All the time, I am thinking about what to COMMUNICATE to coaches and keepers to help them improve and how to THINK about the best techniques in the simplest way.
Two things this month involve this kind of communication:
Staying in the shot to the end
Basic stance (getting in it and getting in it again).
These are really related. As a coach you have to fight the keeper's belief system to have him/her progress to the higher levels. The more that the keepers think that they can't make the save the more the keeper will go into a BLOCKING stance (hands in, chest out, locked knees, etc.) instead of continuing to drive the hands and body at the BALL.
In working with good (not great) keepers, I have also found that many tend to try to read the shooter and some get pretty good at it. What I mean is that they try to determine where the ball is going by the motion that the shooter uses to shoot the ball. Then along comes a shooter that a) has a different motion or b) the shot is too close in to have time to read it. These keepers will also try to block shots (with body or stick with lots of rebounds) instead of saving the ball with their stick mesh)
The great keepers play the ball not the shooter. Thus, they can stay in the shot longer and get to more balls, after all it is the ball that is saved by the keeper. In order to do this the keeper must put all his/her focus on the ball (not the shooter, the moon or other distractions). And, the keeper must be in a stance that allows him/her to drive out to the ball to make the save.
There are two points here;
1) Getting in a good stance prior to the shot
