Ann Kordes is the former Head Coach at the University of Louisville and is currently the Associate Director of the Kentucky/Indiana Volleyball Academy (KIVA).

Improve your volleyball team’s offensive abilities with this detailed skills and drills. In over 50 minutes of volleyball instructional videos, watch how a range of collegiate and club coaches show you how to run an Out of System drills to fine-tune your team’s performance. This volleyball coaching course is designed for the intermediate/advanced volleyball coach interested in developing better out of system options.

We are providing this drill to give you ideas on how to enhance your current practice drills. The idea is not to implement it exactly as is, but rather to tweak it to make it fit your system.

There is sound with the video, so please make sure that your sound is on.

This is a Vimeo video, so you will need to be on a network that does not block Vimeo videos.

If you would like to see more information about Coach Kordes’ entire presentation, click this link: Out of System Drills and Organization

What are the individual defensive fundamentals needed to construct an effective Rotational Defense?

In the video clip below Eastern Wyoming College Head Coach, Julie Sherbeyn takes you through the key coaching points that she uses to teach the individual skills she needs to build a successful team defense.

In this presentation she discusses the following:

Footwork

• Start in “split”
• Fast Feet – “Happy Feet”

Body Position

• Shoulders Forward (Coach shouldn’t be able to read your shirt)
• See under the net (eyeballs out of the top of the head)

Movement

• Split, Balance, Drive, Dive
• Read – Hips, Shoulders and Eyes

This clip is just a sample from Coach Sherbeyn’s presentation on Building a Rotational Defense. For information regarding how to gain access to her entire presentation, as well as hundreds of other great clinic presentations, click the link Glazier Volleyball Clinics.

The video below has audio so please make sure that your speakers are turned on.

 

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Which blocking system is best for your team? Read, Front or Dedicate

In the video clip below Coach Travis Fuller from The Academy Volleyball Club shares the pros and cons of each system and offers ways to attack each.  American Volleyball Coaches Association recently named him one of the nation’s top 30 coaches under 30 years old.

Here is a quick summary of his presentation:

READ

Pros:

• Always get two blockers up
• Puts pressure on setter and attackers

Cons:

• Can be beat by in-system teams
• Can be beat by tempo

FRONT

Pros:

• Shuts down Middle Attackers
• Can easily be used as a hybrid system

DEDICATE

Pros:

• Resource allocation
• Puts pressure on role players and setter

Cons:

• Heavy game-planning required
• Requires a lot of practice and superior back cover

He also discusses the most important things to consider for your defense

1. Your front row and back row players must be on the same page
2. There is enough research to support swing blocking as the superior technique

• It’s faster
• Blockers jump higher
• Blockers cover more ground

 

 

Here are two different blocking systems based on your opponent’s strengths and weaknesses.

In the clip below legendary high school coach David Bartley (6 state championships and a 15-year record of 350-58 at Cheyenne Mountain High School) discusses how and why he would employ both the Stack Right and Bunch Middle Blocking Systems).

Coach Bartley states that the number one goal is to get your best blocker on their best hitters and be willing to make adjustments to defend the opposition’s strengths.

The Stack Right is a strategy that Coach Bartley would employ when the setter is front row and the opposition has one excellent outside hitter.  In this, he will sometimes put his middle blocker and right front on the outside and attempt to force weaker players to attack.

The weakness is that the left front will need to be a really good blocker.

He would only run this when the stats show that the opposition sets outside 90% of the time and he is willing to take his chances on the other 10% and hope is back row can defend against the weaker attack.

The second strategy that he details is the Bunch Middle.

This is a system he uses when the opposition has a great middle and they run a bunch of stuff for her.  If you are going to use this strategy Coach Bartley suggests that you utilize swing blocking.

The weakness here is obviously at the pins and you will need to rely on your back row defense.

This clip is just a short sample of Coach Bartley’s presentation. The rest of his presentation, as well as hundreds like it, are available at Glazier ClinicsVolleyball Vault.

The video below has sound so please make sure that your speakers are on. Click the arrow to play the video

Here are some thoughts on who should take the second ball when the setter makes first contact.

This post is provided by Coaching Volleyball

By John Forman

Coach Forman is currently the assistant volleyball coach at Midwestern State University. Before that he was the Head Coach of the professional women’s team at Svedala Volleybollklubb in Sweden

A reader sent in a question about who should take the second ball when the setter makes first contact (setter-out).

I have a question about emergency setting. Up until this year, I’ve always used my right side player (in a 5-1) to take second ball whenever my setter (in right back) takes first ball. It has worked well enough since I’ve been lucky enough to have right sides with decent hands. The major downside, as far as I can tell, is that you take one potential hitter out of the equation, and the passing angle from RB to RF can be awkward at times. That said, it’s always worked well enough for me.

But now the trend seems to be to have the libero take second ball and to set to one of the pins, usually to the left. That also raises the question (for me anyway) as to whether it is more efficient to have the libero set out left back or middle back (not to mention worth worrying about the “finger action” rules that restrict the libero…)

It seems to me that a libero coming out of left back (especially in perimeter or even “middle middle” defense) is going to have a more favorable angle for a set to the right side pin, if the setter is passing high to the middle. It also seems like s/he will have an easier time getting to second ball.

But what if it is overall more sound defensively to have your libero in middle back? In that case, is it even worth having your libero as your emergency setter? Wouldn’t it be harder to get to second ball from middle back (or even middle middle)? Wouldn’t the angles be a little more awkward for setting to the pins?

Does anyone use their outside hitters (in left back) to take second ball? (It seems to me that that would mean you would have to train both of them which wouldn’t be as efficient as training just one person)

Just wondering what people do. And whether or not there is a consensus on what works best, with respect to emergency setting.

I previously addressed this topic from a different perspective. In that case a reader asked about moving the libero from left back to middle back. As such, I’ll leave out that element in my response here.

It is now definitely the preferred approach by most coaches to use the libero, playing in left back, to take the second ball in these situations. You see it at the national team level on down. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best solution for your particular team, though. Let me address it form a couple different angles.

Front row player

As the emailer suggests, one option for taking the second ball is the right front player. Usually, this is the Opposite. This was the favored approach for many years. I used it to good effect coaching the Exeter University women as my OPP had excellent hands and we didn’t run a fast offense.

The biggest question for me using the OPP is the middle attack. Can they actually set it? If not, then it really narrows the offensive options down considerably. For a lot of teams it means the ball can only be set to the Outside Hitter. Maybe you have a back row option as well. You don’t have a quick attack option, however, nor do you have a right side hitter, making the block’s job much easier.

If the OPP can set the middle, then it opens things up considerably. That only holds, though, if the ball is dug close enough to the net. If not, you’re in the same situation as if the OPP couldn’t set the middle attack. This is a real issue when teams are often coached to dig the ball to the 3m line.

An alternative to the OPP taking the second ball is the Middle Blocker doing so. This is actually the cornerstone of the standard 4-2 offensive system where the setter plays middle front. If you have an MB with good hands who can set both front and back, it can work. Since they can set both pins, the opposing blockers can’t stack up on just one.

The challenge for the MB, though, is that they usually are coming down from a block. They are programmed to get ready to attack, so setting is an adjustment. And if the dig is well off the net there just might not be time for them to get to it.

Back row player

As the reader notes, the player in middle back probably has the furthest to go to take a second ball. Also, their direction of approach can make the angles difficult, unless they have really good footwork.

That basically leaves left back as probably the best choice back row player to take the second ball in a setter-out situation. Whether that is the libero (or MB) or the OH is it’s own consideration.

Obviously, the libero has limitations when it comes to using their hands. That may not be as big a deal as you might think, though. First, if the OH isn’t a confident setter, they’ll probably bump set the ball anyway, just as the libero would. Second, libero’s can develop pretty good jump sets for use on balls just beyond the 3m line – in some cases, even quick sets. Finally, so many digs end up at the 3m line that situations where you really want a hand set (e.g. to set quick) are probably going to be limited.

All things considered

When you consider all the factors, you’ll see why so many teams have the left back person – mostly the libero – take the second ball. If the dig is close to the net, it might make more sense for a front row player to set the ball. If it’s not, though, then using the back row player allows for a larger number of attacking options.

So it really comes down to where your setter digs the ball.

One final thought

The emailer uses the term “emergency” to describe these situations where the setter takes the first ball. I don’t think that term applies, though. In the modern game, teams are out-of-system a large percentage of the time. That makes it a quite normal situation which should be trained in line with how often it happens.

The other thing I would add is that the situation where the setter has to play the first ball is not the only time a team is out-of-system. Sometimes the first contact is poor and the setter can’t get there. Or someone else is in a better position to put up a good set. For that reason, every player on the court should be able to step in and put up a hittable ball.