Page:Lacrosse- The National Game of Canada (New Edition).djvu/127

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THROWING THE BALL.
107

lead to perfection. It is a great mistake to suppose you can make good players by an immediate rush into hot games. There is no royal road to Lacrosse any more than to geometry; and though you may pick up what may seem to be a successful style by playing the game, ignorant of its principles, it will no more compare to genuine Lacrosse than sliding on a chip does to toboganing. To assert that you can learn to play as well by intuition as by rule, is to deny that there are first principles in the game, and it would be as useless trying to teach you as trying to prove Euclid's proportions to a man who disputes the axioms.

If you feel yourself such an incarnation of genius that you think you know everything about the game, you'll find yourself left behind, and may say au revoir to your chances of election on "the first twelve." There are so few really good throwers in a club that they stand out as exceptions. There are many able to throw to any point from any distance when they have it all their own way; but the essence of good play is to be able to do this in the excitement of having an opponent at your heels; to have more ways than one, and to be able to throw accurately and quickly to any point, from whatever position you