Email Campaign Archive

Teaching Young Players to Move to the Ball

-By Dave Cross

A Question for Dave:

Thank you for all that you do, I enjoy all of the
information and input you provide. You're a great
example for all that coach. I have a question. I
coach JO U13's and also help run a spring league
in our small school district. I coach the 14's and
12's and love my teams. My question is about our
13's team. The coach is very frustrated, she also
coaches the team during the Jr High season and has
asked for my help. At this point only about 3
players are actually moving their feet and going
for the ball, the rest just let it drop. When we
make corrections or give feed back to individuals
they just stare with no-emotion-looks or the other
extreme, look like their going to cry. After
working with this team I now understand why the
coach is so frustrated, I am an extremely patient
person but was so emotionally drained after
working with this group, HELP! Any suggestions
would be greatly appreciated. Thanks Again!

Dave's Reply:

Thanks for the kind words-they are greatly
appreciated. When you are working with a group at
this level you must keep in mind that the progress
will be very slow-sometimes paint may dry faster! :)
But, here are some ideas you might try to speed
things up a little bit:

-Immediately after drilling them on their passing
and setting technique, move into a couple of
drills where they have to move at least three
steps to play the ball. I would teach them to
shuffle to any ball they can get to in three steps
or less. A good drill to teach this initially is in
the members area Dill Archive, it is called
"Passing Footwork Progression".
 

After doing this drill, I would do a drill called
"Triangle Passing":

-The girls are in groups of three with two balls.

-The two girls with the balls line up on the ten
ft. line facing away from the net about 10 ft. apart.

-The third girl (the passer) lines up about 15
feet back from them toward the endline, right in
the middle of the two others (the tossers).

-The drill begins when one of the girls tosses a
ball directly in front of her to the same depth
the passer is. The passer must shuffle over and
pass the ball back to that tosser. As soon as this
pass is made the passer starts shuffling toward
the other tosser who tosses her ball out directly
in front of herself to the same depth the passer
is at. The passer must get to that ball and pass
it back to the same tosser, and then the drill
keeps repeating itself.

-Time this drill for 30 seconds and then rotate a
new passer in. Run it through all three passers twice.

-Scoring: Have each tosser keep track of how many
good passes each passer makes. With twelves I
would count any pass that can be caught with
two hands above shoulder height while only taking
one step or less to get to it is a good pass. At
the end of the 30 seconds, have the two tossers
add their scores together to obtain the passer's
score of good passes.

-Key point: Make sure the tossers toss the ball
directly in front of themselves and not toward the
passer as she is shuffling across. (They tend to
do this sometimes)

-The same drill can be used for setting.

Then I would run a drill called "Short-Long":

-Players in pairs with one ball.

-Tosser at the net, passer 20 ft. off the net.

-The tosser first tosses the ball short of the
passer so that they have to shuffle foward three
steps to make the pass. The passer then remains
where she made the pass from, until the tosser
tosses a deeper ball that forces the passer to
shuffle back at least three steps to make the
pass, and the drill continues from there.

-Time: 30 secs.

-Scoring: Same as the first drill.

-Key Points:

1. The tosser must make sure to toss the ball so
that the passer must move at least three steps
up/back to make the pass.(sometimes they try to
toss it right to the passer)

2. The passer must hold her position after making
a pass until the next ball is tossed. (sometimes
they try to move up/back before the ball is
tossed)

-Run each girl through twice

-The same drill can be used for setting.

**When shuffling to a ball, stress to them that
they need to keep their hips at the same height
the whole time-this keeps their head at the same
height also, which keeps the ball in focus to them
(if the head is bouncing up and down, so is what
the eyes are looking at).

**You will also need to stress to them that as
they shuffle they need to keep their hips up and
their shoulders forward.

**Then make sure they understand that if the ball is
more than three steps away, they have to run to
it, not shuffle. You can teach this by doing
run-throughs to the sides and also from deep to
short.

After doing these drills, I would put them on the
court in their defensive positions and explain to
them their individual coverage areas and the
"seem responsibilities"-in otherwords who takes
the "in between" balls. The rule of thumb on
these is that the girl moving toward the setter
target area takes the ball. Also, if one player is
moving toward the net and the other is moving
away, the player moving toward the net takes the
ball.

Then have them play defense against a controlled
attack, praising effort for moving to the ball. If
they still aren't moving to the ball aggressively
enough put in a rule that any ball that drops is 5
pushups for the whole team. Point out to them that
they don't have to do any pushups at all, they
just have to get the ball-so it's their choice
whether they do pushups or not. I would also point
out that pushups are a volleyball players "best
friend" because they improve arm, shouldler and core
strength-which helps them to perform better. When
doing pushups, stress three two things:

1. Hips and shoulders move up and down together.

2. Elbows must reach a ninety degree angle when
going down.

3. Head looks forward the whole time-not down-this
keeps the hips from going too high.

-Then I would move into a full scrimmage, keeping
the pushup rule in place and adding "bonus
points" that are earned when a player moves
correctly to play a ball that is not directly to
them. During a rally yell out "Bonus" whenever a
point is earned-and make sure that at every
stoppage in play that they girls know who earned
the bonus point and why it was earned. You can
decide what the bonus points count for.

Stay with this approach consistently and their
movement should improve.

Good Luck!

Dave Cross
National Director
Yes I Can Volleyball