Topic: Where did my shot go

[Steve]

Well its time to learn the snake shot .sat at the Mi tournament I got snaked all day in beginers.My 5 row worked but nothing else did, I need a shot I can shoot with cofidence.  Maybe Ill go back sunday and watch the best do it.....

[gitablok]

I think you mis-titled your thread. It should be where did my "defense" go. lol.

ICEMAN.

[chance37]

lol....my thinking as well.....there are several things u can do to learn to block it but ill leave that for the other guys on here that have more experience than myself but if I could offer a lil advice itd be ........be unpredictable and radical in your defensive approach and let him show you his strengths and bait em...a lot of rollover shooters also tend to love the longs...short middles are tougher and they will bypass that all day and wait for a long........I shoot a rollover and got a decent shot push side and pull side...but im in the process of learning to read the middle and pull the trigger...

As far as learning the snake.....practice the toss over and over before you ever start trying to shoot it...the wall people run into when learning is it tossing it just banging away at it...learn the toss and get your toss consistant....start tossing around the goalie man directly in front of you and then move him further and further away until your dead man.....you gotta crawl before you walk so learn the fundamentals of the shot then practice.....a buddy of mine learned a pretty good snake in a couple months....took me about the same....

[Steve]

My defense was left at home I tryed to bait the pull side  and got beat most of the time , no one I play shoots the shot so Ill take my time and take all the advice I can get.

[gitablok]

I'll try to make this as quick as possible.

BLOCK THE CIRCLE.

You know that semi circle that exist in front of the goal? Mentally complete it to form a complete a full circle. Now keeping your men only a ball width apart, move within the confines of the circle being mindful of not going outside the lines of the circle.

So concentrate on keeping your men a ball width apart and staying within the confines of the circle using random and fluid motions and I promise your blocking percentage will go up.

ICEMAN

[Old Meister]

Also relaxed muscles react faster than tense when moving your defense.

[chance37]

yeah the circles are a great way....ive had several top guys tell me the same thing

[Steve]

I have used the dots but the circle sounds better


I will try sat night. thanks

[bbtuna]

ICE,

do you include the fat line of the circle or do you stay inside the inside line of the circle?  I know the outside line of the circle is deadman so?

[Old Meister]

Steve, listen to everything, try what makes sense and use what works. By learning the snake you will also learn what the shooter is looking at and then block with that in mind. Remember, when ever you play someone that is good, it is an opportunity to learn.

[gitablok]

ICE,

do you include the fat line of the circle or do you stay inside the inside line of the circle?  I know the outside line of the circle is deadman so?

Yes, I include the line of the circle. I concentrate on not going outside of my imaginary line of the circle. What this does is let you effectively cheat every hole by making them smaller. You don't need to be all the way in the long to block the long or completely in front of a straight to block it, only partially. This defense puts your men near all holes shot on the rollover at all times. It will force your opponent to hit very precise and very small holes which give even the best rollover shooters fits.

ICEMAN

[bbtuna]

when you do rollover D do you use a "standard" or "reverse" defense
and do you use a get-in-their-head slower bob and bait type style like Bob Diaz or do you use a faster style or do you use a cross-over or do you mix these and others

do you show one defense early and then change 3-5 seconds into the possesion

do you absolutely take one long side away and then try and make the other holes hard to see or

[gitablok]

I mainly use the the standard D when blocking the rollover occasionally switching to a reverse to give a different look to the shooter. What I don't do is what I call "sawblading". That is to switch from the standard to the reverse repeatedly. What usually happens is you get caught either with your men too far apart or in "I" formation. When I go from one to the other, I go immediately to a ball width split and stay for a few seconds.

Bobby and I have similar styles in that we don't move much. It's almost a head game. I want my opponent to see every hole open at once and every hole covered at once. Confusion usually breeds mis-execution.

I use this defense to figure out the opponents strengths and weaknesses. Once I figure it out, then I will exploit it. For ex., if I figure someone has a strong pull side, but a weak push side. I will plant the goalie rod on the pull side and  basically just move my two rod slowly in and out of the straight with just an occasional move of the goalie rod and race the push. Take their best away and exploit the weakness.

Otherwise, I just use block the circle with my men a ball width apart with a slow shuffle barely holding on to the handles so I can react. Even if you don't make the blocks, this D will show you what they have the ability to hit and because you know exactly where your men are, you can make the adjustment  needed.

ICEMAN

[Steve]

Thanks Iceman I will try this D

[gitablok]

One key component for this D to work is how you angle your guys to work in unison with each other. The goalie rod man should be angled slightly forward and the two rod should be either straight up and down or just angled very slightly back. The sense of sight and the processing our brain does is a wonderous thing, but sometimes it plays tricks on us that I will show you later with an illusion.

The slight tilting forward and back of the men presents depth perception problems that most people don't even realize are going on. For ex., stand as if you're about to shoot. Now pull the two rod to you in the dead position with the guy toed out. It's obvious to you the guy is in the long because your eye will focus on the foot of the man. Now tilt the guy back say 20 degrees or so past vertical. Because your eye still focuses on the foot, it seems as if the man has moved slightly out of the long hole because of the "perception" of the foot in relation to the goal even though you know the man has not moved at all. This is how good goalies get in your head by changing the perception of what you see by making you shoot at what seems there but really is not.

One of the best compliments I ever received was from one of the sport's greatest pull shooters. Ask Ed Geer about Hossein Kiani. Show him a post and the ball disappears off the table. However, I had good success blocking him with a post defense. But... I blocked him with a post guy tilted back. I later asked him why it gave him so much trouble. He told me that when most people post him, the foot was pointed forward so he knew exactly where the man was so all he had to do was hit his dead stroke. But when I tilted the guy back, he could not read exactly where the guy was, long or 3/4. So he would not use his dead stroke, he would just try to beat me long of which I was waiting for him. In other words, he concentrated too much on the long and not the rest of the goal because of what he thought he saw.

So remember, two rod tilted straight down or slightly back with the three rod tilted slightly forward with men a ball width apart and BLOCK THAT CIRCLE.

Here's that illusion.
http://www.patmedia.net/marklevinson/cool/cool_illusion.html

So you see, what you see is not always what you get.

ICEMAN