Who doesn't recognize the situation in which a goalkeeper performs better in practice than in games or the other way round?

Either way, this has to do with intention.
And with intention I mean something like a mind set that the goalkeeper brings to the field, either at practice or at games.

Sit1: Performance in games is way ahead of performance in practice.
Most probable cause is that the goalkeeper isn't psyched up for practice. This might be a result of feeling less pressurized, rating practice at a lower value just being plain tired. Obviously there are more causes, but the solution mostly comes down to the same ;-).

By being less sharp in practice, the goalkeeper slows down his learning-curve! As an example: in stead of picking up 3 learning points at practice, he will go home with only 1 point learned. Same time invested, less outcome.

And hopefully is this awareness, that the goalkeeper diminishes his own growth-speed, enough to lead to a change in mind set.

Come to practice with the eagerness of a spunge, the willingness to learn and all the energy (& enthusiasm) you have available. Give it all you got and you'll get better at a higher rate!

Sit2: Performance in practice is above game-bound performance.
It seems fair to say that this has to do with pressure and/of fear. The fear of being judged upon (and rated "too light"), the pressure of 'having to perform'....and more. Most of these thoughts are 'homebrewed': the thought-processes take place in the minds of the goalkeepers. Obviously there's only one person that can pressurize the goalie, and that's that same goalie. So relieve yourself of the pressure.

Maybe more easily said than done ;P. In a nutshell my advice would be something like this (and this is how I deal with it myself, by the way):

I perform at my best when I'm relaxed (that doesn't mean laid back :-) ) and having fun. That means that I have to be in the here and now. The means you could apply here is focussing on your breath. Tell yourself things like: "I'm loving it between the posts", "I love the ball & the ball loves me; that's why I keep on getting 'em", "this is great; I couldn't think of anything better doing right now".

In general: Support every successfull action with positive anchor-movements (like you can see how tennisplayers encourage themselves) and ignore weaker moments (as in: evaluations are done AFTERWARDS so just let go)

Good goalkeeping & till next posting!

Why is it annoying that a ball passes the goal line?

Obviously we, as goalkeepers, don’t like it when a ball crosses the goal line…….

In general: those balls are a reason to get distracted ;-)

We have many reasons to let go of this distraction & I would even advocate that you better leave your goal and D in some cases.
Just imagine: you’re practicing to learn/improve/engrain a specific skill or movement.
Your focus should best be on the awareness of what you are doing. Feeling, sensing, experiencing, evaluating.

But: inside the goalie’s head there’s this little demon that hates balls passing the goal line. So when this ‘reptile-like’ instinct J notices a ball coming towards us goalies, it might try to get some part of our brains to initiate a save…..
And this is likely to interfere with your intention to develop a skill and doing things the right way. Let alone being aware of what your body is doing! Since the urge came up to prevent the ball from crossing the line, etc.

So: a wise thing would be to leave your goal every now and then if you want to focus on the execution of a skill instead of being distracted by a result-eagerness.

Bonus: it will also prevent you from getting a false judgement upon your own action. A save doesn’t mean that you did well (in practice this is of course!!) since you were aiming for a good execution of a skill/movement.

Good practices & remember: doing nothing sets you back. So best follow some kind of plan or scheme during the period when there’s no training, practice etc to stay on top of goalie-things!

Seeing your future makes you come out better

The other day in a training session something struck me.

This was the setting: the goalkeeper was exposed to a sequence of three scoring opportunities.

1. drag flick after penalty corner
2. a bouncing ball from roughly 9 mtr
3. a ball, kicked over a Dflecta, from around 6,5 mtr

In the circle there were obstructions placed, representing opponents. The shooters/kickers would pick up any rebound that would occur.

During the first set a lot of rebounds occurred. And most of these rebounds resulted in a goal being scored.

Upon reviewing with the goalies it became apparent that they used a self-instruction that would sound like: “I prevent the ball from going into my goal”. And that’s what they actually did: they blocked balls with a limited sharpness on the rebounds that resulted out of that.

After some discussion we tweaked the self-instruction to something that would sound like: “I eliminate the scoring opportunities in my circle”. The resulting number of rebounds dropped dramatically.

By re-shaping the instruction, the context of their action was widened. And as a result of that they had to create an image in their heads of the available space that could be used to direct the ball out of their circle.

Give your brain a chance to handle all relevant info by feeding it with various perspectives: not only the task at hand directly but also with the constraints to make the action successful also in a larger context/timeframe.

BTW: this approach is also used in (long-term) goalsetting: you have to have an image in your head of the desired outcome!

Good rebound-handling, ‘till next posting!