A Lacrosse Weekend 9.24.22

Welcome to "A Lacrosse Weekend" my weekly compilation of thoughts, ideas, stories, myths, truths, about the great game of lacrosse. I hope you enjoy it!   

If you are a men's or women's lacrosse player, coach, or parent, I think you will love the weekly content, videos, and analysis.

The Greatest Drill Ever

4v4 Double Team is arguably the greatest drill in the history of drills!  This drill will have a huge impact on your team on both sides of the ball! I recommend your team master this drill by doing it multiple times per week!  I learned this drill from Mike "Bones" Waldvogel when I coached at Yale.  The Yale teams were shaped on both sides of the ball in my opinion because of the pressure applied in practice every day.  As a result of my experience at Yale, I've always believed the ability to apply and handle defensive pressure through ball pressure, pressure on adjacent passes (in the direction the ball is going), and staying on doubles will help a team win games even if you don't play heavy pressure defense.  In fact our teams at Yale rarely pressured in games, but in practice it was intense! 

Learning to jump a pick requires anticipation, positioning, communication and commitment.  While most teams don't jump picks as their main way of defending 2man games there are instances where it is critical.  A pick at the goal line near the crease often times needs to be doubled and of course at the end of games you have to be able to get the ball back with double teams as well as deal with double teams to kill a game if you're up by one.  Lars Tiffany at UVA and Brown mixes in aggressive double teams often times with the shorty stepping up and surprising the dodger.  Remember at the end of the UVA / UNC 2021 Final Four game where a UVA shorty jumped the double and disrupted what would have been a great offensive chance!

One of the great things about this drill is that it makes your offense and defense play fast and instinctively.  The offense must set picks and the defense must jump the pick.  In the early stages, the defense will struggle with their double teams, usually because either the on ball defender or the picker is not pressuring and therefore the dodger has time to make the pass.  Soon however the defense will begin to dominate the offense as the pressure creates turnovers.  The offense especially runs into problems when the dodger runs right into the pressure or the picker sticks the pick instead of slipping it.  Once the offense learns how to use deception to draw and control the double and the picker slips the pick, there will be successful passes out of the double team forcing the a rotation and recovery.  This is where the drill becomes as close to game speed as you can get.  The kids love it and so will you!

At JM3 we are making a concerted effort to ramp up our YouTube Channel and this is some of the great content from our Men's Lacrosse Coaches Training Program that you can check out!

Register for your free stream pass for Virtual Lacrosse Summit 9 👉GO HERE NOW 👈

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JM3 Athlete Program

 The JM3 Athlete Program is a unique and powerful model designed to put your son or daughter on a new trajectory of development and exposure.  Through a combination of regular Zoom calls, JM3 online content, video analysis, opportunities for in person coaching / playing, and getting on a great strength and conditioning program, JM3 Athletes become the best they can be in the most effective and efficient way possible.   

The JM3 Athlete Program focuses on these four principles:

• Free Play
• Video Analysis on Zoom calls
• Strength & Conditioning with an emphasis on a revolutionary speed development model
• Recruiting road map and acquiring advocates

If you want to learn more about the JM3 Athlete Program feel free to fill out the application to take the next steps. Go to Application

There are so many kids working hard to get better, but seem to hit a ceiling on their development.  This is almost always because they are working hard at the wrong things!  In the JM3 Athlete Program we will guide our athletes through a Free Play and constraints led approach model of development that is literally a panacea for athletes!  Kids become more confident and assertive, skills begin to emerge that hadn't been attempted before because the athletes are scaling reps of decision making in various live situations.  The combination of play and film study empowers players to truly understand game situations therefore enabling them to make better decisions.

Below are some videos from our YouTube Channel of our Pick up Games.  You'll see skills emerging from these situations where the kids are completely immersed in the game, learning to read and influence situations while exploring contingencies.  

4v3 Keep Away Variations

I love these 4v3 Keep Away Environments!  This drill provides a great opportunity to explore skill solutions of communication, deception, passing, catching, picking, cutting, feeding, dodging, stick protection, and  handling pressure.  Defensively, players are learning the concepts of ball pressure, rotations, splitting two, skip pass lanes, communication and ground balls.

Playing in a confined the space of about a 10 yard x 10 yard area, the team that could complete 21 passes wins.  If the defense gets the ball back or the ball goes out of the confined area, the defense goes on offense and vice versa.  The pass count is cumulative.

We played two variations, the first called 4v3 "Tight" has no prescribed movements where the players can handle the ball, draw and dump, and hold their positions.  The second variation is called 4v3 "Paris" and requires simultaneous picks on ball and off ball in order to achieve pass that counts towards the 21 passes.  In other words, we didn't count passes that didn't come during simultaneous picks on and off ball.

Check out the videos below and notice how many skills are emerging, the way the kids are reading and communicating, on both sides of the ball

 Here's a group of boys!

Listen to more of the Phi-Lacrosse-ophy Podcast with Jamie Munro >>> www.PHILACROSSEOPHY.com <<<

2023 Season is Right Around the Corner! If you are a coach, program, or a player and want to be prepared like never before, the Coaches Training Program (CTP) has cutting edge skills, drills, and strategies to take your game to new heights.

There are membership levels for everyone. Check it out at www.jm3sports.com/ctp

JM3 SPORTS uses the FreeLap speed timing system with our Athletes along with Tony Hollers Atomic Speed Workout and the results are phenomenal! 

Start seeing speed gains in weeks! Get your FreeLap speed timer >>>CLICK HERE <<<

If you want to get Tony Holler's Speed Training for Lacrosse go to this link >>> CLICK HERE <<< 

Getting the Most Out of Your FreeLap Timing System >>> CLICK HERE <<<

Be sure to get your own Small Sided Box Lacrosse Goal @ BoxLacrosseGoals.com

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Be sure to check out our premium online lacrosse training and programs.

If you want to learn a more in-depth approach to all of the drills in this blog check out our premium content. Thousands of athletes, parents, coaches, and programs are subscribed to one of our memberships and have joined the JM3 community to take their lacrosse skills and IQ to an entirely new level.

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Check out this Awesome Video we produced!

 Have a great weekend!