Improving Goalkeeper’s reflexes with the Golf Ball?

I read about the serious eye injury to Indian Goalkeeper Baljit Singh with great shock. It was a disturbing news at the time when Indian team was nearing departure for their European nations tour.

The injury occurred when the goalkeepers were practicing improving their reflexes and reaction time with golf ball. They may have been doing it earlier too, but the questions do crop up when an injury of this nature takes place. Is it the right thing to use a golf ball – smaller than hockey ball that travels like a bullet when hit with full force.

My personal view is that whatever exercises we do on hockey field for whatever purpose should be done with the hockey ball itself. It is the hockey ball a goal keeper is going to face in match situations, therefore his eye must be trained to look at the size of the ball that he is going to encounter.

The next question that arises is, “how do the coaches train their goal keepers to improve reflexes with the hockey ball itself and why is it important to do so?

Reflexes under Indian Conditions

When playing in India or practicing in coaching camps all the reactions / reflexes of the goal keepers are to the hits / pushes or scoops taken by Indian players. Let us face one fact very clearly that a hit / push / scoop taken by say an European player is much more faster and powerful than his Indian counterpart. This is because of the natural physique, development of specific muscles and scientifically mastering the technique for various skills. It is because of this reason that the reaction of Indian goal keepers are found to be slow against most foreign teams. We can co-relate a similar situation in football. Compare a kick taken at the goal from 20 yards away by Wane Roony with the one taken by an Indian player. Any Indian goalkeeper will be able to find the difference in reaction time available to him facing the two kicks.

Reaction by the goal keeper to any situation will lead to reflex action of leg-eye, palm-eye or stick-eye combination depending upon the height, speed and angle of the stroke. It is important to note that eye is common to all. It is the brain that picks up a signal and generates reaction.

The inference drawn from the above is that whatever practice the goalkeepers are made to do by the coaches it should minimize reaction time and improve reflexes.

A coach with his experience could device a number of ways to achieve this. One simple method that easily comes to mind is to shorten the distance from where you are taking a hit /push at the goal. Instead of taking a full blooded hit from top of the “D” take it from 1/2 or 3/4 distance say 8 or 12 yards from the goal. It would compensate for the difference in speed and power of a hit taken by an Indian and an European player. The ball could be hit or pushed along the ground or at various heights and angles to improve eye-leg, eye-stick, eye-hand / palm coordinated reaction time. To improve reaction capability against rebounds taken by the opponents, two or more hits / pushes could be taken simultaneously with requisite time gap at various angles and heights.

But let us do all this with a hockey ball only. Don’t you think so?

It is rather unfortunate that Baljit Singh has been seriously injured due to a freak accident while practicing with a golf ball.