deacfreke2
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- Mar 20, 2011
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Does anybody coach shooting? If so, is anybody listening?
Shooting mechanics are very difficult to change. If you've tried to change your golf grip from a strong position to a neutral one, you know how hard it is to get it to feel comfortable.
A shooting motion begins to get ingrained in a kid when he first starts playing. The problem is that most kids have to shoot at 10' goals long before they have the strength to do it. They wind up using their whole body to fling it up there and their elbow will flare out to the side to help generate enough force. This also results in the ball not being seated correctly in the hand.
So, if the kid never has the chance to shoot at shorter goals he won't be able to get out of the pattern of movement he's developed. If that happens, when they get to the point where they don't have to strain to get the ball to the goal from 20', their shooting motion is messed up from "learning" it the wrong way. Usually, you'll see the elbow angled out to the side instead of lining up in front of the shoulder.
A player who can shoot well from that position is the exception and not the rule. So, I'm not sure how much coaching of shooting you can really do that amounts to much. The time to teach shooting mechanics is when the kid first starts playing and can shoot at shorter goals. After that, it's a crap shoot, so to speak. The thing about it was that my Dad and the man who lived next door to us who had kids my age, did start us out on short goals. We went from 6' to 8' to 9', then to 10' about age 11. The neighbor had a great driveway so we had an excellent place to play. Each of the three of us were almost impossible to beat at horse or 21, because we'd learned to shoot it the right way.
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