A Lacrosse Weekend 1.29.22
Welcome to "A Lacrosse Weekend" my weekly compilation of thoughts, ideas, stories, myths, truths, about the great game of lacrosse. I hope you enjoy it!
If you are a men's or women's lacrosse player, coach, or parent, I think you will love the weekly content, videos, and analysis
Phi-Lacrosse-ophy Podcast
Nick Myers, Head Coach The Ohio State University and I had an awesome unscripted lacrosse conversation that I think you will love! We talked about his two boys and the way he's trying to help them develop through a lot of back yard and driveway sports. Box lacrosse is a topic we discussed at length and on many different aspects of box lacrosse including why he likes to recruit Canadian defenders. We finish off the conversation talking about trends he's seeing in Division I lacrosse on both sides of the ball as well as a lot about PLL Head Coach Andy Towers and the Chaos offense. I hope you enjoy the Nick Myers Podcast!
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Spin Seals
First of all ,this is truly one of the sickest clips I've ever seen in my life! Randy Staats setting a "Spin Seal" for Lyle Thompson. Watch how Lyle reads the play and baits his defender with a hitch to get him to take a step out setting up his top side move. Then, when Lyle gets into space, he hard pumps a shot that literally turns the heads of defenders, makes the goalie jump and opens up his lane to the net.
One of the most interesting parts of this play though is the Randy Staats Spin Seal. Like in this clip, most defenders try not to let themselves get sealed by shading to stay outside of the seal. Just when the defender is feeling in good shape to not be sealed, Staats spins and, almost like a "Rip Move," uses his left arm to leverage himself into position to seal his man (Seal the switch) allowing Thompson a free topside shot or dodge.
I'm positive you couldn't get away with the kind of physicality Staats demonstrated in men's field lacrosse, but we started messing around with Spin Seals in pick up games in a way that I think would be legal in women's lacrosse. Tell me what you think? Pretty sick right?
Do Players Really Need Fundamentals Before Playing Games
I highly recommend this article written by Basketball Immersion's Alex Sarama! It is simply one of the best breakdowns of an Ecological Approach or Constraints Led Approach to learning I have ever read. If you are a coach you must open your mind and think this through! What if everything we have thought about teaching, coaching and development is wrong?
If you are a parent of an aspiring player, the lessons your kids are doing are a huge opportunity cost. Remember, you don't get redo's on the decisions you make for your kids and your team.
I have been on a journey of learning over the past four years that has been nothing short of incredible. Incredible for me as a coach. Incredible for the players who have engaged. Incredible in the joy, the relationships, as well as the results in terms of teams winning, kids committing, and overall improvement.
For years I endeavored to teach every variation of every skill and every concept in smart progressions: on air, then in small sided uneven, small sided all even and then in a full game situation. It seemed to work well. If you ever came to a practice you would be impressed with how well the kids could execute skills and drills.
The problem was even though they could do all these skills on command in in drills, there was not a reasonably good translation from practice to games.
I had just sold 3d Lacrosse and stepped down as the head coach at Mountain Vista HS and the timing was right for me to reflect. At the time my older two kids were headed off to play college lacrosse and my youngest was an aspiring 8th grader.
I started down the Free Play path with weekly 3x games. Then I met and did a podcast with Ted Kroeten from Joy of the People and his. knowledge blew my mind. Simultaneously I was training JM3 Athletes on Zoom calls and watching kids learn skills as solutions, solutions to problems the faced in real time in a pick up game.
And I witnessed much higher levels of translation of skills learned implicitly in the pick up games to real games.
Ted Kroeten told me about a soccer coach and out of the box thinking named Raymond Verheijen and this article resonated with me: "Isolated technique training slows down football development"
You cannot separate the skill from the decision and think you are working on a lacrosse game skill.
This non linear approach is very hard for some folks to wrap their heads around. I've had friends say that they can see their kids getting better right in front of their eyes in their lacrosse lessons where they're dodging cones, doing unopposed stick work or shooting at targets on empty nets.
Getting better at what?
I'm not saying kids or coaches should never do skill work, shoot, dodge cones, do wall ball on their own. What I'm saying is you should never choose isolated skill work over play. There is limitless upside in play.
What I see from Free Play is it teaches the things that can't be taught and can only be learned.
- Deception
- Poise, vision
- Anticipation
- Reading the defense
- Communication
- Off ball movement
These qualities can be presented and emphasized, but they cannot be taught. The stuff they teach in lessons anyone can do. And pretty much everyone can do. The stuff learned in Free Play anyone could do, but very few actually do.
Most folks aren't willing to change, but this is Darwinism, this is evolution, this way beyond lacrosse.
More JM3 Webinars
Register for A Season In A Box Webinar [CLICK HERE]
Register for the 4 Secrets Webinar [CLICK HERE]
Register for the Greatest Motion Offense Webinar [CLICK HERE]
Have a great weekend