Two Great Questions - I received these last month and thought I would share them with you;
GOALIEMAN: Regarding various techniques: It is clear to me that the commitment to being good is top on the list of successful goalie characteristics. Following four words;
are the real keys to high performance. Watch, ready, go and really doing that on 9 out of 10, 18 out of 20 or 27 of 30 shots on goal is how great goalies get to high save percentages. Goalies can make a save in about 1/5 second and shooters can shoot in about 1/5 second. Anything about your technique that makes you slower than 1/5 second means you give the shooter a BIG chance to score. With that as an introduction let me address your two questions. Regarding hand position - There are three ways to be fast with your hands;
To do #2 and #3 your wrists need to be at the back of the shaft (both wrists) AND (in answer to your question) your hands need to be one forearm apart (grab the stick with you top hand and place your forearm down the shaft and put your bottom hand just below that point) - this gives you the ability to fully rotate the stick in any direction while retaining the best reach/range to the corners. To do #1, the most productive of the three, your hand has to be at eye level to start (or you give away about 1/10 second), so you might want to reconsider your "low hands" position Regarding positioning on the pipe - if the keys to success are watch, ready and go and you are "standing tall" on the pipe then the shooter has to be just good enough to shoot around you. If you get into a full stance with hands up, knees bent and wide stance, now he has to a) get around your wider stance to see the far pipe and b) has to contend with your ability to make the save. So if you want to be a placard for him to shoot around, then stand tall, it works on the mediocre shooters, but to beat the good shooters you need to make the save while still shading to the pipe (so he has to go into the middle of the defense to shoot the far pipe and where defensive help is most of the time). Copyright Weston Lacrosse 2009 |
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