Hi! My name is Andy Corno with Leaders Lacrosse Camps, Clinics and Private Lessons, here to show you the game of lacrosse.
Right now, we're going to focus on how to cradle. First, we cradle to protect our sticks and keep that ball in our sticks from all the other defenders that are trying to take it away from us.
Defenders, when they play, use long sticks and short sticks to try and check you. Cradling will help you keep the ball in your stick when you're trying to attack the goal. Also, it's very hard to keep the ball in the stick while running. Cradling keeps the ball in your stick while running at full speed.
First, when we go to cradle, you have to make sure that you hold this stick in your fingers, not in your fists, in your fingers. Also, understand that it's the top hand that does all the work when we cradle. The bottom-hand is used almost as a pivot or just to guide the stick. The top-hand is what does all the cradling work.
Holding the stick in our fingertips, using our wrists and elbows and arms, we're going to move them up and down in a cradling motion, keeping the ball in the pocket of our sticks, just like this.
When you start out, it's okay to look at the stick, making sure that the ball stays where it needs to be. After we've mastered just the basic cradle, we can move on to practicing other types of cradles, like the Crossface Cradle or the Power Cradle, which is a full motion up and down.
Also, you can practice some one-handed cradle. To protect your stick, often times attackmen use this type of cradle, which looks something like this. Again, notice, that it's my top-hand that's doing all the work when I cradle. Practice on your own to get better at this game.
Those are the basics to cradling in the game of lacrosse.
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