Personal Training - Shoot!

About 50 minutes between leaving and returning this evening, 16'C and 65% humidity.  Back after sunset but before dark.  A strong and cool breeze.  Again, had the schoolyard to myself.

Took my stick and bag of pucks with me tonight.  Got straight into it when I got there, used the trip to the school as my warmup.  Kept it pretty simple, spending maybe ten minutes doing an outside circuit of the netball court with a puck on my backhand at moderate speed.  Trick was to do a whole lap.  Found it hard to get past half way without puck dropping off my stick.  Persisted.  Was able to do two laps each way by the end of the period.  Happy with that.

Then for the main drill session of the evening, shooting practice.  Surprisingly, have never done this before.  So what I did tonight will serve as a benchmark for future work.  Kept it simple, stationary forehand wristshots from the goal circle at my target (the metal pole holding up the goal, a bit less than three inches wide).  100 shots.  22 Dings.  The more technically accurate (open the hips, weight transfer, 'snap' (roll the wrists), follow through), the more accuracy and power.  If I added a bit of stickflex to the equation, the rebounds off the concrete behind became too quick to simply gather back.

Then, skate in with a puck on the backhand wing, cut across and shoot on the forehand a few times.  Or, pick up a puck at the blue line on the way in, deke it into control in the next several metres, shoot at the fifteen foot mark.  Or, backhand wristshots.  None of these more than 10% accuracy.  Plenty to work on for the future.

Finish off my session with some of the open footed tight turns, alternating each way up and back the court, followed by similar route but this time doing outside edge 'C' Cuts.  Leaving just enough time to do a few backwards crossover laps, gather my gear and power up the hill to home.

As always, felt a lot better physically upon my return than when I had set out.

Semifinal game tomorrow.