Coach Edwards explains the benefits of long lasting titanium shafts and describes his two favorite lacrosse stick heads – the Eclipse and the Nemesis. Coach describes how goalies control distance and accuracy on the field, and gives tips on how to become a better goalie and avoid the stress of trying to make a team.
0:40 – Lauren asks about her stick and making the varsity team at her high school.
1:16 – The benefits of a titanium shaft.
2:05 – The strength of David Morrow’s Warrior shaft is explored.
2:39 – The perks of using an Eclipse head for female lacrosse goalies.
3:13 – A better understanding of distance and accuracy.
4:10 – Focusing on what you can control and improve rather than creating needless stress.
Introduction
Hey everybody, it’s Coach Edwards at LacrosseGoalieTips.com and LacrosseGoalieUniversity.com, and I got a question this week from Lauren. Lauren’s emailed me a couple of times, which I think is pretty cool. If you’ve emailed me once, don’t feel like you can’t email me again. I always love getting questions and I do spend a lot of time emailing people back. Especially our Lacrosse Goalie University members. We do goalie critiques almost every week for some of our Diamond Members. For our Platinum Members, they get them once a month. If you need something like that, let me know. Check out our coaching tab on the website.
Lauren’s Question
It’s Lauren from Long Island. I just started preseason practices, and I want to work on my clearing. I forget how long my shaft is, but my head is in the clips and I have hard mesh. I’m not sure which type of string would be the best for distance and accuracy. At the same time, I also don’t want balls bouncing out of my stick. Here’s some pictures of my stick. I hope you can email me back and inform me on what to do. I’m trying really hard to make my high school’s varsity team. I’m a smaller person, so I use a shallow pocket for an easier clear, but the ball bounces out when I go for a save.
The Benefit Of A Titanium Shaft
What I’m going to do now is I’m going to shift over to my desktop in a minute. So don’t go away right just yet. I’m going to shift to my desktop, and we’re going to go over the pictures that she sent me, which is pretty cool. First thing is I just want to address a couple things. First off, she forgets what her shaft is. Lauren, here’s the deal about shafts. Buy the cheapest, lightest shaft you can buy. She is a freshman/sophomore.
If you’re serious about lacrosse goaltending, I highly recommend buying a titanium shaft. Hands down. They’re pretty expensive, but it’ll be the last shaft you ever buy. If you’re a kid watching this and you want to try to talk your parents into this, just say, “Mom, Dad, I’m never going to have to buy another shaft. This is it”
David Morrow’s Warrior Shaft
Stay away from carbon fibers and things along those lines, because they tend to get brittle and fall apart, and that’s not cool. I see parents spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars, almost every year, whereas if they finally make the jump to a titanium shaft, they will have it forever. Nice titanium shafts. I have first generation Warrior titanium shafts. That’s how David Morrow started Warrior, was a titanium shaft, and I still have two of them. And I think actually I bought a defensive length shaft and cut it in half, and then I had two shafts. So I want to just touch on that.
The Eclipse Head Versus The Nemesis For Girls
She’s got an Eclipse head. Love the Eclipse. My favorite – the Eclipse and the Nemesis, those are my two favorite heads, hands down. And I like the Eclipse for girls better than the Nemesis for girls, because I find that the Eclipse makes a little bit of a longer pocket, which allows for better clearing. And I’m going to get into that later. She’s got hard mesh. Great. Hard mesh, perfect, and I’m going to talk about that I think in next week’s video – just about hard mesh and what goes on with mesh and soft hands. And then I want to talk about accuracy.
Distance and Accuracy
Distance and accuracy Lauren, this is the deal. Accuracy comes down to, not your stick, but these guys. Your hands. But it’s not just your hands, it’s your hands, your upper body, your whole body. From your hands to your feet. Distance comes from strength and pocket. If you have more strength, you can have a deeper pocket. If you have less strength, you need a shallower pocket, and when we look at her photos you’re going to see just how shallow it is and why she’s giving up rebounds.
In terms of accuracy, Lauren, I could take your stick and in about two passes I would be just as accurate as the stick that I used all season. And again, that comes down to hands. The accuracy is all you. The distance is a combination of your pocket and your strength, and we’re going to look at that shortly.
Instead Of Stressing About Making The Team, Focus On Making Saves
In terms of trying really hard to make the high school team – don’t worry about it. Focus just on saving the ball. Don’t focus on making the team because you can’t control the other goalies. You can’t control what the coach is thinking about. You can only control your performance. So go out there every day, between now and when tryouts end, and just put it all aside and focus on the ball, and you will surprise yourself. If you focus on the outcome, if you focus on just trying to make the team, you’re going to have a lot of trouble and you’re going to put a little too much stress on yourself. So don’t worry about that.
Conclusion
Let’s head over to Lauren’s photos of her stick and we’re going to go from there. Cheers.
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