Choosing Your Performance Values
Performance is a concept. It encompasses durability, speed, and weight and puts those values on a spectrum. If durability is increased, weight might be increased as well and vice versa. But there is no combination of weight and durability that results in “low” performance – it depends on the lens through which players view the mix of elements – the lens through which they judge and value performance.
So, how do you choose what to value in performance? How do you know whether to trade durability for weight or weight for durability? Simply (and kind of unhelpfully) put, it really depends on your personal preferences. What are you trying to do on the field? Do you focus on making big offensive plays? Are you tasked with making big checks or driving players away from the net? Or, do you dabble in a bit of both?
If you’re mostly focused on dodging through people and finishing on the offensive end, you may want to prioritize weight over durability. But if you prefer to make big plays on the other end of the field, the opposite could be true.
Above all else, though, it’s important to remember that there is no right answer as to what you should look for in performance. Choose what you like best: what does your gut say is important in a shaft? What do you intuitively value the most? (For example, despite playing box lacrosse in the NLL, Epoch athlete Randy Staats prefers the lightest stick he can get to maximize his offensive production.) Ultimately, it’s the answers to those questions that will help you create your own lens through which to view the concept of performance.