When I was younger, I played soccer until I realized that I was more excited to play against my opponents from a distance. I started prioritizing tennis instead, feeling more confident because I was a good 30 feet or more away from my opponent. Playing lacrosse felt similar to that old feeling of being close to the other team, but I was too focused on cradling the lacrosse ball in front of my face while simultaneously keeping the goal in my vision to worry about the defender running at me.
As soon as I picked up a lacrosse stick for the first time, I felt grateful for my experience with racket sports because it was easier to learn how to adjust my hold on the stick. I also noticed that playing soccer helped with the up-close interactions, either guarding opponents or getting around them. I felt that elements of both tennis and soccer were present in playing lacrosse as I performed maneuvers similar to tennis with the lacrosse stick and played offense and defense similar to soccer. I even tried to dodge opponents running at me or pressure opponents that had the ball like I had in soccer.
I was feeling pretty nervous going into the first practice. I had no idea what to expect. But by the time the second or third practice rolled around, I felt more prepared. The first thing we did during practice was pass the ball back and forth in pairs. I soon got the hang of bringing the lacrosse stick over my shoulder and snapping my arm forward like a catapult to send it sailing in a nice arc. I found that catching a ball was even more satisfying than a perfect throw. My many years of playing sports and video games improved my hand-eye coordination, helping me find the perfect place for my lacrosse stick to go so that the ball would drop into the pocket of the netting with a nice soft thunk.
After learning about throwing and catching, I came across the cradle jog. Cradling is the act of rotating the stick while also moving it forward and backward, keeping the ball inside the net due to centripetal forces—similar to how the Earth is moving and spinning at the same time. At first, I thought I could survive without this skill but eventually realized that cradling is a necessity in lacrosse when I struggled without it. The cradle jog involved running around the turf field and cradling on the right side on the longer sides of the field and on the left side for the shorter sides of the field. While everyone else was easily running and cradling simultaneously, I was spending most of the laps scooping up my ball from the ground and keeping up with everyone else.
Next came a healthy dose of stretching and conditioning. There seemed to be many different exercises for the team to do, but there was one that was especially important. It came up exactly twice—in both rainy and clear conditions—and it was called “X’s.” Jogging to the 50-yard line, sprinting diagonally across the field to the football end zone, jogging to the 50-yard line on that side, sprinting back to the beginning, and then repeating. I also got the experience of doing it in the rain, and while it was a good way to stay in shape, it was not the most enjoyable part of practice.
Stick lines followed the exercising, a relay with a couple of people on opposite ends of the field who would run across and pass the ball off to someone else. Some of the types of passing included rolling it on the ground towards the target, running past the target and rolling the ball in the opposite direction, passing it to be caught over either shoulder, or passing it to someone running a little route and calling for the ball.
There were a lot of components to the practices, including scrimmage drills near the end, and they were all super fun. However, when I look back on the six hours of girls’ lacrosse practice that I attended, one of the things I will remember with satisfaction is becoming a ‘cradle king,’ how many of the players described my improvement with cradling. My initial struggle with lacrosse only made me more proud and happy to reflect on my time there. The whole experience was really special, and it made me realize how helpful it can be to venture outside of your comfort zone.
