Free Play Academy Newsletter #12
Topics that will be covered:
1. The Great Teachers.
2. The Meat Hook (Short-Stick Defensive midfield special).
3. More on Developing Decision-Making.
The Great Teachers.
“The teacher can open the door, but you must enter by yourself”.
Teaching is, in some ways, a myth. The greatest skill is learned, more than it is taught. And the great teacher realizes this.
The great teacher introduces the student to a concept and allows him to make acquaintance with it. He leads him into the room and allows him to have a look around. Given the appropriate freedom, the student ambles through the room, visiting the corners and the layout. His brain develops a feel for the boundaries of the room and how to move within it without bumping into walls.
With time, the student learns to live within the room and breathe its unique fragrance. Eventually, the room becomes home. This is the way in which skill is developed.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of the instruction that prevails across the world consists of leading the student by the hand.
Pulling him into the room. Taking him to each part of the room and defining its characteristics. Showing him how to walk within the room. Demonstrating for him the length of the stride and the speed of the walk. The student is instructed to memorize the information and repeat it for the teacher.
Student-Centric > Teacher-Centric
The Meat Hook.
Also known as the Reverse V-Hold, it is a high-level technique that demands the player to have a great base of athleticism already.
It’s practically a right or left hook to the chest of the offensive player. I’ll let the film do the rest of the talking, but I will say personally that this is a favorite, especially when the short-stick on defense tends to get picked on, this flips the script a bit and allows for the short-stick to be the aggressor.
More on Decision-Making!
Developing a player's ability to make better and quicker decisions, is our responsibility as a coach/educator. The environment we put our players in will dictate their technical abilities, not the other way around:
1) Players need to start recognizing important information they encounter while discarding the irrelevant info.
2) They need to gain the ability to chunk and organize this info together instantly in order to make split second decisions, at the same time having the ability to consistently judge their own space and time on the field.
3) They need to be able to read and couple together cues and patterns to anticipate and problem solve on the ice.
Creating players that possess high game intelligence should be our top priority. The more information the environment can feed a player, the better his brain-body connections will become, which will also lead to higher Lacrosse IQ!
Credit to Ted Suihkonen for the information above, founder of Neuro Hockey.
The Free Game
The part of lacrosse that is played with the mind.
What will be covered are the 8 Principles of Performance.
Any lacrosse player can own the 1st ever sport psychology methodology specific to the game of Lacrosse.
This purchase will include a FREE consultation with Coach McDonnell via in-person or Zoom.
Here is a preview.
The cost is $24.99
You can purchase The Free Game here.
Lean in, do the work, stay focused and become uncommon.
Have a great week.