Hands Posture - UP, MIDDLE or DOWN?

During games or training, your coach will tell you to put your hands up and defend a shot.
*Goalie coaches will tell you to put your hands up when moving and sliding to:
1) keep your body as big as possible
2) Always ready to take a shot
3) Stay square to the ball

* You must train yourself to move using only your legs while keeping your hands and body upwards to do the 3 points mentioned above.
All elite goalies are able to do this.
So that's the skill level you must achieve if you want to excel.

Along the way on your goalkeeping journey, you will need to ask yourself -
Should I put my hands up high?
OR in the middle position?
OR low, near my knees?

Many a times, we look to others or study our goalie heroes and copy their style.
OR do you NOT think, and just put it up somehow..

Well, I think the answer lies in - Yourself.
You should try all sorts of hand position to find out for yourself which position works best for you.

Know that everyone's DNA is different.
What suits me, may not suit you.
It's the same reason why some players are better at slap shot, while others score better with their wrist shot.

So before you decide, it may be worth your while to try out different styles to see which one perform better, and which ones makes your hands move faster in certain or game situations.
Experiment is key.
I've seen Swedish goalies playing with one hand up, and one hand down.
Looks weird, but if that's what make them a good goalie, so be it.
It's effectiveness that counts.

I have some experience training with Swedish elite goalies before, and I was once taught to place my hands down on my knees.
The reasoning was that it's easier and more natural to raise your hands than to cut down from a high position.
That's how my goalie coach plays, and how his disciple plays.
And they are playing in Swedish Elite division, so who am I to argue that right?

Wrong.
I learned that what works for them, didn't work for me.
Their insistence set me back 1-2 years to unlearn what they taught me..

My personal opinion is that keeping your hands low will work only if it suits you very well.
And also keeping your hands low, may not let you play at the very top of the elite game.
Because improvements to stick technology nowadays has made shots so fast and furious,
that keeping your hands down may no longer be enough to stop a fast and sudden shot.

I personally plays with a middle hand position.
For me it's the arm kinetics that's more important and keeping it in middle position optimizes that.
It also feels most natural, so that's my preference.

When I coach, I teach all 3 basic hand positions to let trainees know what it all feels like.
The advantages and disadvantages to each position style.
Then they are free to choose their own personal style.
They can go for whichever style feels most effective for them.

The worst thing I can do is impose my style or habits onto them.
Hope this helps.

Enjoy Goalkeeping :)

Floorball Goalie Tips - Angles

I'm gonna post a series of goaltending tips for floorball goalkeepers, since I think infos like these are what most goalies are looking for.

There are many skills a goalie must learn in order to better themselves and improve their game.
Imagine each skill set, like ball throwouts, kick save, diving save, penalty shot saving etc, as a tool that you keep in your personal toolbox.
Each time you make a save, it is a skill you utilize from your skills "toolbox".
The more "tools" you have, the more skillful you are.
Kapeesh? (Understand?)

These are the tools or skills, that I hope to empower many goalies out there, who may not have a trained coach to help them improve their game further.

Now, I will not talk much about equipments and basic stance or movements since these are mostly covered by many coaches or Youtube videos on the same subject.

What we need are information on how good goalies train themselves or think,  in order to perform better.

One for the most important skill that you must possess, is the ability to Cover Angles.
This is basic info. Your coach will probably tell you this when you're learning the ropes.
And you probably knew how it works, basically.

The question is how do you train on it? How can you be better than the next goalie opposite you?

Since almost everyone knew the same thing about angles.

Usually you would have to imagine a line drawn between the 2 posts, towards the ball carrier.
Then position yourself as such, to cover the shooting angle as much as possible.
This is theory.

I suggest you can start to understand angles better, by tying 2 ropes onto a player's stick blade. Then tie the other end to both posts. 1 on the left. 1 on the right post.
Have your teammate run the tied stick in a semi circle direction.
Now from your position, you will see the ropes forming the exact angle lines, from the goal posts to the ball.
Using the ropes as guidelines, you will understand angles better and it's easier to learn how to position yourself in a way that will cover the net as much as possible.
(Do remember this is still theory. Practically speaking, during games, you're not moving to optimum angles all the time)

One common mistake during games, is that we base our angle covering on the player's body.
Now you must use the Ball as the point of reference and cover your angles accordingly.
That's why some smart players tend to use body fakes or pull the ball far away from their centre of gravity before they release the shot.

So just take note, and be aware to catch yourself naturally moving towards following player's position.
Adjust yourself accordingly.

One thing you can do is reset your angles positioning whenever your team attacks.
So when that happens, stand up, go back to the goal post, establish centre point.
Touch your left and right post. Re-focus your attention.
If you have time. Stretch. And Focus.

Whenever the opposing team attacks, it's a fresh start.
You start from ground zero again. Everytime.

Forget about the crowd. Forget about the score. Forget about how wonderful your team is attacking.
Your coach and forwards are the ones to worry about attacks.
Focus on the next attack on your posts and establish the positions of your opponents.
Experienced goalies can focus on defence to guide the defensemen (defenders).

There are many more things you can do to improve your angle covering.
More on those later.

Meanwhile, use the above mentioned tips to quickly improve your game results.
Hope this helps.

Have Fun Playing Goalie :)

I'm Back :)

I just googled Floorball Goalkeeping tips, and to my surprise I see my own blog amongst the list..
I had forgotten about this blog and just wrote what I felt back then..

I no longer play competitive Floorball but I have some experience coaching goalies, so we'll see if my knowledge is still useful or not :)


Should anyone have a question, feel free to ask it thru this blog.
OR email to: martinho33@gmail.com

I may take a while to answer any emails as I'm busy and have a business to run.
Thanks for reading at this once-neglected blog.

Enjoy goaltending :)