Volleyball technique

Minimize the movement so there's less chance to make a mistake:

• Stand still when you hit
• Pull your hitting arm back, ready for action, before you toss the ball
• Toss the ball just as high as necessary

If you have problems with direction, hold the ball forward with straight arms (hitting hand on top, the other one underneath) in the direction you want to hit. Then hit as usual.

• Top-spin serve: Hit the ball as much on the top as behind, with a floppy hand. Imagine that your arm shoots upwards.
• Floater (doesnt spin at all. Gets an unpredictable path due to currents in the air): At the beginning, to give you an idea, try to hit the ball as if it were burning hot and you need to jerk away from it. Extend your fingers and stiffen your hand.

• Look at the server, intensely anticipating where the ball will go and decide as soon as possible whose ball it is and if it's yours, yell, so the rest of the team knows.
• If you're afraid to make a mistake and would prefer if the ball lands within somebody else's perimeter, tell yourself "I want this ball" until you believe it.
• If possible, be behind the ball when you receive.

• Follow Rolly's directions where you practice lying on the floor and doing the basic wrist movement a zillion times (see link on my main page).
• Some people let their hands hang down in a relaxed way (while arms are extended) before they set, and then flip them back to ready position just before impact.
• Face in the direction you're setting.
• Sometimes it helps to shake out your hands and wrists to make them relaxed in order to set more smoothly.

Rolly Keenan (volleyball.org/rolly/hit.html) has some good pointers and I particularly like these:

• High Point of Contact: Always contact the ball at the apex of your jump and at the highest point above the floor that your hand can reach. It's hard to stuff someone that swings high.
• Fast Approach: The longer you wait on the set, the faster you will have to approach the ball and the higher you will jump. Enough said.
• See Everything: In order to see anything, you must keep the ball in front of you. If you run under the ball, you only see the ball. Make sure that you can see the block and even the court to an extent.

Try to "cup" your hands around the place the hit comes from. Apart from that, it's not necessarily such a big deal if you dont get very high. Block anyway, cos you'll still disturb the hitter. When the ball is hit from below the net, your team will probably be better off without a block. It'll be fairly easy to catch the ball anyway. Step back a bit so you're ready for the occasional dink (dip).

Look at the hitter, intensely anticipating where he'll hit and get to the spot (within your perimeter) where you're most likely to receive the ball. Make sure you're not moving backwards as the hit comes. Stand far back in the court; it's much easier to move forward than backward.

Keep your eyes on the ball. Actively anticipate what's going to happen and place yourself as good as possible.

Half the players line up on one side of the net, behind each other. The other half in the same way on the other side. The first player in line tosses the ball to the first in line on the other side, who passes it back for the next player to pass back, etc. When a player has passed the ball, he runs to the other side to join the line.

One person stands in the right back corner, and one person in the left back corner. Those two are just going to toss balls for the players to pass/dig back to them. The players line up behind the back line, on the right hand side, and run one at a time the following route:

• run forward and block at 2
• run back to bump a reasonably high ball from the person in 1
• run forward to block in the middle
• run back to dig a short, high ball from the person in 5
• rejoin at the back of the line

Get matchlike experience
Put a full team (a) on one side if possible, and the rest of the players on the other side (b). b serves all the time and tries as their best to receive and attack back at a for match-like situations. The coach's attention is on a exclusively, giving them feedback on every ball.

3 teams. Points can only be collected on one side ("paradise"). If the team on the point side scores, they get a point and the other team switches with the waiting team. If the team on the non-point side (team A) wins the ball, the waiting team takes their place and team A goes to the point side.

Keeps players active and promotes competition.

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