Mollie Mackler Blog #3

DURHAM, N.C. - Duke senior Mollie Mackler will keep a weekly blog for the 2011-12 season, giving Duke fans an inside look at life on the Blue Devil women's lacrosse team.

Look for Mollie's blog every week during the year on GoDuke.com

Mackler Blog #3 - September 26, 2011
Welcome back! It's been an exciting, revealing and most importantly, fun first week of practice for the Duke women's lacrosse team. After weeks of running, lifting and stickwork, it was finally time to get out and really play this week. Although we're mainly getting back to basics, the fundamentals have been fun indeed.

Aside from our first week of practice, Duke women's lax has been keeping themselves pretty busy. To de-stress and stretch out, a number of Duke women's laxers have been getting involved in the practice of Bikram Yoga. For those of you who aren't familiar with this type of Yoga, it's done in a 105+ degree room with a humidity of at least 40%. There are 26 poses that are repeated twice each, strengthening and stretching every part of the body. Junior Lauren Martin is the Bikram guru, but Amanda Jones, Emma Tucci, Taylor Virden, Bridget Nolan and myself have given it a spin a few times as well. You sweat more than you ever have or will in your life, which to some, feels great. There is a lot of "Namaste" mumbo jumbo that goes on throughout the classes though, which is a turn off to some of the more straightforward athletes among us (Bridget).

Getting back to lax -- Our first day of practice Monday went very well. We have been dabbling quite a bit in man-up and man-down situations to get us warmed up for fall competitions. It's been fun to get used to the freshmen and their different styles of play, which have been magnificent. The collective speed of the team astonishes me every year, being one of the only static players on the field at any given time. This year though, we are really flying. We definitely have a few things to work on but that's natural in the first week of fall practice. Patience is a virtue, y'all.

It's been fun for Kaitlin Gaiss and me to have two new goalies to hang out with in what we call goalie world: Angel and Katherine. Goalie world was already a pretty unique place, but now we have a lot more going on. We even have a new coach added to the mix! Amanda Barnes has been able to manage this strange realm of ours, which is a feat within itself. Aside from that, she has been such an awesome addition to our Duke lax family. She finally got the chance to start working with the defense, and with the goalies more intimately this week. We've all enjoyed getting back into defensive positioning, communication, slides and my personal favorite, clearing. She's introduced a few new cuts and routes to us already. She's brought a great deal of enthusiasm and youth to practice, which is saying a lot considering that our team is a very enthusiastic group of college students.

We ended the week with an amazing and memorable alumni weekend. Graduated members of the Duke lax family graced us with their presence (we've all been counting down the days until we'd get to see each other again). We also hosted a number of recruits to whom we've been happy to expose what life on our team is really like. From Lunches at the Loop, to Dinners at Dillo, to attending (and cheering at) soccer and volleyball games, we had a blast with recruits this weekend. After such a fun weekend, we're ready to buckle down for a worthwhile week of practice. Fall is for learning and growing and we're trying to do that [while maintaining style points] in order to be ready to compete against the Tar Heels and Notre Dame on Saturday at UNC! Until next week my lovely laxy readers...

Namaste,
Two Five

Players Mentioned

Kaitlin Gaiss

Amanda Jones

Mollie Mackler

Lauren Martin

Bridget Nolan

Emma Tucci

Taylor Virden

Duke information