The Value of Keep Away

Growing up in Baltimore, I always learned stick work through line drills. It was the start and staple to every practice.

Partner passing was another common drill. We'd go partner passing up and down the field, and maybe we'd mix in the 3 man weave (just like basketball practice). 

Yesterday I caught up with Ryan Boyle in New York. He jokingly referred to a time a handful of years ago where the rhetoric around "line drills" at the US Lacrosse convention was that, "if you are running line drills at practice, you are a bad coach/club/you name it!" I got a laugh out of that. 

I am not here to talk down on line drills, partner passing, spoke drill, pull pass stick work etc. I think all are staples, and all can be quick ways to scale touches. I see benefit, and we use some of these based on settings and groups.

But today, I want to speak to the value of keep away. Keep Away is a classic childhood game. Possess the ball and keep away from the other team! Everyone has played this. I first really latched onto this back in my days at USC, after some great conversations with Chris Garland about "rondos" in soccer. I have also loved seeing Tom Mariano and Jamie Munro share different ideas/drills around keep away.

The best part about keep away in my opinion is there are always ways to vary up the game, and create multiple games, based on your groups. 2v1, 3v2, 3v2, 4v2, 5v3, 4v3 the list goes on! We tweak rules (add a pick every other pass or 2 passes), change sizes and shapes of the box, and add points / competition. It is easy to scale reps too! At Best In Class, here's an example:

These "constraints" help produce an environment that creates a lot of decisions to be made. As a coach, I feel like I can focus on feeding players ideas, and managing the constraints, while the players solve problems on the field. How do I get this ball to my teammate? Do I need to move my feet so I don't get pushed out of bounds? Natural solutions emerge. 

Recently, High Point lacrosse posted a great Keep Away game for offense & defense (see below). I loved this! Coach Makar ran this specific variation during our first Taft School training session last week. Thanks Coach Torpey! 

Do we really expect defensemen to get better at clearing and seeing the field, handling pressure, and making decisions, if they only do line drills and over passes? It really makes you wonder!

We have some more variations on our FCL platform and incorporate keep away every week in our trainings. 

When you are practicing or training this fall, try some variations out. Tag us in the videos, or email them to us! We'd love to learn from you too.

Thanks for reading!

- Coach CLASS

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