Passing: Put yourself in front of the ball.

If you were to demonstrate to a new player how you want the volleyball to be passed, would you:

A) Turn your back to your setter and pass the ball back over your head?

B) Turn sideways to the flight of the ball and swing at it like a baseball batter?

C) Stretch straight up and hit the ball with the knuckles of one hand?

D) None of the above.

Geez. I hope you answered "D".

But how many times have you seen a player fail to move his feet or turn sideways or entirely backward to the setter while attempting to pass the ball? How accurate are the passes made this way compared to the passes made by players who get both feet in front of the ball and are able to pass from a crouching stance instead of facing mostly away from their setter and twisting and stretching backwards?

Passing the ball from a sideways or backward stance poses many inherent problems:

Problem 1. You face farther away from your setter than if you get in front of the ball.

Problem 2. You might be stealing the ball from a teammate who is in the better position to make the pass.

Problem 3. You risk a collision and injuries with teammates when you are out of position to play a ball -- because when it appears that you are out of position to make the play, your teammates will try to make the play.

Problem 4. You set up the fake-out: You attempt to play the ball, realize you don't have as good a chance at it as a teammate so you stop your attempt but your teammate has already stopped her attempt, too, because she thought you were committed to the ball.

Problem 5. When you appear to be out of position to play a ball -- and especially if it looks like you and a teammate will both attempt to play the same ball -- your other teammates lose confidence in whether the play will be made. This throws off the timing of the setter and the approaches of the hitters.

You can fight off a tendency not to get in front of the ball by (1) anticipating and starting your move quickly to a position in front of the flight of the attack hit and (2) striving for that good passing position instead of just any ol' position that allows you to touch the ball.

Simple drill: Two people. Stand facing each other. Start the drill any distance apart but vary the starting distance as you repeat the drill. One player lobs the ball just high enough for the other player to rush into a good passing position, fully in front of the path of the ball and facing the person who lobbed the ball. The second player passes it back to the first. With three people, one lobs it over the head of the second. The second one rushes to get in front of the ball, passes it to the third (as though this person would be setting). The third person catches it and lobs it over the head of the first person who rushes to get in front of the ball, etc.

The goal for you is to lose the habit of passing lazily and to build the habit of passing as though the whole match depended on it.

The Floater Serve

by Chris Wright

Often times you find yourself and your team in a rut. You and your team may be doing everything right but no matter what, it seems you just can't break the run your opponents are on. Frustration starts building, you and your teammates start feeling on edge, and you wonder, "How could our team have blown such a large lead?" or, “This is just no fun at all.”

FINALLY, your team gets the serve and now is your chance to get out of that rut and hopefully regain the lead or at least have a respectable showing. But alas, it was not meant to be as your server just served the ball straight into the net. Talk about frustrating!

Many times during the service, the server feels they need to serve as hard as they can or simply feel the serve should be a "kill" opportunity, or someone is trying to impress everyone. While it definitely is a chance to score, the serve is so much more. When your server fails to get the serve over the net, or hits the ball out of bounds, it is the biggest momentum killer there is. Though it sounds pretty obvious, it seems many people forget that the most important part of the serve is to simply get your serve in.

Don't get me wrong, if you are good enough to perform a highly consistent jump serve, then by all means go for it. But a jump serve generally takes a somewhat higher toss, an approach, and timing your jump. Compound it by trying to actually aim the serve and temper it with the right amount of power and you have a recipe for a very inconsistent serve.

It has been my experience that, while some can execute a few killer jump serves for a few uncontested points, their run ultimately ends by a bad serve. When this happens, your team never really felt like they gained momentum or any sense of control, as they just stood there, while you tried to take it upon yourself to win the game with your serving. You may have gotten two or three uncontested points, but your successful serve percentage tends to be quite low.

For these reasons, I am a strong advocate of the floater serve. In my case, the floater serve starts with a low toss and little movement. This in itself makes the serve easier on the server to place the ball and get good contact on the ball. I find the floater to be extremely consistent, it can be just as likely to get uncontested points, and it is more likely to frustrate your opponents then most serves.

A typical jump serve or any hard serve with rotation, the only difficulty is really getting to the ball in time. If you can get there, it’s a fairly easy serve to pass. Contrast this with a floater. The floater always looks like a slow, soft serve that should be easily returned. However, if done correctly with no rotation on the ball, the ball can suddenly drop, float farther than expected, or shift from side-to-side in mid air, making it difficult to judge exactly where it is going and make it hard to pass correctly.

If your teammate fails to return a killer jump serve, you just shrug it off as a lucky serve. On the other hand, nothing frustrates a team more than watching one of their players shank what appeared to be a very easy serve or fail to get under the ball when it just kind of floated there for so long, but that is what often happens with a floater. It can rob a team of momentum.

Now, you most likely won't get much adulation from your teammates when the other team makes a poor pass of your soft, slow, easy-appearing serve. They may think the other team is just messing up. But you'll know it when your serve was the reason. Even if the other team handles your floater serve, you have put the responsibility on them to convert and your teammates will not feel like you blew their chances of staging a comeback or failed to put the nail in the coffin. That is why I find always serving the floater to be the best way to go for me.

Game Management: Aim to win by at least four points.

Standard scoring for most volleyball games requires one team to be ahead by two points in regulation time in order to win. Usually, just one point ahead in overtime.

But you should plan to be four points ahead.

Here's why: During the course of the game, the referee will probably make at least two calls that you don't agree with. That two points that you felt you should have gotten but the other team got them instead. And that's two additional points you'll need to score to win by two.

If you don't get those additional two points, you or your teammates might be tempted to remember those two calls that "should" have gone your way instead of, for example, the two (or more?) serves you missed, etc.

Don't blame the ref. Take responsibility for getting the lead and keeping it.

And get those serves in for cryin' out loud!

Blocking: Show Up & Show Hands

I subbed on a team of six last night and our opponents had only four players -- but very good players. They won all three games.

Hey! It wasn't a blow-out. We lost the first game by only one point in overtime. And the next two were close. Mostly.

My two male teammates did some fine blocking but our opponents' men are both great hitters.

Definitely, their hitters are better hitters than I am a blocker. I didn't complete any blocks myself except a few soft blocks (in which I took some of the speed off the ball but it continued coming into our side of the court).

On the other hand, I was rewarded five or six times just for getting into a good blocking position, timing my jump well, and sticking my hands over the net toward the ball.

What happened? The same thing that usually happens, sometimes even against great hitters.

Each of the hitters, while he was approaching the ball and about to hit, noticed I was making a block attempt. So he adjusted his aim to hit around my hands. This resulted in two or three of their hits against me never clearing the net and three or four others sailing entirely out of bounds.

Did I touch the ball? Nope.

Did I hear that very satisfying THUMP-THUMP as the ball first struck my hands and then their floor? Nope.

But, did I help get a point each time? Yessssss!

And my teammates got some no-touch blocks, too.

Here's a formula for you: Points for my team + frustration for our opponents = I'm happy.

It would be hard to prove it but I'd say 80% -- maybe 90% -- of blocking success is in just showing up.

1. Your block cuts off access to a big section of your own side of the court. (Think of that area as being in a shadow created by your hands and the ball is the source of light.) This means your teammates have less court area to cover to dig their attack hit.

2. Your presence and movement distract the hitter, at least a little, as he approaches and swings.

3. Your hands will often or usually, depending on how good you are at predicting the hitter's intended angle, cause the hitter to shift his aim from where he wanted to hit when he started his approach and swing.

So don't give any good hitter a free shot. Show up and let that hitter know your hands are going to be there.

P.S. Thanks, Lori, for asking me to sub again!

Back on one to the server: Ouch!

What's the problem? Serving team players sometimes fail to cover the court properly until their server gets back onto the court.

This is especially likely when the team is playing with five players instead of six. I suppose the reason is that the players in the front row figure covering their own back row area during their own serve is not their responsibility. They are wrong, of course.

When a team has only four players, the players tend to be more generous in their coverage.

It's simple to take advantage of this:

Do your opponents leave their server’s court position (their right back corner, deep left from your position) uncovered while their server is serving? Is the server usually slow to move up and cover that area of the court?

Step One: If so, send the served ball, with just one touch, back across the net to the server's corner.

Usually, this is best done with an open-handed "set" type of pass. This is how my co-ed team lost a point last night.* A 6-foot male opponent, in their right-front position, received the ball about head-height and "shot" it back across the net and over the reach of our right-front player to land about twelve feet deep and four feet from our side-line. But I've seen bump passes work with the same success: a quick and easy point.

That's it. There is no Step Two.

Sometimes there's a bonus: your opponents blame each other for the lack of good coverage but they don't agree on how to prevent it from happening. In that case, repeat Step One.

It's simple to prevent this from happening to your own team:

1. Your two non-serving players in the back row (middle back and left back) should ensure the court is properly covered while your setter is off-court. Split the back of the court down the middle and each take a half.

Note: Do you realize that the server can serve from anywhere across the entire back line of the court? There is no longer a "service box" of just a few feet at the right end of the line. One or both of the other back row players can be to the server's right if they choose.

Some players get lazy about coverage and tend to play their own position, like one of the spots on the "six" side of a die. They line up by rote: "I'm in the middle-back position so I will stand exactly half-way between the two sidelines even though my teammate who is serving is entirely off the court to begin this play."

Well, duh-Uh!

2. Your front-right player should, usually, back away from the net to about the 10-foot line (attack line). This will help cover the back-right position's usual territory until the server has time to return to the court.
3. Your server should move into defensive position immediately after serving.

4. Your whole team is responsible for every point. If an area is apt to not be properly covered, each player is allowed to anticipate that and alert her teammates to the potential problem. Some useful alerts might be:

"Cover the server's spot!"

"Watch out for it coming back right away!"

"Look out for a one-back!

And, pointing: "Hey! MOVE!"

Scoring by putting the ball to the uncovered server's spot on the first touch is sometimes derided for not using all three available touches, for not demonstrating interesting athleticism and for being "cheesy" or cheap.

But it's still a point. And the team giving it up should have covered that part of the court.

* We won that game, anyway.

6 Tactics for Smart Serving

When your team has the serve, your opponents will probably get the first attack. So how can you pare down that advantage for them?

Tactic 1. Just serve the ball "in" and give your opponents the opportunity to mishandle the ball. This is far preferable to giving them a free point via a bad serve. If you have good blockers or your opponents have weak hitters, just getting the ball in might be the best service tactic of all.

If you can do more than "just get the ball in" when you serve, here are some more tactics to consider:

Tactic 2. Serve to their weakest passer. He/she might shank it.

Tactic 3. Make a harder serve than the other team expects. They might shank it. (Problem: Do you have less control when you serve harder? Most players do. In this case, see Tactic 1.)

Tactic 4. Serve a floater: a slow-traveling ball that moves from side to side, sort of like a slow knuckleball. (Problem: Sometimes these floaters float all the way out of bounds. If you can't keep it in bounds, see Tactic 1.)

Tactic 5. In co-ed volleyball, serve to a male. Two reasons ...

The first reason is that men are just not usually as good at passing as women. Usually, the males in adult leagues did not play volleyball in high school. Not even in physical education class. Whereas a whole lot of adult women currently playing in organized leagues have a lot of volleyball experience from their youth in high school phys-ed classes, on club teams and on varsity teams. Good players tend to attract other good players to their team. Therefore, if a team has one male who is a good passer, the others might be also. Your job, then, becomes figuring out which is the weakest passer. (See Tactic 2.)

The second reason to serve to a male is that serving to a male will obligate your opponents to get the ball to a woman player for at least one of their next two touches. If the male shanks the pass and another male player saves it, you know their attack hit will be coming from one of their women players who usually have less of an attacking advantage on the tall (co-ed) net.

Tactic 6. Make their regular setter pass instead of set. If you've identified, before you serve, which of your opponents' players is intending to be their setter for the upcoming play, you can usually disrupt their planned service receive by dropping your serve right onto that person. The would-be setter will probably pass the ball instead of setting it and, even if she does set it and set it well, their hitters will probably -- probably -- not be ready for a set coming from the first touch.

The chances are good that their setter will be standing in the middle front for service receive. So you'll need enough control over the flight of your serve to drop it not far over the net. If their setter is coming from the outside of the front row, or from the back row, she is probably going to be awaiting your serve while standing right next to a teammate. You'll need very good aim to force her into making the first touch if this is the case.

Strategy: Let your opponents have the opportunity to fail.

Sometimes, the best strategy is the simplest. Not the prettiest and not the loftiest or most elegant.

Sometimes the best strategy is a strategy that would lose games under most other circumstances.

This is that type of strategy.

And here's when you'll usually need it: You're in a game in which your team is all thumbs. Your team can't pass. Your team can't set even if a pass accidentally gets to the setter. Your team can't hit even if a good set magically appears.

No timing. No chemistry. No communication. No teamwork. No luck.

But, despite all this, you're still in the game: the score is fairly close.

Wait a sec'. Playing this poorly, you should be getting your butts kicked.

Why do you still have a chance of winning this game? 

The answer to this question -- and the solution to your problem -- is right in front of you. Move your glazed-over eyeballs away from your hapless and frustrated teammates and focus them on your opponents.

Maybe they should be getting their butts kicked.

Are they passing that much better than your team? Are they setting that much better than your team? Are they hitting that much harder or dinking that much smarter?

If they were all that much better, the score wouldn't be close at all.

So, in lieu of your team actually gelling and playing at its best, the way to catch up and win is to let your opponents have the opportunity to fail.

Here's the mindset you need for this strategy:

Ball in play on your side = your problem. Ball in play on their side = their problem.

Here are some of the finer points you might employ as the game goes on:

1. Send ALL your serves directly to their weakest passer.

2. Hit ALL your hits (spikes, lobs, dinks -- everything) directly to their weakest passer.

3. Every time your opponents' hitter goes to hit, put some hands in front of him. Any hands. Ninety percent of blocking is just in showing up. Showing up is enough to distract, if not discourage, most hitters.

4. When your opponents send the ball back over to your side of the net, they no longer have the opportunity to screw up. So, at a minimum, send the ball back to them, even on the first touch if necessary.

5. Forget about making a great pass, a great set and a great hit. Consider ANY playable pass to be a good-enough pass, ANY playable set to be a good-enough set and ANY hit to their court to be a good-enough hit. It's a great hit if it goes to their weakest passer.

I've seen plenty of games where a team just beats itself. When your team is doing this, shift the focus from your weaknesses to your opponents' weaknesses.

Let the other team have the opportunity to screw up. They might just meet your expectations by beating themselves faster than you can.

And with all the attention and expectations focuses on their side of the net, maybe your team's communication, timing, teamwork, skills -- and luck -- will return.

Digging: Don't be a square.

When you get into position to dig a cross-court spike, avoid squaring up to the hitter.

Making your hips and shoulders perpendicular or "square" to the hitter when the volleyball reaches your passing platform (extended arms with hands together), increases the chance that your pass will reflect directly back where it came from.

Here are the first five reasons that come to mind as to why this is not desirable:

Reason #1: It gives the opposing hitter a second chance to score before your team gets a chance to attack.

Reason #2: It aggravates your blockers. They did their job -- properly enough that you had the opportunity make a good pass -- and you just negated their efforts by, basically, setting their hitter.

Reason #3: The hitter always has the advantage over the blockers for this second attack because he is facing your court and probably sees the ball coming right back to him from your dig. Meanwhile, your blockers have had to land and turn to even see the ball and then regroup and attempt to block.

Reason #4: You really don't want to give your opponents' hitters anything to smirk about.

Reason #5: You really don't want to give your setter anything to frown about.

Your teammates may offer you additional reasons.

Solution: Face their hitter but favor your setter.

A setter will not usually choose to set from the spot the hit just came from because of the potential for a traffic tie-up with your blocker(s).

As you get into position for dig, note where you want your pass to go. Place one foot slightly ahead of the other, enough to close your body slightly away from the angle of the incoming hit and slightly toward your setter.

This technique does the trick for most passers. If this tip works for you, please leave a comment here.

If it does not work for you or if you do not try it but continue to set your opponents' hitters, there's every change your teammates will offer you some additional, explicit instructions. Good luck with that.

P.S. Reason #6: It's poor sportsmanship to show up your opponents' setter by giving her hitters better sets than they get from her.

Post Post Script -- Thanks to Theresa P. for bringing this tip to my attention during a game, only a week or so after the game in which I first brought it to her attention.

Passing: Bend your knees, please!

"Keep your butt below the ball!" advised my good buddy Lenny a long time ago.

This is sooooooo fundamental -- and so absolutely practical -- that it might as well be the first tip I offer in this blog. (There are other such tips but this one simply came to mind first.)

If your hips aren’t lower than the ball when you contact it, you aren’t letting your toes, ankles, knees and hips fully help you. And that means you'll have to rely on your back, shoulders, and elbows (less than half of the available joints).

On the other hand, if you want to get just the right height, angle and power in your passing platform (extended arms) to make a good pass, please bend your knees! This will almost always bring all of your good-passing-form joints into play.

Note: What's that you say? Yeah, I know. You're not in your teens anymore and your knees hurt. So do mine. That's too bad but if you don't pass the ball well enough, you'll lose a point. And you'll lose a lot more points (which might really depress your teammates as well as you) when your opponents realize that you are going to attempt to make every pass without bending your knees. You will be their pigeon. That will not be fun for you. And, for that matter, it won't exactly earn you the admiration of your teammates.

Even if — especially if — you cannot get your body fully behind the ball, getting your hips (and, therefore, your butt) lower than the ball at the moment of contact will give you a whooooooooole lot more control.

Keeping your butt lower than the ball when you pass will make you a better passer. This often has the amazing effect of enabling your setter to make better sets. That, in turn, will help your hitters -- well, you get the idea.

So, go and strengthen those quads ("quadraceps", look it up). Take care of your knees and they'll be there to help take care of you and your teammates!

Let's get this rally started.

"Service!"

Welcome to the Play Better Volleyball blog. Here's where you'll find great volleyball ideas -- some practical, some more philosophical. Some that are very fundamental and some that are more advanced. Some you might just laugh at and some that might apply to you and your team.

Subscribing -- and regular reading -- of this blog might -- just might -- help you:

• play better,
• have more fun,
• win more rallies (That's fun!),
• get along better with your teammates and your referees (very important),
• become the envy of your opponents (well ... maybe),
• and generally find greater enjoyment and satisfaction in playing, watching, coaching -- and discussing the game with your volleyball buddies.

So, bookmark this blog, e-mail it to a friend, and put some of the ideas here into play.

Make some comments, too, whenever you get the urge. I'd love getting your feedback on ...

• Anything you read here
• Any volleyball-related news or ideas you pick up elsewhere
• What you want to see discussed in the future

Until next time, keep your serves in.