Help With Inside Shots and Fakes. What Do I Do on One on One's?

Question: I am a Boy that is a laccrose goalie. I play for my school and am pretty good at the sport. It is good to be a goalie in my school because no body else has the balls to step up. My season has just started and i have played for about 2 hard-worked years. At first when i had played, i had an extreme case of beginers luck and continued to have it. The one faithful day came when i actually started to worry about what i was doing, and the luck faded. Know here are the following problems.

1) My Coach is (with all due respect) inexperienced and a little too nonchalant in the intrigue of the sport.

2)As Mr. Bobby said earlier, he had diffuculty with those outsid shots. I am the polar opposite, and shot within 5 feet away from the crease is a garunteed stop. (seriously). but my leauge has a stellar amount of creasers. Unfortunately i cannot percieve balls being thrown at mefrom two feet away. Goal after goal, i grew tired of those creasers, so i would completely mess them up, tuck them, lay them out. However sometimes they managed to draw a fowl.

The Question (finnally): What can i do to focus a little more on the ball and not fall for the fakes and aviod things like between the legs or extremely hard shots from shorts distance way.

Question 2: Because of the lack of adivse from my coach, what can you tell me about generally being a goalie (just incase i missed something)

I can understand if it takes you a while to respond, thanks for your imput. :)

Answer: John, you're brain is getting in the way of what your body knows it can do. That is why you "started to worry, and the luck faded." It wasn't luck. It was just your body reacting to the ball. Once you started to think about it you screwed things up. Have some faith in yourself and your abilities and get back in the cage and don't worry. Worry is a waste of energy. It's a useless thing to do.

You're not alone on the coaches thing. Many coaches are just there to take up space and babysit. But you want to learn. That's why you're here. You can be good with a bad coach. Just focus on your own game.

Not falling for fakes comes with experience, and patience. You really need to have someone who can work with you on stopping fakes. Your goal is to keep your balance, respect the opponents stick with your stick but don't commit the body too soon. Most goalie fall for the first fake and are totally out of position. You don't need to do that. Also, if you're team is bad and the attack man is faking you three or four times before he shoots, you're not supposed to stop those. If you do it's a bonus but where is the defense? One, two fakes and a shot is understandable. You can get some of those. But if he's standing there with all sorts of time, forget it. You need some better defense.

The best advice I can give you for information is to get as much info as you can. Read everything on my blog. Sign up for the forum. And get some instructional videos from ChampionshipProduction.com They've got some great videos that can help. Other than that you want to stay positive. There is no good or bad in the cage. There are just learning experiences.

Good luck and kick butt.

Jonathan - The Goalie Guru
www.lacrossegoaltending.blogspot.com
www.lacrossegoaltendingforum.com