Why does my player's hit keep lifting off the ground?

Most often the player is getting underneath the ball, so the flat face of the stick is not travelling through it. Todd Williams suggests pulling the ball position back to where the flat face can drive through the middle of the ball, keeping the head over it, so the ball stays low rather than rising into a dangerous, foulable hit.

Where does power in a hockey hit actually come from?

From a long lever and weight transfer rather than effort. Wind the stick back far enough to engage the wrists, keep the hands together at the top so all the force runs through one pivot point, straighten everything at contact, and let your weight move towards the target with the head over the ball.

What is the Indian dribble in field hockey?

The Indian dribble is a ball-carrying technique where the player rotates the stick with the left hand to move the ball from the open side to the reverse and back while running. Done well it keeps the ball out in front and lets the player run with the head up, protecting the ball and disturbing a defender's feet. As covered in Simon Letchford's Why the left hand matters masterclass on The Hockey Site, the left hand is the part that does the steering.

How do I teach the left-hand rotation for the Indian dribble?

Start with the grip. Set a relaxed left hand at the top of the stick and teach it to rotate the stick face from open to reverse, rather than flicking the wrists. The Essential Grip Skills masterclass with Adam Falla and Ross Gilham-Jones stresses getting the hands into the right position first, and bringing the right hand up the stick when carrying so the ball rides further out and the vision opens up. Groove the rotation slowly before adding pace or a defender.

At what age should players learn the Indian dribble?

You can introduce the foundations early. The Hockey Site article Start with their hands notes that technical habits wire in fastest when players are young, so a clean left-hand action taught early saves years of un-teaching later. Keep it playful, let young players feel success before piling on pressure, and build the correct habit alongside any existing one rather than attacking the fault head on.

Ross Gilham-Jones Archives - The Hockey Site

How do I coach a soft first touch in field hockey?

Quick answer. A soft first touch comes less from “soft hands” drills than from what happens before the ball arrives. Get the player scanning early, receiving with an open body (half turned towards where they want to go), and treating the touch as an action with a purpose: into space, away from pressure, or into protection, rather than a dead stop. Relaxed hands and a low grip help, but they are the finish, not the fix.

That is the short version. Here is why the coaches on The Hockey Site would tell you not to stop there.

The touch is the receipt for a decision made earlier

When a receive falls apart in a match, it usually looks like a technical fault: the ball bounced off the stick. Most of the time it is not. The player scanned too late, arrived square, or had no idea what they were going to do before the ball got to them. Coach the picture, not just the hands. A player who knows where the pressure is and where the safe exit is will take a soft touch almost by accident, because the touch has somewhere to go. That is the thinking behind the On Ball Principles piece, which pulls this apart in detail.

Receiving is the start of the action, not the end of it

This reframe runs through almost every receiving session on the site. A first touch that simply stops the ball is neutral at best. It buys a fraction of a second and often loses it again. A first touch with intent buys time, space, or protection. In his receiving masterclass, Siegfried Aikman pushes players to receive already moving, rarely letting the ball fully settle, so the touch and the next action become one motion. Tsoanelo Pholo takes it a step further in Receive to eliminate: at higher levels the reception itself can beat a defender if the touch and body shape carry the player away from pressure and into a damaging line.

Body shape does more than soft hands ever will

If a player receives square on, they are already late, and no amount of cushioning saves them. Receiving half open, with chest and stick pointed towards where they want to play, gives them options even with an average touch. It is the cheap fix that most coaches under use.

Grip is the quiet detail underneath all of it

You cannot cushion a ball with tense hands and a high grip. The Essential grip skills masterclass makes the case for getting the hands lower and looser to give the stick more give on contact. The point about the left hand matters here too, and Why the left hand matters covers it well: for most players the left hand controls the face of the stick, so a first touch that keeps bouncing up is often a left hand problem, not a concentration problem.

Scanning is what makes the touch look calm

Panic comes from surprise. A player who takes a shoulder check before the ball arrives is not reacting to pressure, they are answering a question they already asked: where is the nearest defender, where is my safe exit, where is my damaging exit. Tin Matkovic builds a whole habit around this, the eyes up idea. The touch looks soft because the brain is not still deciding.

How to actually train it

The thing that does not work is unopposed lines of players cushioning a rolled ball. It looks tidy and transfers to nothing, because there is no picture to read and no decision to make. Small-sided games do the job. They keep producing the same pressure pictures and force the touch under time, without you narrating every rep, something Lisa Letchford shows nicely in Basic skills through small-sided games. A simple version: a small grid, receive under light back pressure, and the rep only counts if the first touch takes the player into space and a purposeful next action. Standing still after the receive means the rep is dead. Widen the grid and allow a safe exit for developing players. Shrink it and demand a damaging exit for stronger ones. Same game, one theme, different standards.

So, before your next session, the honest question is not “how do I get softer hands in my squad.” It is “do my players know what they are going to do before the ball arrives.” Fix the picture and the body shape first, tidy the grip second, and the soft touch tends to look after itself.

Two questions this usually raises

Why does my player’s first touch keep bouncing off the stick?

Usually the hands, not the concentration. Tense hands and a high grip leave the stick nothing to give on contact, so the ball rebounds instead of settling. Drop the hands lower on the shaft, loosen the fingers, and look at the left hand, because for most players that is the hand controlling the face of the stick. The grip masterclass below takes it apart properly.

What is the best drill for receiving under pressure in field hockey?

There probably is not a best drill, but there is a best shape: small-sided games rather than unopposed lines. A small grid, light back pressure, and one rule, the rep only counts if the first touch takes the player into space and a purposeful next action. Widen the grid for developing players, shrink it for stronger ones.

If you want to go deeper, and this is worth thinking through rather than copying, the receiving masterclasses on The Hockey Site show exactly how these coaches build it, session by session.

Go more in depth here

Adam Falla & Ross Gilham-Jones

Essential grip skills

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Tsoanelo Pholo

Why your best players still need the basics

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Tin Matkovic

Balancing skill gaps

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More coaching questions: How do I coach the hit so players get power without lifting or fouling?, How do I teach the Indian dribble properly in field hockey?, Why do my passes keep getting intercepted under pressure?, How do I coach players who can’t beat a defender one on one?. All of them are in Field Hockey Coaching Questions.

The experts mentioned in this article

Siegfried AikmanDutch international coach, Chair of the FIH Education Committee

Tsoanelo PholoFormer South African international player, coach in Hong Kong

Tin MatkovicCoach from Croatia, working in Germany

Lisa LetchfordFormer GB international player, coaching in England

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How do I coach the hit so players get power without lifting or fouling?

Quick answer. Power in the hit comes from a simple, repeatable swing rather than from muscle: hands together at the top of the grip, the stick loaded back to engage the wrists, then everything straightening through a flat stick face as your weight moves towards the target. Lifting and fouling almost always trace back to undercutting the ball or a poor ball position, not to a lack of strength. Keep the head over the ball and the flat face driving through it, and coach the outcome by reading what the ball actually does.

That is the short version, but here is why the coaches on The Hockey Site would tell you not to stop there. A clean, powerful hit is a chain of small things, and most problems live in one link of that chain.

Start with why you are hitting at all. In his Hitting the hockey ball masterclass, Todd Williams makes the point that the hit is coached less than it used to be, because players can now push, slap and sweep so efficiently. It still matters, though, because it is the one weapon that beats a goalkeeper from distance and the pass that reaches a free player when nothing else will get there. Power is not the goal in itself. It is there to serve an outcome, so coach it as a means to an end and the technique tends to follow.

Power comes from a long lever, not from effort. Williams describes winding the stick back far enough to engage the wrists, then straightening everything at the point of contact so the full length of that lever travels through the ball as fast as possible. His detail on the grip is the part coaches often skip: the hands sit together at the top so that all of the force you generate runs through one pivot point into the stick, with a little of the stick showing above the left hand. Players who try to hit harder by swinging with their arms usually lose speed, not gain it.

Let the body deliver the power, not the shoulders. The same masterclass stresses a strong, wide base, weight transferring towards the target, and the head over the ball through contact and follow through. Williams treats the head position as a useful check: if the player is balanced and over the top of the ball, the weight is doing what it should. This is where real power lives, and it is also what keeps the hit low and controlled instead of wild.

Do not ignore the left hand. In Why the left hand matters, Simon Letchford argues that the top hand is the steering hand, and that gripping the stick correctly in the left hand lets every skill be executed better and produce a bigger outcome. He also reads the stick itself, noting that the strength and speed you can generate sit down the face of the stick: the lower the right hand travels, the stronger the position. His warning is that this is heavily under-coached, because top players do it by instinct and everyone else quietly misses it.

Lifting is usually undercutting, not a rules problem. This is the crux of the question. Williams points out that when a hit keeps rising, the common cause is that the player is getting underneath the ball, so the flat face of the stick is not travelling through it. The fix is not to hold back on power. It is to pull the ball position back to where the flat face can drive straight through the middle of the ball, with the head over it, so the ball stays down and true. Coach that flat contact and much of the danger, and the foul risk that comes with a lifted hit, takes care of itself.

Fix ball position before you fix anything else. A poor ball position, Williams says, is the single most common reason for a bad hit. You can have a good grip, a good swing and the right body shape, but if the ball is in the wrong spot, usually too close to the feet, it compromises everything. Get the ball in the right place and the rest of the technique has a chance to work. It is a cheap thing to check and a quick thing to change.

Treat the grip as the hidden engine. In Essential Grip Skills, Adam Falla and Ross Gilham-Jones from Leap Hockey make the case that grip sits underneath power and control, not just neat technique, and that bad habits creep into the fundamentals even at the top level. Their point is that grip is never simply a starting point to move past. Small changes in hand position and rotation change ball flight and whip, so brief, direct grip checks are worth doing with experienced players, not only beginners.

Coach the outcome, and let the ball tell you. Williams returns again and again to a simple idea: the ball does not lie. When a player is inconsistent, do not start by rebuilding their grip or their feet. Ask what the ball did. Did it lift, slice, lack power or miss the target? Then work backwards to the one thing that caused it, and always hit to a target so every repetition gives you feedback. For a reminder that the hit still earns its place in open play, Fede Tanuscio’s Rediscovering the Hit Pass is a good companion.

None of this is a checklist to read out on the pitch. The coaches above give you a way of seeing the hit, so that when a player lifts one or leaks power you can find the link in the chain that broke. Watch the masterclasses in full, borrow the parts that fit your players, and let them work it out with you rather than copy a swing they do not understand.

Go more in depth here

Todd Williams

Hitting the hockey ball

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Simon Letchford

Why the left hand matters

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Adam Falla and Ross Gilham-Jones

Essential Grip Skills

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More coaching questions: How do I coach a soft first touch in field hockey?, How do I teach the Indian dribble properly in field hockey?, We’ve got no drag flicker. How do I develop one safely?, Why do my passes keep getting intercepted under pressure?. All of them are in Field Hockey Coaching Questions.

The experts mentioned in this article

Todd WilliamsFormer Australian international player. Currently coaching in the UK.

Fede TanuscioFormer Argentina international player. Currently Sport Director for Hockey Luxembourg.

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How do I teach the Indian dribble properly in field hockey?

Quick answer. Build the Indian dribble from the grip up. Set a relaxed left hand at the top of the stick to do the steering, then teach that hand to rotate the stick so the ball travels from open side to reverse and back while the player runs. Keep the ball out in front of the feet so the head stays up, start slow to groove the action, and only then add pace, a defender and a reason to move the ball at all. It is a controlled carry, not a wristy party trick.

That surface answer will get a young player waggling the ball from side to side by the end of a session, but the coaches on The Hockey Site would tell you not to stop there. A dribble that only exists on the spot, with the head down and no purpose, is a habit you will spend years un-teaching.

Begin with the grip, not the ball. Before a player moves the ball anywhere, the hands have to be right, and the Essential Grip Skills masterclass makes that the whole starting point. As Adam Falla puts it there, if we can get the hands into the right position for the different techniques then we are off to a really good start in creating good hockey fundamentals. For the Indian dribble that means a relaxed left hand at the top of the stick doing the steering, with the right hand lower and lighter. Rush past this and you are teaching a flick on top of a broken foundation.

The left hand is the engine of the movement. The side to side action is not the wrists flapping, it is the left hand rotating the stick so the face turns from open to reverse and back. Simon Letchford gives his whole Why the left hand matters session to exactly this, arguing that if we grip the stick correctly in our left hand then we can execute all of our skills far better and more easily than if we hold it the wrong way. He also calls it one of the most under-coached parts of the game, something top players do on instinct while everyone else quietly misses it. Worth remembering the next time a player’s dribble looks stiff and forced.

Let the ball live in front of the feet. Young players keep the ball close because close feels safe, but close also means blind. Letchford’s link is a good one to pass on: the further away we get the ball from our feet, the easier our vision becomes. In the same grip masterclass, Ross Gilham-Jones supplies the mechanical fix, that when you are ball carrying you bring the right hand up the stick so you can extend your arms and have the ball further out, which increases your vision and your gameplay significantly. A proper Indian dribble is played out where the player can see it, not tucked under the nose.

Treat it as a carry, not a trick. Andrew Wilson argues in Running with the ball that running with the ball is a genuine and fundamental part of hockey, not a last resort when the pass is missing. But he is just as clear that the aim is not raw speed. With a naturally quick player he says he would first teach her to slow down, because knowing how and when to use your speed becomes the real superpower. His warning lands here too: we do not want players who are machines, we want players who can read in split seconds. An Indian dribble drilled at one relentless tempo simply builds a faster machine.

Give every touch a job. The point of moving the ball across the body is to hold a defender, disturb their feet and open a passing or running line, not to decorate a jog up the pitch. Wilson shows how running with the ball wins the congested moments around the circle, where a flat pass would just be intercepted and a player has to carry to create the danger. Tsoanelo Pholo ties the footwork to it in his Receive to eliminate masterclass, insisting on tiny adjusting steps and a first touch that goes past the feet, so the player is already travelling beyond the defender rather than dribbling on the spot.

Remember where the dribble starts. In a match the Indian dribble rarely begins from a still ball, it flows out of a receive. Siegfried Aikman is blunt in his Receiving skills session that stopping the ball barely happens in modern hockey, and that receiving is really about preparing your next action. If a player’s first touch already sets the ball out in front and slightly across the body, the dribble is half done before the defender even arrives, and your technical drill starts to look like the game.

Groove it early and let them feel it work. The Hockey Site’s article Start with their hands makes the case that habits, good or bad, wire in fastest when players are young, so a clean left-hand action now is the cheapest investment you will ever make. When something is already wrong, the gentle route is to build the correct habit beside the old one and keep reaching for it, rather than attacking the fault head on. Let players feel a small success before you pile on pressure, and prompt a fix with a short question instead of narrating every mistake, because the correction a player finds themselves is the one that sticks.

None of this replaces watching a coach do it and explain the why. If you want the detail behind the cues, the grip, the rotation of the left hand and the decision to carry rather than pass, the masterclasses below let you hear it straight from the coaches and work out what fits your own group.