Evening Shooting Drill

Tonight I was home a bit early from work and there had been no rain all day.  In the late afternoon, the sun properly broke through the clouds and the missus drew my attention to the fact that this was a good opportunity for a skate.  Needless to say, my antenna was already attuned to the possibility, so it wasn't long and I was off down the street in my inlines, hockey stick in hand.

On Wednesday I'd bought three more 'green biscuit' practice pucks (2 neon lime general purpose ones, one slap shot puck, none of the type of the one which I'd shattered a couple weeks ago) so I had five useable pucks in my backpack.  I was curious to see if having more pucks enabled me to get more shots in before home time (less time retrieving pucks).

I did indeed get more shots off in the seventy minutes I was gone than I would have with only two pucks.  There was an additional bonus also, in that I could pace myself with longer series' of shots compared to retrievals.  The accuracy rates were as good or better than they've ever been.  So I'm thinking that having the more shots in a row before needing to chase pucks enabled quicker muscle 'tuning' to occur and more finely calibrated learning.  Taking five shots in a row before having a short break to retrieve allowed a concentration upon particular aspects of shooting (eg. weight transfer, stance, follow though, flex pressure, quiet eye, etc) to form a technical focus for that short period of repetitions.  Long enough a series for meaningful learning and reinforcement, short enough to allow a high rotation and thus variety of drill focii.  Good for maximisation of learning as well as light, in other words.

Had a minor scrape on the rear right quarter of the upper leg following a sliding fall at high speed.  This is the first visible injury I've suffered on the inlines on ashphalt for a couple months.  Despite the livid red graze, no pain and no restriction in movement.  Hopefully the same tomorrow.

Was down there late enough to evaluate visibility under floodlit conditions of the schoolyard at night.  The neon green pucks were quite visible, the shooting pucks (dark olive green) tended to vanish into the gloom on the ashphalt.  As I skated home in the gloom I was good with the fact that there is the possibility, subject to rain and dew, of shooting practice occasionally on a winter's eve if I take a responsible attitude towards getting there and back in the dark.  This is good.

My shooting stats (as well as my level of general conditioning) were improved from last few times.
25 shots @ at 15' (FH Sp, WS, FF Sp, BH): 9, 7, 8, 1.
4 x 25 dynamic shots from 15' (shts - rbnds - shts & rbnds):  8-1-1, 9-3-1, 9-6-3, 6-4-1.