The floating elbow, and why your reach is shorter than it should be
One posture cue that adds most of a metre to how far you can protect the puck.
Lock your top arm against your ribs and your reach ends where your torso does. Let the elbow float — away from the body, relaxed, carrying no tension — and the same player suddenly controls a puck the length of an arm further out.
It looks like a small thing on video and it changes what defenders can do to you. A locked arm means a defender only has to beat your torso to reach the puck. A floating elbow means they have to beat your reach, and your body is still between them and it.
The drill is unglamorous: carry a puck at walking pace with your top elbow deliberately away from your side until it stops feeling strange.
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