This is an entry in my volleyball coaching log for 2014-15.
This was the first official team training of the new season after final cut-down was made on Tuesday. The main idea was to set the overall tone of expectations for training and how I want the team to play.
I actually already started that on Monday and Tuesday in terms of being on time and what happens at the start of the session while the net is being put up. I expect those not involved to ball-handle lightly or do other volleyball-related activities until we’re good to go – not just stand around watching and chatting. They were told about how we had to institute consequences for tardiness last season and how I hoped that would not have to be the case this year.
Additionally, on Tuesday I introduced them to my balls-don’t-drop stance. That was something I wanted to reinforce at the start of training.
The key thing I was looking to start to develop, though, was the “gym as a safe environment” philosophy. By that I mean we are all supportive of each other and we are accepting of making mistakes – both our own and others – as part of the learning and development process. And not only do we support our teammates, but we accept support from them.
In terms of the volleyball, there were a couple of things I wanted to focus on:
1) Serving technique – This is mainly for the B team group where specific training is likely required to get them using consistent mechanics, but even with some of the A team players there may be an issue here or there.
2) Start to identify likely primary passers – This is mainly for the A team group as they will be the first to start competing (first SWVA in 2.5 weeks, then BUCS in 3 weeks). For this I wanted to do some statting of serve reception.
3) Evaluate blocking – I wanted to take a look at footwork and the other mechanical elements to see where work needs to be done.
Here was the plan:
– Blocking footwork patterns along the net as initial warm-up
– Passing triplets and quads as a continued warm-up
– Target serving (zones 1, 5, and short)
– Get two serving and passing
– Game play
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending in your perspective), three of the players were not dressed and ready to go on-time, so training started off with consequences. These players were 5 minutes tardy in being ready to go, so we did 5 sets of 4 (4 length of court sprints). Last year we did stuff at the end of training (not sprints, generally), but because this was the first day I wanted to reinforce the “be on time and ready to go” immediately – as well as the fact that it impacted the team, not just the individual.
Following the sprints, to let them catch their breath, I talked with them about the stuff I mentioned above. I told them about the positive gym atmosphere. I talked about how pushing themselves helps push the team forward, and mentioned the way improvements in last year’s team along the way made for increasingly competitive and intense training sessions as the season progressed.
After the talk, I had them do blocking footwork along the net – first single step shuffle, then the step-crossover-hop move. A fair bit of work will need to be done with especially the B-team players to make those patterns automatic. The blocking technique itself wasn’t horrible, though we don’t have any particularly big blockers.
I had them first do the passing triplets/quads. They started with overhand throws to act as an initial shoulder warm-up and to simulate a float serve with more control than we were likely to have if they simply served to start. After I think two rotations through, I did then have them go to short serves (meaning from inside the court, not that they served the ball short). This allowed me to observe common issues to address with the group, and to focus on certain things with individual players.
From there I had them do target serving. They had to put 5 balls in each of deep zones 1 and 5, and if they did that, to serve short. Again, I used the opportunity to do some individual player corrections.
After that it was the team serving and passing. Unfortunately, several balls dropped, so the team had to face the consequences (immediate set of 4). I had the players keep track of their passes so we could mark down each time through how many good out of how many total. In this case, I defined good as middle third of the court in front of the 3m line, so it wasn’t about perfect balls. Predictably, some players struggled. Others did quite well.
I finished up by having them play narrow court (about 2/3 width) Winners 4s. There was some ugly stuff, of course, but the captain told me afterwards she was pretty pleased with how competitive the players were. Along the way I reinforced both the value of taking risks and the need to communicate – particularly hitter availability when out-of-system.
Overall, not a bad session and not a great session. It was probably about what I expected. I’ve decided that at least for a while I want to have the A team players doing serving & passing together because the B team players were clearly struggling with some of the strong serves a couple of A team players have. I want to slow things down a bit for the B team players to let them focus on their technique a bit more and gain some confidence. They will still get to face the tougher serves at times in game-play situations.
We have out next training session tonight – 90 minutes in the big gym.
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