Episode 360 Parents: 5 Things Every Parent Needs to Know About Vision — with Josh Tucker

Given my peanut gallery behind me, I I think the air conditioning blasting would be just fine, buddy. Parent segment brought to us by Stop It Goaltending U the app.

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Hutch.

Daren, I thought we'd have a little change up for parents today. This one's not coming from me, but I sat down with Josh Tucker of True Focus Vision to go over five tips for parents concerning vision and your goaltender. It's a little longer than usual. I think it was about seventeen minutes that we, we had together. Josh has worked with multiple National Hockey League goaltenders, multiple NFL quarterbacks.

If you look at the sort of rogue's gallery of people he's worked with in his office, and I did have the pleasure of visiting him a couple of summers ago. Just a great engaging guy, passionate about the game, and has been a guest on the InGoal Radio Podcast before. So we will leave a a note to that show in the show notes. We'll also leave some notes about how to get in touch with Josh because he's got a few ways that you can work with him, whether it's in person or virtually. And with that, I think I'll just hand it over to Josh.

We're gonna change it up a little bit today for the parent segment. I've brought in a new voice, Josh Tucker of True Focus Vision, has been a friend of the show for a very long time. I've had the pleasure of visiting him in his office in Minnesota to do some training as well. And today, we would like to talk, Josh, about some tips for parents around vision. What do you got for us today?

Alright. So we're gonna hit five things that parents should know about vision. Perfect. So number one, anytime I talk to anybody, this is an absolute non negotiable. Seems common sense, but get an eye exam.

And if it's been if your kid's never gotten one, absolutely get one. And if it's been a number of years, even if the last one was good, things can change. And so to me, it's a nonnegotiable for a couple reasons. One, it's a quick visit. Insurance should cover it.

And with all of the time and dollars that's and you're gonna pour into this wonderful sport and position. If there's something that is very quickly fixable or something that can make things a lot harder for your kid if it's not caught, you know, I've met people who have gone through their entire career and find out at 20 that they needed glasses the whole time. And and then they put on the glasses. They're like, this is what it was supposed to look like. And, you know, a lot of parents say, well, my kid never complains.

You know, don't assume everything's fine. Just go get the exam. Easy, quick, done. And in terms of improving, most things take years to improve at where if you can just pop something in your eye and see better like that, that's awesome. That's quick quick improvement.

So number one, get an eye exam.

Alright. Number two.

Alright. Number two on our list, there is way more to vision than just our twenty twenty score. And so the twenty twenty just tells us do we need corrective lenses to see, you know, have an even starting line with the rest of the world at certain distances? And that's really important. But beyond that, I like to think in terms of athleticism, where to be athletic, it's not just being strong.

You also need to be fast. You need to be able to jump high. You need to be able to change directions. Right? And so if you just have one of those, just because you're strong doesn't mean you're athletic.

We want all these other things. And so a couple examples. We wanna make sure that the eyes move smoothly, fluidly, and with control, and that they're going where my brain's asking them to go. So for the because we're talking to parents, we all remember when the computer mouse had the little rollerball in it. If you're ever stuck without a mouse pad, it was really frustrating to try to get the cursor to move across the screen.

And so, you know, you would move it a little bit and it would shoot across, or it would take four rolls to get where you wanted to go. And so if there's a path on the ice from a to b, and instead of the eyes going from a to b, they go a b c d e. And it sounds crazy, but I see it all the time. There are people whose eyes just don't go where we want them to go, or they take a little scenic route. And so the tools we use to do a job are really what we're getting at here where if my legs are weak, I'm not gonna push very hard.

If my eye muscles aren't coordinated, now relative to that, I'm gonna process things more slowly or inaccurately, and I'm gonna have a hard time. So beyond the eye movements, we want our eyes to be able to work together as a team. So we're not always looking in one direction. As things get closer to me, my eyes need to turn inward, and that's called convergence. And some people, their eyes don't like to do that.

And so in those cases, when the puck's coming in, the eyes are not truly staying with the puck. And I've seen this battle before where, the goalie coach is saying, watch it all the way in. And the goalie says, I am. They feel like they are. Right?

And sometimes they aren't.

One of the key parts of what you're saying here though is this isn't covered in your standard eye exam.

Correct. Thank you. Yeah. So in the testing realm, there's the eye exam. And so the term I would have you look for is vision therapy exams.

And what they're gonna look at there is not just whether or not you need lenses. They're gonna look at how well do your eyes converge, how well do they diverge, can they change focus from close to far. They should be able to look at some of those eye movements, it's not even always on the x axis or the y axis. Some people have one eye that's higher than the other. So now we've got a puck that's coming at us.

Our eyes are having to converge and come down, and it's really hard to get everything to come together perfectly. Right? And so, just getting that information, you might go in and knock the test out of the park, and that's awesome. Most people are gonna have some room to improve. But the big thing that I just really, you know, strive to to do when I have audiences like this is to find the people who have deficiencies.

So within this bucket, going beyond the rink, these same visual skills, they're super important for tracking pucks, reading the play, anticipating where things are gonna be, but it also has a huge impact on a child's ability to read and learn. So if we go back to the eye movements, if I'm trying to go from one word to another to another on the page and my eyes are battling me on that, you know, it's not always an effort thing. You can have great teachers, a kid who's trying hard, but it's like trying to learn to skate on really bad dinged up blades.

Mhmm.

Just the tools can be really deficient to where you know, and especially if you couple that with an inability or a difficulty in converging where the eyes won't meet at the word, It can be as significant as, like, words moving around or overlapping. And, so improving vision while it's you know, we're here to talk about goal tending is pretty cool because it really if you go through the process of vision therapy training, it has so many bearings on the other parts of a child's life.

Number three.

So this is just part two of that. Part number three is visual skills can be trained, and they can be improved. Most people just assume, you know, my vision is what it is, and that's what I've got. Or they say, oh, I need contacts, and they just, you know, hang their hat on that or I don't need contacts. I've got great vision.

And in some in that facet, they do, but the other stuff isn't guaranteed. It's not one on one. And so plain and simple, much like we can train the rest of our body, we can train the visual system to improve how our eyes move and how they work together as a team. And one of the coolest things, not the exact term, but it's more akin to muscle memory than it is hypertrophy or muscle growth or something like that where I, you know, I used to be in really good shape. You know, I had the muscles.

I used to look like our logo. Right? But I had stopped strength training, and now my muscles are gone. Right? And so I can get them back, but, you know, a well done vision therapy program with, you know, some some minimal maintenance along the way is something that, you know, vast majority of our people, they just they do our program once, and then they maintain it.

The one thing that can really derail some things is a concussion, and that's worth noting too. So if you have a child that's had a concussion, I would put extra emphasis on having that vision therapy testing done, or if they're in the recovery process right now. More and more research is showing that, you know, depending which metric or skill they use, I've seen as high as eighty seven, ninety percent of concussions yield some drop in visual performance. And those things don't always just snap back out of it. I'm a case in points.

My visual scores were off the charts on everything for fifteen years. Was in a car accident, smoked my head, and then my convergence was abysmal. My eye movements were all off. And, you know, I I'm fortunate. I have keys to the office where I could kinda retrain myself.

And, you know, vision is not the silver bullet one and only thing to concussion recovery, but it's definitely something where at least be aware if your child gets a concussion or if they've had one. I encourage you to have it on your radar because it can be an important part of the recovery process.

Perfect. That's kind of a three b, I guess.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Perfect. Okay. And number four.

Number four would be do eye hand training. You know, if you're not doing something for it, please start. And where you know, what to do, that becomes the second part of this. At a bare minimum, throw a ball and catch a ball. K?

Now, two two caveats to that. One, wear wear your goalie glove when you do it or at least a baseball glove. So we wanna reinforce that we're catching in the pocket, not in the palm of our hand. So there are drills we do where it's not a direct goalie drill where we're catching the palm of our hand. But if we're reinforcing catching here, you know, it's multiple inches or centimeters from the palm of the hand to that where we want the brain catching here.

So let's say, you know, Johnny or Susie at home are already yeah. They're always outside throwing a ball off the house and then catching it. So something I wanna encourage you to shift is if they're gonna put time into that, which I hope they are, think about the trajectory at which they're catching. So I I was a ball off the house guy, and, I'm still making payments to my dad for all the garage panels I knocked out. Right?

But to catch it here, to hit it off the wall, they have to throw it seven, eight feet in the air because it's gonna fall down at them. One, that's not what pucks do. And two, the angle of my wrist, I have to go like this to catch a falling object, and it's really weird. And I'm reinforcing improper mechanics. And so, ideally, you wanna have something where just some simple geometry, something at an angle where you throw down at it and then it comes up to you and you're catching it like this.

And so the simplest place to start is if you're like me and you have way too much spare wood just in case someday. You know, if you have a sheet of plywood, that's a great place to start. And it's always a slam dunk because now you can justify some of that wood you kept in the garage all these years.

Perfect.

And, yeah, lean it on the wall, put something heavy in front of it, and then you just play with the angle until you find, you know, the right one. And so I always look at I remember the forwards and defense when I was growing up. They had the 100 puck a day challenge. Right? And it's like, alright.

I'm gonna shoot a 100 pucks a day. Where for forwards and d, it's typically been easier for them to go out and stick handle and shoot, and that's the main thing they need to work on. But for goalies, if we're not on the ice, it's it's not as easy, where this simple approach, have a board, throw it, catch it, set a goal to catch 50 balls a day, catch a 100 balls a day, something. But you do that with your glove on, and if it's not too hot out, wear your helmet too because then you're looking through the bar. It feels more real.

That alone, I've got multiple kids right now where so for them, we built them one of our reaction boards, which allows you to adjust to any setting Mhmm. Like this. And parents are saying, yeah. You know, Johnny's using it. He's used it every day.

And now on the ice, his glove used to be a liability, and now it's just lights out, just automatic where, we need reps to get better. And so that would be the starting point for eye hand training.

Perfect. And if I could just jump in there because I think there's probably a few parents like me that are thinking, Well, why don't I just have the ball hit the wall first, then it hits the ground and now it's coming on an upward trajectory to me? But I'm guessing by using a board, you get a lot more consistency in terms of the angle that is coming back.

Slam dunk. Yes.

There you go.

And so I I kinda look at, like, good, better, best. Throwing a ball off the wall is good. It's good. Going ground wall or wall ground is definitely better because we're gonna get that upward trajectory. So the limitations of that, there are two.

One is consistency, where you really have to hit the right spot. Two is you lose a lot of speed because it there are two impacts. Mhmm. And on top of that, there's some funky spin, especially if if you hit the ground first where you're gonna lose some speed. And what I've found is to find the sweet spot where the ball's really humming and staying on a line like this, you know, with the ground wall or wall ground, I either have to get really close to it to get the right trajectory where now I can't throw maybe as fast as I would like to

Mhmm.

Or just the spin that you get off the ball, it's inconsistent. And so by having one singular flat surface, that ball should maintain its pop. And on top of that, when we talk about mechanics, to execute a ground wall throw, you kinda have to do, like, a low sidearm, which tends to swing my body off, and now I'm kinda doing this. Where if I'm in a position where I can be in my stance and just throw, I'm way more in my stance. And so that I would say an angled board would be then the best.

And, then you start to get lots of situations where, mom, dad, brother, sister, friends, they could throw the ball for you. And there's different ways where, you know, a lot of this when we dig deeper into I use these for I'll have a kid actually in the net on knee pads, glove blocker, helmet stick, where they're getting reps working on their hands with no wear and tear on their hips or knees. And that's I'm sure you guys yeah. You know, that's a big issue right now. I've got a 17 year old who's had both hips done.

So once you get into that, now you can really get creative. You can do throws from the side, change the angle, that type of thing, and everything's gonna result in an upward trajectory throw. You just gotta play with the angles a little bit and get them dialed in.

There we go. And last, number five.

Play other sports. Number five. Play other sports. Baseball. Yeah.

I mean, you know, I think racket sports are great. Baseball is great. Lacrosse is great. Throwing and catching a football. I mean, really, in addition to my work in the visual field.

So I was a goalie. I admit I was a goalie coach. I did private lessons. I coached high school hockey in Minnesota for a number of years. And especially in the private the private sessions, you see a vast difference in coordination and ability to make adjustments.

Right? And so the way I've always put it is every goalie who's ever played the position knows what they want their body to do. The good ones are able to do all those things, and the great ones are able to do it just really fast. And so goaltending requires just a multitude of micro adjustments, timing, and, you know, the bulk of our save selections are you know, it's it's one of these types of moves. But the in betweens, the puck changes directions or the guy you know, you know, the puck hops and now the shot that we thought was coming doesn't come.

And now how do we change? And so, really, honestly, I think gymnastics absolutely has to be on this list. So that's not from as much heavy on the visual end, But from a body control standpoint, I think it's just the ultimate base of the pyramid sports. It just translates. It does.

And I think it also gives a bit of a mental break where the way things have gone where it's if you're not playing your specialized sport every day, you feel behind. And I don't I don't feel that's true where if you're doing something else, it's in the grand scheme long term, like, as you get older, and that's where you really it matters more, you know, how you perform. You're putting money in the bank by diversifying your athletic portfolio. And from a visual standpoint, you're seeing things from different angles, from different speeds, and you're gonna see all that with a puck. It just doesn't always have to be a puck.

Perfect. Yeah. Good for the mind as well. Yeah. Josh, thank you so much.

We will share news in the show notes exactly how people can get in touch with you, whether whether they want to visit you in person as I did or some of your online programs. Do you want to just give us a quick shout out here though how people can find you?

Yeah. Truefocusvision.com. And we have a page on reading if that resonated with you and concussions. And then goalies, you get your own page. Right?

So we work with a lot of different people, different sports, but goalies are for sure our specialty. So if you go on the goalie page, you could see just a few of the goalies we've worked with, not all of them, but we have our online database. We have a membership for I hand drills. So where we come in is we we show you the next steps no matter where you are on the spectrum. If you're a beginner or if you're already a pro, there's stuff in there that'll keep you challenged for a long, long time.

And so a b c, always be challenged when you're doing your eye hand training.

Perfect. The ABCs of eye hand training is probably better than the five top tips. That's that's great. Thanks for joining us today, Josh.

Thank you for having me.

When I say Josh, what what jumps to mind first for you, Hutch?

Oh, well, you have to meet him because his personality is what jumps to mind. I actually reached out to him and I said, man, I'm I'm having a bit of a a tough time and, going through some stuff. I need a real positive person to be on the show with me this week. And Josh is nothing if not positive. Very uplifting, engaging.

He is that guy that everybody wants to be around because they are just so full of energy and enthusiasm and yet completely professional about everything that he does. So, it's all about the person. And what did I say earlier when you were talking about who you want to work with? I think it's got to be somebody you connect with as a person.

I think that's a great way to frame it.

You know what? You know what? The first thing that jumps out to me, Hutch is right. It should be the personality, but it's like the symbol for True Focus Vision is like an eyeball with like two arms flexing out of it. He refers

to it in the interview.

Oh, the and there you go. So it's funny because, yeah, obviously, seeing him wearing the T shirt and just like but also walking into NHL locker rooms and seeing NHL goalies like Jake Oettinger with a bag of Josh's goodies sitting in his locker room and and knowing right away what's in that bag and that it's a bunch of, you know, training aids because on the bag is the eyeball with the flexing muscles. And you're like, ah, I remembered. I ended up writing an article about it for us and for for nhl.com. Like, me walking into the Dallas Stars locker room and seeing that bag and be like, Josh, you started working with you started working with Josh. And and Jake just like, yeah.

Wanna get more into it. Spent the summer and walking you through it. So, yeah, it's it's the symbol. Good job marketing and branding by Josh because every time I walk into a room and see it, I know that this guy's been working with him.