Learning how to play lacrosse can open your eyes to a whole new athletic world. Lacrosse is a sport that combines the contact of football with the speed of hockey and the long tradition of soccer, and is among the most exhilarating team sports today. Lacrosse is a sport that emphasizes natural athletic ability and coordination, improvisation, and toughness; this guide may not be able give you any of those things, but it can provide the basic skills needed.

The first thing you'll need is to pick a position, so that you know which lacrosse stick to buy and which skills to master. After that, you can get started throwing and catching, which is the most important skill of any lacrosse player. How quickly you pick it up depends a lot on your natural hand-eye coordination, the amount of time you have to spend practicing, and how much experience you have playing other sports. But an experienced athlete who can spend an hour or so practicing every other day can become a proficient passer and catcher with in a matter of a few weeks. Once you get throwing down, and then master the basics of defense, you'll find that you are just about ready to find a league and take the field.

Dating back to the early 1600's, Native Americans were engaging in a primitive variation of lacrosse, however it did not receive it's official name until discovered by French explorers. In the 1800's the game spread to Canada where the first Olympic team was founded in 1844. In 1879, the U. S. Amateur Lacrosse Association was founded. Adopting the same rules that were written for the Canadian league. It was then that colleges took interest in the sport and in 1929 was renamed the U. S. Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association. Lacrosse can be found played in many countries all over the world.http://www.hickoksports.com/history/lacrosse.shtml

Lacrosse has four different basic positions, all of which require very different skill-sets and even different equipment. They are attacker, midfielder (often called middie), and goalie.http://www.lacrosse-information.com/lacrosse-positions.html Attackers are the primary goal-scorers, and the players who typically get the most glory. However, they are also the players who suffer some of the worst physical abuse as they strive for the goal. Middies control the flow of the game, and they must be skilled on offense and defense. Because of the sport's offsides rule, they are the only players who must run length of the field on a regular basis. As such, physical fitness is paramount for middies. Whereas both middies and attackers use sticks measuring roughly 40 inches, the defenseman's stick is six feet long. Defensemen rarely score, but they dish out more punishment than any other position. Goalies use a stick whose length is in between that of the attacker and the defenseman, with a widened net so as to better stop the shots flying toward him.http://www.lacrossecentral.com/lacrosse-sticks/mens/index.html

The most basic motion for any position, the prerequisite for lacrosse proficiency, is throwing and catching. The throwing motion is not unlike that of a quarterback's in football. The player starts with his hips closed, with the strong arm on the backside, the weak arm in front. His elbow should be pointed roughly at his target. For a right-hander, his left hand will be at the base of the stick, and his right about two and a half feet up. As he throws, he steps forward, opens his hips, pulls the stick over the top of his dominant shoulder. His dominant hand can slide down the stick as the motion continues, so as to generate more whip and stick speed. Sidearmed and even under-armed tosses are used on occasion, but the over-the-top is the most important step in learning the lacrosse basics. http://www.monkeysee.com/play/2309-lacrosse-throwing-and-catching

To practice receiving passes, you put your dominant hand within a couple of inches of the net, at the top of the stick. To catch a lacrosse ball, you simply watch the ball into your net as it flies toward you. As it pops into the netting, you can give the stick a subtle wrist click --the "cradle" motion, it's called-- to lock the ball into the pocket and thus protect it as well as possible. http://www.monkeysee.com/play/2309-lacrosse-throwing-and-catching

When throwing and catching is mastered, the next step is to flip it around, so that the weak hand becomes as proficient and reliable as the dominant hand, and a play can be made no matter what the position of the nearest opposing player. Once you have that figured out, you're just about ready to take the field.

Regardless of the position you play, a few defensive basics are a must. First of all, a defender should always try to stay between the man he's marking and the goal. Once he has that down, he should concentrate on disrupting the other player's attempts to attack.

Poke checks to the stick of the oncoming player are a good way to start; they are unlikely to provoke penalties, and even if they are unsuccessful in jarring the ball from the opposing player's possession, poke checks delivered to the body opponent's body are usually enough to slow him down. Swinging stick checks are a good bed to knock the ball loose, but the more noticeable the swing, the more likely it is to draw a slashing penalty. Body checks are a great way to punish a player who doesn't keep his head on a swivel, but hits from behind are a guaranteed penalty. Perhaps the most important defensive trick is skill in scooping up loose balls; the team that does a better job coming up with loose balls is usually the one that dominates possession.http://www.howtodothings.com/video/lacrosse-defense-coaching-tutorial