Question: Over Use of Hand to Eye Cordination Drills

[Danish]

Hey Fiveholegoalie,

I just have some questions concerning hand-to-eye coordination drills:

Story
Since reading Vladislav Tretiak's biography and goalie handbook I have been obsessed with hand-to-eye. In both books he stresses the importance of doing hand to eye coordination drills every day (like every spare second you have). Furthermore, I structure my game using Miikka Kiprusoff as a model. Kiprusoffs' amazing glove and hand-to-eye coordination has motivated me as well.

Miikka making a fabulous glove save


For about 4-5 weeks now i have been doing hand-to-eye coordination drills 1 hour a night (no matter what time it is. I just finished a session now and its 12.10). I do tons of different drills (list at bottom of post). I will usually use racquetballs because they have a lot more bounce then a tennis ball and come back faster.

So now that I've been doing these drills for awhile my hand-to-eye coordination has gotten spectacular. One thing that i didn't expect these drills to improve was my overall puck sense. Lately, when I've been playing i know where the puck is at all times. I'm not comparing myself directly to Dominic Hasek but i almost have that type of feeling sometimes. I will occasionally give off a terrible rebound, but i feel as if no matter what now i can make the second, third or even forth stop. For example, the other day i managed somehow after two saves to be lying on my back, the puck had just hit off my body (after diving across the crease) shot quickly out into the slot. I didn't even see the puck but i knew where it was, I quickly cartwheeled my pads into a two pad stack and flipped them onto my other side (i was off center to begin with) and right at the moment when my pads made it to the other side i made the stop. I just have this feeling now of always knowing where the puck is in scramble situation. I really feel the hand-to-eye has helped here. My glove and blocker have also gotten a lot better... obviously.

Questions
But what i fear now is that throwing the ball against the wall too much will just get my brain accustomed and tuned to tracking a ball off a wall rather then a puck off a stick. I'm worried that if i do these drills to much i will know where the ball is going before it even hits the wall (but by the angle i have thrown it at). Is this possible? will the tennis balls against the wall become useless after a few months?

Also, since i am catching with my blocker hand in these drills, are these really helping that hand? I mean it not even the same motion (catching/ deflecting), just curious.

Hand-to-Eye Drills (That I Do)
Cycle two tennis balls in hand by throwing them against the wall
Juggle with one hand using tow tennis balls (variation bounce them off wall)
Juggle with both hands using 3 balls (variation bouncing them off the wall)
Throw Reaction ball against wall
Put on glove and throw Lacrosse or Golf ball against wall and perfect catching the puck in the webbing
There are many different variations of the one above that I do: Balancing on 3 pucks stacked on top of each other, While balancing on Swiss ball, Sometimes i do them just siting on the ground to practice catching in awkward positions, and many others that i cant think of right now
Speed Bag (just set it up this weekend)
Jump Rope
Clap Push-ups
Tennis and Ping-Pong

Is there any other hand-to-eye drills i should be aware of?

Many Thanks,
Danish

(I wasn't sure if I was allowed to make a new thread in this forum)

[fiveholegoalie]

Originally Posted by Danish

Hey Fiveholegoalie,

I just have some questions concerning hand-to-eye coordination drills:

Questions
But what i fear now is that throwing the ball against the wall too much will just get my brain accustomed and tuned to tracking a ball off a wall rather then a puck off a stick. I'm worried that if i do these drills to much i will know where the ball is going before it even hits the wall (but by the angle i have thrown it at). Is this possible? will the tennis balls against the wall become useless after a few months?

Also, since i am catching with my blocker hand in these drills, are these really helping that hand? I mean it not even the same motion (catching/ deflecting), just curious.

Hand-to-Eye Drills (That I Do)
Cycle two tennis balls in hand by throwing them against the wall
Juggle with one hand using tow tennis balls (variation bounce them off wall)
Juggle with both hands using 3 balls (variation bouncing them off the wall)
Throw Reaction ball against wall
Put on glove and throw Lacrosse or Golf ball against wall and perfect catching the puck in the webbing
There are many different variations of the one above that I do: Balancing on 3 pucks stacked on top of each other, While balancing on Swiss ball, Sometimes i do them just siting on the ground to practice catching in awkward positions, and many others that i cant think of right now
Speed Bag (just set it up this weekend)
Jump Rope
Clap Push-ups
Tennis and Ping-Pong

Is there any other hand-to-eye drills i should be aware of?

Many Thanks,
Danish

(I wasn't sure if I was allowed to make a new thread in this forum)

D:

This is awesome, congrats on being so dedicated away from the rink. Attention to detail will always payoff especially working on your hand eye coordination.

At Bandits, we teach ALL of our goalies that the most important rule in goaltending is watching the puck from the shooters stick all the way into the body and tracking the rebound all the way out if one occurs.

You made mention to Dominic Hasek above and I wanted to share something to you. If you look at Dominic Hasek and Patrick Roy they both play/played two different types of styles in their crease. Hasek is very unorthodox and plays deep in his crease while Roy is very fundamentally sound and uses his size to his advantage. Both goalies have achieved greatness in their careers but they also have one major similarity which is their unparalleled focus on the puck.

The point I'm getting at is please continue to develop your hand eye coordination but like you mentioned above is "over conditioning" going to decrease or hinder your reaction skills. In my opinion you want to continually "SHOCK" your mind and muscles so you're not always doing the same repetitive drills/exercises day in and day out.

A few drills we do at our school that might help:

1. Purchase an agility/reaction ball. A reaction ball is a perfect way to improve your hand-eye coordination and reaction time. You can volley the reaction ball between you and another athlete or rebound it against a wall. Upon landing, the ball will bounce in an unpredictable manner. Being that it's unpredictable you will always have to be alert to react to it.

Below are some pictures of it in use:




Another interesting drill we do with our goalies on the ice is a racquetball drill. This drill requires one goalie to move forwards in a sliding butterfly motion while the other goalie in front of him is moving backwards in a sliding butterfly motion. While this is going on, one goalie is bouncing a racquetball off the ice to the other as he sliding into his butterfly. This is a great way to not only build your agility/movement skills but it's also a creative way to work on your hand eye skills as well.

This drill can also be done without a partner and you can use the dasher boards as a way to throw the racquetball off of and move left to right and right to left in a sliding butterfly, shuffle or hop step motion towards the racquetball.

Below are some pictures of the drill with a partner:




Pictures of it being done without a partner against the dasher boards:



Hopefully some of the information I provided you will help you out during your off ice training as well as some new on ice training drills as well. Please do not hesitate to ask any further question and please keep participating in our forum discussions!

Good luck with your training this spring and summer!

[The Wall33]

Just to further what the gentleman from Bandits indicated, the use of raquet ball bouncing drills is an excellent way to develop the precise vision you need as a goalie. In my youth I spent many hours doing exactly what you are doing and it was a very helpful exercise.

I also use balls on the ice to train goalies to focus (see pictures in the Bandits thread). This really forces the goalies to use proper technique (body shifting, gloves forward, active eyes) and is a lot of fun. I will usually increase the difficulty by throwing 2 balls at once, one from the goalie and then one from me with a very slight delay. This is one way to separate the gifted from the average when it comes to coordination.

You can do a search online under 'visual acuity' for other activities.

One interesting website I found (but have not yet tried) is here: https://sportseyesite.checkout321.com/ Looks interesting... anyone tried it before? I think I will try the free 7 day trial and see how it goes.

Wellsie

[Danish]

Thanks alot Fiveholegoalie and The Wall33,

Fiveholegoalie- Thanks a lot. I currently own a reaction ball and find it helpful for reaction time and coordination. I like your idea of continuously "shocking" the mind, I'm now trying to incorporate more "shocking" of the mind into my drills. I do a good drill where i balanced on a swiss ball on my knees (simulating butterfly). While balancing throw the reacton ball against the wall, or any coordination drill that you see fit.
A drill i forgot to mention which has helped my reaction time alot is a set of drills i have learned about for Tretiaks goaltender manual. You use a broom handle (cut to 36 inches). You can do many drills, but this is just a basic one i would like to share. You hold the stick out in front of you, palms facing down. Drop the stick clap once and catch the stick palms facing down. I will scan the book and post when i get home from school today.

The Wall33- Thanks for posting. The website you posted looks interesting, I would be interested to see if it works. I noticed on the website that they had testemonials from Hextall and Dan Ellis. Let me know how it goes.

Thanks,
Danish

Sorry, if there are many grammer errors. I am at school at dont have time at the moment to spell check.

[fiveholegoalie]

Danish:

Sounds like you're doing great with your off ice workouts. Keep it up buddy!

Let me know if you have any further questions.