Skill Development

Below are techniques that you will learn following our training system, please visit the Gold links below.

Serving

Technique: 

  • Posture
    • Right handed servers = left foot slightly in front of right
    • Left handed servers = right foot slightly in front of left
    • Toes pointed towards target

Serve Receive/Passing

Technique

  • Footwork
    • Ability to shuffle behind the ball, drop step and t-stop
    • Don’t let platform drop between legs when moving
    • Players should not be taking crossover steps when passing a serve receive ball or free ball

Setting

Technique

  • Footwork
    • Understand footwork to target position
    • Able to do left, right, set footwork and 4 step footwork to set a pass 10 feet off of the net using left, right, left, right footwork
    • Able to get hips around the ball and square to the target
    • Receive ball over top of forehead (ball should hit your forehead if it were to slip through hands)
    • Semi-circle footwork- every setter should be able to do proper footwork to a ball in front of target, off the net and behind the target 

Attacking

  • Technique
    • Footwork and Posture
      • FEET TO THE BALL
      • Able to make correct 3-step approach (1st step = drive step and 2nd/3rd step = plant step)
      • Shoulders forward
      • Understand arms forward on first step and back on plant step
      • Use arms to explode off the ground
      • Understand how to jump straight up
      • Floating is minimal
      • Able to do proper block transition footwork
        • step, cross, hop footwork
      • Able to do proper base to read defense to transition footwork
        • step, cross hop footwork
      • Able to do proper serve receive to transition footwork
        • turn, run, slant to get all the way outside (even with the 10ft. line)
    • Hand Contact
      • Spend quality time perfecting the hand contact. Teach the hard, wide hand, shaped like the ball.
      • Understand how to apply top spin to ball by snapping wrist. Creating spin is the number one thing to learn as a young player
      • Understand to contact the ball with arm fully extended

Defense

  • Technique
    • Footwork 
      • Step, cross hop for base to read
      • Shuffle through a defensive ball
      • Take a big first step to the ball by pushing off opposite leg
      • Step to the ball and then push off FRONT let to increase defensive range
      • Introduce floor moves and how to execute them (STAYING OFF YOUR KNEE), such as run and roll, run and slide, side layout, barrel roll.
    • Posture (image) 
      • Bending at the knees not the waist
      • Bending at the ankles
      • Weight forward
      • Head and shoulders forward (lead with the head)
      • Hands neutral to be able to play balls with platform or hands
    • Positioning
      • Understanding base to read and moving to the dig position for one of these systems
        • perimeter
        • rotation

Blocking

  • Technique
    • Footwork
      • feet shoulder width apart, legs loaded
      • space between you and net
      • step, cross, hop for middle blocking footwork
    • Hand Shape
      • fingers spread apart
      • thumbs pointed towards ceiling
      • understand going over the net not straight up
    • Set Up & Timing
      • pin blocker set the block
      • hitter’s hitting shoulder should slice the pin blocker in half
      • athlete jumps when their attacking arm starts to go forward
      • understand if the setter is in front row or back row and who your hitter is
      • only single blocking the middles at this age
    • Vision
      • introduce on, off, over eye work