Question:
Answer: Just get in there and start playing! You need to improve your belief in yourself. That will take care of the ball stopping ability which should take care of the fear. Go read all of my posts on my blog at www.lacrossegoaltending.blogspot.com there is a ton of info there to help you.
Just a thought too that I’ve noticed when I took to female goalies. Part of the “fear” of the ball is wrapped up in a fear of not letting your teammates down. I may be totally in left field making this comment about you but let me just share it with you. You can decide if it’s appropriate.
Last year I was emailing a female goalie who had this subtle pressure in her head because she didn’t want to let in a bad goal and let her teammates down. As we talked it was obvious that was the main reason she had trouble at all.
If you have a real fear about the ball, getting hit, injured etc then you need to have your shooters step back for a while until you get your game back up to speed. Have them shoot at full speed just have them shoot from a long ways away so you have plenty of time to react to the ball and move to it. Don’t take any bounce shots for a while because they tend to cause the most pain. You can also wear extra equipment. I will wear thin football pants and pads under my rather baggy shorts and people can’t even tell I’m wearing them. Just make sure you’ve got enough protection on so you can focus on stopping the ball. It’s hard enough trying to stop that thing without the “oh-my-god-this-is-gonna-hurt-if-it-hits-me-feeling” happening in your brain.
Hope that helps . Just get back in the cage. Have fun with it. Get fit. Get in shape, that always helps as well. That fear will go away pretty quickly if you believe that you will be a great goalie this season. Stay positive. Fill your mind with good thoughts and good things will happen. And finally, spend a lot of time thinking about how you played when you were in the cage. Think of the good things you did. Focus on the positive and you will repeat positive actions.
And finally…kick butt!
Jonathan – The Goalie Guru
Guru –
What about that Subtle Feeling of letting the teamates down… how did she deal with that?
Hey Jillian. My response to this one is that lacrosse is a team game. I had a coach who told me once, “If your team was so damned good they wouldn’t NEED A GOALIE!”
That being said there are a couple of things to keep in mind: You wouldn’t ask a girl to score a goal if she was shooting from a distance outside her strength and accuracy levels right? So with that in mind you can’t ask a goalie to stop shots that are not in her range either.
As a goalie we can only be expected to stop shots within our range. If your team is giving up one on one’s inside five yards you can’t be expected to stop them all.
But if you want to be hard on yourself it’s your goal to push yourself every day. You will have one’s you let in that you think you should have had. That’s ok. You just need to be honest with yourself.
I’m a pretty emotional guy and when I was younger I felt like I was letting my team down by letting in bad goals. Not every goal. There is a difference. As I got older I understood more about my game and the shots I could save and the ones that were outside of my ability. All I tried to do was come into the next practice and work on those shots that I let in and get better day in and day out. That’s all you can ask of yourself.
Once we were able to identify that feeling in this goalie we were able to get away from that negative thought “letting her teammates down” and turn it into positive energy by focusing on getting better. Her game turned around when she realized that the negative feelings she was having weren’t beneficial to her and she then focused on the positive things she could work on.
Hope that makes sense Jillian. If anyone else has a comment please don’t hesitate to comment!
Jonathan – The Goalie Guru