she can focus on the ball and make even more saves. It's a pretty cool process and an empowering one for all goalies. (And especially with the girls.)
I'm not sure where you are in the country but if you let me know where you are I may be able to put you in touch with someone, or at least give you some guidelines.
Building her strength also has a ton of benefits off the field as well. Stronger body. Stronger mind. Empowered athlete. Empowered person. It's pretty cool.
As far as specific drills go my biggest recommendation is to spend time moving to the ball properly. You do this by first having her make saves without a ball. Just have her move to a space. I don't have enough space here to go over how to move to every save. You may already have an understanding of that, if you don't just email me back. I'm working on an ebook and I'll send you that chapter as soon as I get it completed.
By having her visualize a ball coming at her, and then her moving properly she can train her body to move without the stress of getting hit with the ball or the ball going by her. The goal here is to have her perfect moving properly and then her body knows what to do when she finally gets in front of the ball. If she spends a couple minutes a day doing that she will be miles ahead of all the other goalies who never do it.
My other suggestion for drills is to pick one shot and work on that shot for ten minutes. Don't try to hit everything in the same session. Maybe its a shooter sweeping around the front of the cage from right to left and then shooting at her feet. Have her focus on taking small steps to follow the shooter and then exploding down to the ball and making the save. Hands out in front. Head and chest over the ball. Then in another session you can work on something else. Maybe a shot in close. It's endless what you can do really.
Ken I hope this gives you some ideas to start with. Any drill will help her as long as you follow the principles I've given you. On the other hand every drill if done impoperly will destroy her confidence and stifle her progress and potentially lead her to quit. I don't ever want to see that happen.
Please feel free to email me with more questions. I'd love to know how things go and how your daughter is improving. It's great to get the feedback. If you have anything else just let me know.
Have a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year.
All the best,
Jonathan Edwards - Olympian
www.LacrosseGoaltending.blogspot.com
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
First Shots of the Season Come Hard And Fast, Saves Are a Bit Slow. Why?
Hey Jonathon,
My name is (name witheld) and I'm a freshmen in high school and playing lacrosse. i had practice today and didn't do so hot so i looked up some goalie tips and your name came up, i hope this isn't a problem.
I'm currently playing indoor Lax but in the spring I'll be playing field. I played great and got MVP in middle school but right now in pre-season for high school I'm noticing that if i get the save it's usually lucky and off my body not my stick. I know the main thing i need is just more practice but i thought if you had any great tips that could help me out that would be great, especially things for help with the bounce shots.
Thank you and i hope we can keep in touch,
(Name witheld)
Answer: Hey there man. Thanks for emailing. Not a problem, that's why I'm here.
Couple things,
It's early. You're going to have a little rust. Your box season should have helped you with keeping your eye on the ball unless you got into a bad habit. That habit can be taking your eye off the ball.
I haven't played box lacrosse as a goalie but I am a hockey goalie. They are very similar and what I find happening is that I tend to rely on my equipment more to make the save instead of my hands which is what we need in field. Couple of thoughts...really try to focus on seeing the ball all the way into your stick. Work on this especially when you are passing with a friend or just goofing around. It's really important and I can't stress it enough. What tends to happen is that we get comfortable and don't really realize that our eyes are seeing the shot leave the stick and then we zone out a little bit and then catch it. But along the way our eyes aren't really tuned in and therefore our hands aren't either.
It's also High School. The shots are probably coming a bit faster because everyone is just a bit bigger and stronger than they were in the middle school. So with that your reaction times that you had last year are not up to speed with these new shots. Take some time alone to visualize the shots coming at you about ten percent faster than normal. Get your mind ready and your body will follow. Work on visualizing yourself making the saves to these faster shots. What you'll find is that less of the balls will hit you, or go by you, and you'll start making those saves again that you found easy last season.
As far as bounce shots. Keep these things in mind: Get your hands out to the ball. Most goalies tend to suck their hands into their body and their chest tends to be up and out. You want to get your hands out to the ball and your chest over the ball. This will help especially if you're on an uneven playing surface like grass. If it's wet out remember that the ball tends to hit the turf and slide. It doesn't come up as far so you'll want to really get your stick down.
Take a digital camera and have your friend take a photo of what you look like from the balls perspective. Have your friend hold the camera where the ball would bounce and snap a shot. You'll see exactly the holes where the ball can go through you and you'll know just how badly you need to get down to the ball.
Stay with it man. It will come. You've just got to get used to the pace. If you need to throw on some extra quipment until you catch up do it. No sense getting pegged with the ball and having your confidence blown and then creating a whole bunch of other bad habits because of it.
My name is (name witheld) and I'm a freshmen in high school and playing lacrosse. i had practice today and didn't do so hot so i looked up some goalie tips and your name came up, i hope this isn't a problem.
I'm currently playing indoor Lax but in the spring I'll be playing field. I played great and got MVP in middle school but right now in pre-season for high school I'm noticing that if i get the save it's usually lucky and off my body not my stick. I know the main thing i need is just more practice but i thought if you had any great tips that could help me out that would be great, especially things for help with the bounce shots.
Thank you and i hope we can keep in touch,
(Name witheld)
Answer: Hey there man. Thanks for emailing. Not a problem, that's why I'm here.
Couple things,
It's early. You're going to have a little rust. Your box season should have helped you with keeping your eye on the ball unless you got into a bad habit. That habit can be taking your eye off the ball.
I haven't played box lacrosse as a goalie but I am a hockey goalie. They are very similar and what I find happening is that I tend to rely on my equipment more to make the save instead of my hands which is what we need in field. Couple of thoughts...really try to focus on seeing the ball all the way into your stick. Work on this especially when you are passing with a friend or just goofing around. It's really important and I can't stress it enough. What tends to happen is that we get comfortable and don't really realize that our eyes are seeing the shot leave the stick and then we zone out a little bit and then catch it. But along the way our eyes aren't really tuned in and therefore our hands aren't either.
It's also High School. The shots are probably coming a bit faster because everyone is just a bit bigger and stronger than they were in the middle school. So with that your reaction times that you had last year are not up to speed with these new shots. Take some time alone to visualize the shots coming at you about ten percent faster than normal. Get your mind ready and your body will follow. Work on visualizing yourself making the saves to these faster shots. What you'll find is that less of the balls will hit you, or go by you, and you'll start making those saves again that you found easy last season.
As far as bounce shots. Keep these things in mind: Get your hands out to the ball. Most goalies tend to suck their hands into their body and their chest tends to be up and out. You want to get your hands out to the ball and your chest over the ball. This will help especially if you're on an uneven playing surface like grass. If it's wet out remember that the ball tends to hit the turf and slide. It doesn't come up as far so you'll want to really get your stick down.
Take a digital camera and have your friend take a photo of what you look like from the balls perspective. Have your friend hold the camera where the ball would bounce and snap a shot. You'll see exactly the holes where the ball can go through you and you'll know just how badly you need to get down to the ball.
Stay with it man. It will come. You've just got to get used to the pace. If you need to throw on some extra quipment until you catch up do it. No sense getting pegged with the ball and having your confidence blown and then creating a whole bunch of other bad habits because of it.
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