Volleyball Coaching Concept – Second Chance

A while back I shared something called the Second Chance Game. The basic idea is that a player who makes an error immediately gets an opportunity to correct their mistake. For example, a hitter spikes a ball into the net. The coach immediately makes them repeat the attack until they make a good swing. Note, though, that you need not confine this sort of error correction to one certain type of game. It can happen at any time, in any game or drill.

I saw many examples this approach in my 2014 visit to pro teams in Germany. They did it in passing drills. They did it in defense drills. It came when working on movement. It came when working on setting. The point was to not accept the bad repetition – especially if it was because of poor technique, bad decision-making, etc. – and reinforce the desired execution.

In fact, second chance is often best used in drills because it’s easier to have a do-over in those situations than in game-play. Second chance when your team plays tends to create a continuous rally situations. This can be useful at times (such as when you want some conditioning). If you want to have something with a more discrete stop-start process (like with rallies begun by a serve), though, then second chance from an individual player perspective is probably not the best choice. You could, however, do it from a broader team perspective by repeating the play from the start or from some key juncture.