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Communication & Vision
by Miranda Roth
I think there are two skills that can take a player from a good defender to a great defender and they both have to do with the transition from an individually good defender to a good team defender.
1. Communication. Silent defenders will never be great defenders. This includes "up," "switch" and "last back" calls. This is particularly important in zone defense for wings and deeps. To practice this, I sometimes require players to be saying something continuously during a defensive drill. This helps generally quiet folks get over the hump of being vocal on the field. This skill also holds true for people talking from the sideline. To practice sideline talk have a thrower pivot while a marker marks with her eyes closed and someone talking from the sideline. By doing this, the marker will learn to listen and the sideline talker will learn to puppeteer the marker.
2. Vision. This can be harder to teach—some people are born with field sense or learn it in other sports and some just don't have it. However, this can be practiced in concert with skill #1 by doing lots of 2-on-2 drills or 2-offense-on-1-defense drills. This forces the defender to be aware of more than just her offender. Erring on the side of fronting in one-on-one matchups and then relying on the sideline for an up-call is a great way of practicing the transition from individual to team defense—finding the disc after an up call (no matter where it was thrown) is an upper-level skill that most good defenders can always work on to become great defenders.
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Tuesday, December 16th, 2008 |
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