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[steve10042 ()]

Practical Power Volleyball Strategy
Many millions of people play volleyball. It is played at all levels from
picnic ball to the Olympics, and different strategic approaches are
appropriate for the various levels. The majority of people who play "serious"
volleyball, play in Industrial Leagues and in local Tournaments, at levels
normally described as "B", "C" or the best at "BB". This presentation is
primarily intended for such players, and it includes many ideas and
suggestions which should greatly improve enjoyment and success. There is
virtually no reference to having to jump a mile high or hit so hard to
vaporize a ball! These are "practical" discussions that should be able to
benefit players of all heights, strengths, experience, and ability.
It is interesting to note that many B and C level players seriously think of
themselves as A players (or better!) They have never SEEN A level play! I am
going to insert a couple anecdotes here, because I think they might be
insightful.

I had once been told that if I wanted "really" good volleyball (in northern
Indiana) I should go to the YMCA in Chesterton on a particular day. (I had
already played in the USVBA Nationals twice.) Never wanting to pass up good
competition, I obviously went! The men set up the net, but I noticed that
they did it around 4" low. Being a guest and a visitor, I did not ask. But as
people started to warm up, I noticed that no one seemed to have very good
warm up drills (just the generic ones) and when they got hitting lines going,
the setters did not know any set designations, only instead trying to set
high ball sets (which turned out to be of rather differing heights, distances
from the net and locations along the net). When the "strong player" men hit,
they would hit hard (over the very low net) but always very horizontally,
where the ball would hit near a back corner.

I asked if I could come again the next week, and if I could bring a friend.
So the following week, my beach doubles partner showed up with me (we also
always played on Tournament teams together, and we had each played for Purdue
University but at different times). After we got warmed I offered to be the
setter for one of the hitting lines. They didn't understand that because my
partner and I were by far the tallest people there, both 6'1". But the let
me. I had previously told my partner that I would set him VERY close to the
net, because I wanted him to hit nearly straight down, what we often called a
"ceiling shot" when we did it right. When I gave him the set, he hit it down,
and hard enough to bounce up to hit the ceiling, but at too much of an angle,
so it never hit the ceiling. We would always consider that a failure. But
immediately, everyone from both teams came up to him like he was a rock star!
He probably could have given out autographs! The next time he was to hit,
after things settled down, I asked him if he was ready to do it right this
time! And this time he did hit it nearly straight down and it hit the
ceiling/roof hard enough to possibly put a small dent in the roof. (Later, he
was ashamed at having hit that first ball where it was not a ceiling shot,
especially on such a low net!)

Since we pretty much had the attention of everyone, I then told the men there
that I brought him to show them the advantage of hitting DOWN. Since they
always hit hard but fully across the court, I told them (and we later
demonstrated by many digs) that such hits were very easy to dig, that the
only reason they were working was because some of the players were scared
because of the speed. But my partner and I demonstrated far faster hitting
speed, and I tried to get the other players to not be afraid, and we both
helped coach individuals to dig hits. But, to the better hitters, I asked
them who could dig those balls that we were hitting nearly straight down!
They saw the point. But mostly, I just wanted them to realize that they
really were nowhere near good enough to talk and act as arrogantly as they
had done before!

The other anecdote is similar. I had heard of alleged "A-level volleyball" in
a Church gym in Valparaiso, Indiana. When I arrived, a little early, I
noticed that rather low roof of the building and immediately thought of how
easy ceiling shots would be there! There was a young girl there who was
loosening up, and we soon started peppering together. She was clearly good at
passing, and was very consistent at setting, although her sets were not very
high (around 3 high, but extremely consistent). As guys showed up, they
insisted on playing doubles for the first couple hours, which was fine with
me. Of course, they had never seen me before and didn't realize that I
somewhat understood the game. But as they decided that they were warmed up,
they ORDERED that girl off the court, telling her that it was time for the
GOOD players to play! I politely asked about playing, noting that I had
gotten there before any of them, and they agreed to let ME play "winners"
where I would need to pick my partner from the team that just lost. I was
VERY upset that that girl was so totally disrespected! So I called her off to
the side and learned that she had NEVER played doubles before, that she just
loved volleyball so much that she would always come really early before the
rest of the players would arrive for the sixes. So I taught her a five-minute
version of doubles! Specifically, that if I received a serve or a hit, where
she was supposed to go and that she should just set her standard set.

When it was my turn to play, the "strong players" didn't want to let her
play. They told me I was guaranteed to lose. I said that would be fine if it
happened. So they finally relented and let her be my doubles partner. (They
also had their net around 4" low, which must be a disease around there!) I
was pretty motivated, so I was really hustling and making sure I gave her the
best passes I could. The very, very first play (they got to serve, of
course!) they served to me. She gave me a cherry set, and I hit it down hard
enough for it to be a ceiling shot. The men just stopped! They later told me
that they had not only never SEEN a ceiling shot before, but none of them
even realized it was possible! During that first doubles game of her life, I
believe we had at least five ceiling shots, and more that were close. The
alleged A-players never once even touched any ball I hit in that game, and we
won 15-1. Interestingly, I was the one to shank off a serve and give up the
one point!

Since we were winners, we had the court, and we won succeeding games 15-0,
15-0, and maybe a couple more 15-1s. The girl who had never even played
doubles before, and who was chased off the court so that the GOOD players
could play, never came close to losing any doubles game that night! I LIKED
that! She is 5'3" and had not ever thought of herself as very good at
volleyball. But in following weeks, I taught her how to soft-set and all the
numbering system for sets, and she was soon one of the players in highest
demand of any player anywhere! What I loved best was when THOSE SAME hot-shot
men would call her to be the setter for some tournament team they were
making. As far as I know, she always turned them down, because there were so
many other teams that also wanted her to play in every Tournament!

The point of these anecdotes is that no matter how incredible you think you
are as a volleyball player, unless you are ranked among the top hundred
players in the world, you may just not be as incredible as you think you are!
And, if you don't know how to run Slides, Tandems, Back-Xes, Cs, Ds, 9s, or
the more complex plays, try to control your ego! There might be someone
around who might be able to put you in your place! On the converse, if you
believe you are a weak player, or a short player, or both, BUT YOU LOVE
VOLLEYBALL, you may not be nearly as weak as you might think! (Remember that
girl who, in a matter of two months, became one of the most in-demand setters
in northern Indiana!)


How to become a STAR!
Usually, that involves massive ego and self-centeredness! But my suggestions
do NOT involve anything like that!
It is actually very simple to state, "be more observant than anyone else."

If you watched the Olympic Men's Team win Gold in Beijing, you know that they
are all 6'8" or 6'9" or so tall. I am just a little guy, around 6'1". But I
have always been able to really jump, usually nearly a foot higher than any
usual teammate in the Sargeant's Jump. So I was often used as Middle Blocker
between two much taller guys! Sort of funny looking, since the Middle Blocker
on the other side was usually at least six inches taller than me!

Yes, being able to jump was helpful. But I really believe that my REAL
strength was in being extremely observant! BEFORE each match, while teammates
were warming up or whatever, I would ALWAYS watch the other team's hitting
line. I would study each hitter to see if there were any patterns to where he
wanted to hit, or if he moved his shoulder or body in specific ways when he
was approaching for a specific hit. So during the Match, I would often SEE
such cues, and I would KNOW where he intended to hit the ball! (It is quite
an advantage!) So even though I am not very tall, I became nearly universally
known as one of the very best blockers around!

There are various anecdotes in the following text regarding being observant
and thoughtful. But there is one anecdote that stands out beyond all the
others. It is not even about me but instead a 5'3" setter! She was the most
observant volleyball player I have ever been around. She was also an
extremely good setter, but her short height seemed to limit what she might
ever be able to do. But, no!

She was still in High School when this anecdote occurred. I had been on many
very strong teams before that but always as a Strong Side Hitter and never as
Middle. So I had never needed to try to hit a Middle One set. SHE taught me
what I needed to know! She knew how high I could jump, and she told me to
jump just BEFORE she received the pass, and start to swing. She was such a
remarkable setter that she would then simply PLACE the ball exactly where my
hand would hit it. I even closed my eyes once to confirm that and still
buried the ball!

I'm getting to the anecdote! So, over a period of maybe an hour, I must have
hit 50 Middle One sets during our scrimmage. I was getting incredibly
spoiled, and was just flailing away and she always put the ball exactly where
I would hit it. SO! About this time, I am merrily swinging away and one time
I discover that the ball is about 4" to the left of where it should have
been! I made the adjustment and still buried the ball. So I looked at her and
smiled and said "you messed that one up, it was several inches off!" Her
response boggled my mind! She said "the blocker was going to block you, so I
had to adjust it to where you could hit it through!"

HOW could a setter KNOW such things? Even I, the hitter, did not realize
that! She not only knew exactly where the ball was, and I was, and my arm and
hand were, but she also knew where the defenders were!

I had always thought that I was really aware of things on a volleyball court,
but that really astounded me!

And even being so tiny, when she then went to the small and insigificant St.
Joseph's College (in Indiana), she was their starting setter for all four
years and they were essentially unbeatable! She had her three hitters ready
for her sets, and since she was constantly aware of what the defending team
was doing, she would virtually always set the one teammate who had only a
single block or often no block at all. Most teams INTENTIONALLY double-block
a strong opponent. But doing that against her meant that one of her hitters
had no block at all, and she make all of her teammates look ferocious as
hitters! I believe that at one point, St. Joseph was Nationally ranked around
sixth (after five California teams, Pepperdine, Southern Cal, UCLA, etc!)

The point being made here is that even though she was extremely short, her
amazing observational skills made her a Nationals level player! More than
that, she was so OBSERVANT as a setter that she made ALL her hitters look
like stars! EVERY good team wanted her as Setter! SO! Say you are short, you
cannot jump very well and you are maybe even out-of-shape! IF YOU decide to
truly focus on Setting, and you can pay attention to a thousand separate
things at once, YOU could become the STAR player around! And, yes, that would
require a LOT of practice at Setting, to make sure your sets were CONSISTENT,
but I believe it is even far MORE important to remember the strengths and
weaknesses of each of your Hitters, so even without their knowledge, you can
tweak your sets to be exactly what they need to have. By the way, MANY
Hitters do NOT know what kinds of Sets they hit best! Many strong Hitters are
very arrogant and they claim to be able to hit ANY Set! That might be true,
but there are some Sets that they can hit even better! It would be YOUR job
to watch that Hitter a hundred or a thousand times, to see those few times
when they truly destroyed the ball, and YOU then figure out what was
different for those hits that might have enabled then to do that. Getting
back to YOU, IF you can get your brain focused on all your Hitters, and
always remember the exact Sets that each have called for in THIS play, and
then be focused enough to actually get the ball to where they need it, you
WILL be a Star! A RARE Setter might then also be able to be aware of what the
Defense is doing, and if your selection of sets is then adjusted where you
usually set whichever of your Hitters has the least block in front of
him/her, then I GUARANTEE that College Coaches will notice that ability and
you (if of suitable age, of course!) would be very likely to be offered a
Full-Ride College Scholarship! Not bad for simply trying to become REALLY
observant!

I was also sometimes on Co-Ed teams that played against that amazing girl
Setter in Tournaments, and it drove me crazy to KNOW that she was always
aware of where I was and that she would never set any teammate where I might
block it! Psychologically, she is the ONLY person who has ever intimidated me
in volleyball! Sure, there where Hitters that I watched warm up before a
match where I wondered if I would physically survive the Match, but I always
considered them to be CHALLENGES that were worth confronting. But NO ONE ever
actually got INTO MY HEAD like that little Setter would do!

What I am saying is that YOU can do things like that. But you have to TRY to
pay attention to the tiniest details of what is going on at all times. So
even if you are not a particularly good setter or hitter and you are not the
world's best jumper, and maybe you don't even run very fast, but if you KNOW
what is going to happen, you can have wonderful advantages. Better, no one
will figure it out! They will just think you were LUCKY that night! And the
next week! And the next!




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It seems useful here to discuss the Sargeant's jump. People seem to have
hundreds of WRONG ideas of what it is and what its value is. The following is
meant to clear this up!
A Sargeant's jump is meant to measure the ACTUAL JUMP ABILITY of any person.
Nearly everyone can jump much higher if they have a running start. That is
actually simple Physics, where the horizontal Kinetic Energy of the running
can (partially) be converted into some vertical Potential Energy of being
higher up. A Sargeant's jump intentionally eliminates this possible advantage
by insisting on a STANDING START. No, not even a single step like many people
feel they can add to it. Standing still! Next, BOTH hands have to be used!
People seem to think they can use one hand to touch as high as they can, but
that then includes the effects of twisting the body where the shoulders are
at different heights.

So a Sargeant's jump starts off with the person standing flat-footed with
both arms and hands stretched upward and the very highest ends of the middle
fingers is measured for height. For me, 6'2" tall, that two-handed standing
reach happens to be within 1/4" of exactly 8 feet. I often would precede
Tournaments and matches with a walk along the net, confirming the height of
the net at half a dozen places, so I knew what the situation would be for
both my hitting and my blocking during the Matches.

OK! NO running start and not even a step, and you just jump straight up, and
reach with both hands, with fingers extended.

A LOT of Coaches do this wrong! They put marks on a wall and have the players
touch as high as they can. That is wrong for two different reasons! First,
being right against a (concrete) wall, the player must be very aware of the
wall to keep from hurting knees or elbows during the process. (I know this
because either a knee or an elbow would hit the wall and it HURTS!) Second,
in order to touch the wall, your arms have to be angled and no longer
straight up! High School Geometry or Trigonometry shows that! The result of
this is that there is value in being as close to the wall as possible, which
then has the knees/elbows issue, because otherwise, the wall measurement
tends to be several inches LESS than the actual Sargeant's jump should have
been!

Because of these factors, I tended to measure my own Sargeant's jump, and
that of players on teams that I have Coached, with a basketball rim, net and
backboard. There is NO wall nearby to get hurt on, and it is possible to
reach straight up for a maximum measurement.

A basketball rim is always exactly at 10 feet height. The height of the very
bottom of the net and of the bottom of the backboard can either be estimated
from that or actually measured. Usually, the very bottom of a basketball net
is pretty close to 9 feet high.

For me, for several years in my prime, while I was College aged, I could
always touch both my forearms against the basketball rim. For some bizarre
reason, I often tended to SWING my arms so they HIT the rim, and I would come
down with red marks across my forearms! Duhh! In my case, a number of times,
I could do that standing jump and touch both my elbows against the rim. I
quickly realized that the swing part was really bad as there is no fat to
protect the elbows from being hurt! In any case, for my body, I measured and
found that my elbows happen to be nearly exactly 20" from my extended middle
fingers. That meant that when both my elbows were at 10 feet height, the ends
of my middle fingers were both at 11'8" high (20" higher).

Therefore, in those jumps, my Sargeant's jump was the difference between that
11'8" and my standing vertical reach of 8'0". This was therefore 3'8" or 44",
which was very accurately my Sargeant's jump.

For you, say your standing reach with both hands is 7'6" and your standing
Sargeant's jump can just barely touch the bottom of a basketball net with
both hands (at 9'0"). That would mean that YOUR Sargeant's jump was the
difference or 18", which is nothing to be ashamed of!

I actually have what I believe to be a far more accurate and consistent
method of measuring a Sargeant's jump! One that is a lot more functionally
appropriate to volleyball, at least the Blocking part! Imagine an adjustable
height platform with a small exercise mat on top of it (for cushioning). Say
that platform was adjusted so the the top surface of it was exactly at 8 feet
high. In my case, 6'2" tall, when standing with my arms extended forward, the
height UNDER my arms (and armpits) is very close to 5'0 high". This distance
would be measured for each player (and recorded). Then the player would do a
standing jump (complying with the Sargeant's rules) with the intention of
slapping both HANDS on the top of the mat at least a foot back from the edge
of the mat. There could be two pressure sensor switches there, or something
that could ring a bell, or simply an observer that confirmed that BOTH hands
hit the surface. THAT would then confirm that the player had jumped high
enough so that the armpits had gotten up to at least 8'0" height. In my case,
that would confirm that I had jumped AT LEAST 36" vertically.

From my personal experience, and especially regarding the 8'0" top CABLE of
volleyball nets during many practices, this sort of thing can cause serious
abrasion to the armpits, which is why the cushioned mat would be used on top
of the test platform.

I feel this particular situation has a second benefit, of causing each jumper
to synchronize the arm motion to the jump motion, because you do not have but
an instant to slap your hands down on that mat, before having to quickly
raise them straight up to avoid winding hung up on the platform (or net
cable!)

When I was in College, I did not have particularly great skills at
volleyball, even at blocking, but that very high jump allowed me to seem far
better than I actually was! With a 44" standing vertical jump, where only
about 36" vertical was necessary to get my armpits above the top of the net,
I was able to nearly always "Pike-block". That is to be above the net high
enough to be able to extend my arms horizontally toward where the hitter was
going to spoke the ball. Since few College players then respected any
blocker, nearly all Sets tended to be around 18" to 24" back from the net.
This was wonderful for me, as I could therefore Pike block where both my
hands were virtually touching the ball as the Hitter contacted it! There was
NO chance that ball was ever going to come over the net, unless he could
break off one or both of my arms! The harder he would hit it simply meant the
faster it went straight down to the floor under him. And, for me, the
unlimited arrogance of mearly all Strong Side Hitters and Middle Hitters
simply meant that they would keep doing it over and over and over!

In one Tournament near Detroit, we watched a truly scary hitter warming up
before we were to play them as the very first Match of the Tournament. I
admit that my hands were hurting some after a while, but his brain seemed
never to work! He got the very first set of the Tournament and he allowed me
to block it down. He then DEMANDED that his Setter set the next seven sets to
him, which resulted in our team getting an 8-0 lead to start off the
Tournament's first game! I believe we won that game 15-2 (old-style scoring)
and the other game of that Match by about 15-4. We later learned that that
team had not lost ANY Match in around two years in ANY Tournament! In the
Finals that day, we met that same team for the Championship. He had
apparently thought about the early experience, and he NEVER ONCE even tried
to Spike! Their Coach had even tried to rotate their initial starting lineup,
but our Coach did the same, where I was always in the Front Row when he was!
Pretty cool. We may not have deserved to win that Tournament that day, but
that one player enabled us to!

I realize that relatively few players jump high enough to do Pike blocks.
THAT was not really the point here. But a related point IS intended. Early in
my volleyball career, I had little idea about how to Spike very well, or Dig
or Serve or almost anything. At the time, I seemed to only have ONE possible
advantage, which in my case was a very high standing jump. YOU probably have
some ONE characteristic that is superior to other players. Maybe you are
lightning quick and could dig virtually any Spiked ball. Maybe you can Serve
aces! Maybe you can Set really consistently. What I am saying is that YOU CAN
LEARN THE REST, but trust your specialty and work at making it even better!




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During my volleyball career, I have been considered a good player. In
college, I played for Purdue University. Later, I managed to be on two
different teams that qualified to compete at the USVBA Nationals. From a
coaching point-of-view, I am very observant and analytical and patient. I
think these characteristics and experience have allowed me to present a
practical presentation of competitive power volleyball.



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Terminology
Position Specialists
Serve Reception
Specific Positions
Strong Side
Middle Blocker
Weak Side
Setter
Power Alley
Middle Back
Miscellaneous
Serving
Blocking
Team Concept
E-mail
Most of the following strategy comments are most appropriate to 'B' level
play. If some other groups use this premise as the basis of assembling a
team, they should use modifications of the strategy appropriate to the
players involved. For example, 'C' level players and weaker 'B' teams should
use a 4-2 configuration (FOUR hitter-specialists, usually meant to be on the
sides, and TWO setters, one of whom is always in the front row, who usually
switch to the middle to set.) The stronger 'BB' and 'A' level teams usually
use appropriate enhancements to the basic strategies described in order to
maximize competitiveness.
I feel that competitive 'B' and most 'BB' teams should initially use an
offense and defense based on the 6-2 configuration, (All SIX hitters / TWO of
whom are designated as setters when in the back-row). Other offenses and
defenses should be practiced from time to time, but I think it best to make
sure all the players on a particular team are always "on the same page" as to
strategy. Therefore a brief discussion of the main aspects of the basic 6-2
strategy will be presented here. It is highly suggested that each player
locate a coaching textbook / guidebook in a library or elsewhere for a more
complete discussion of all such matters. It is also likely that each team
would gradually make slight modifications to the traditional 6-2 to their
specific personalities and abilities. This usually happens with any team that
uses the 6-2 for an extended time. Some teams that have used the 6-2 for a
long time and at a very high level have come to incorporate so many
modifications as to be almost unrecognizable as a 6-2. All the Olympic teams
and most pro and semi-pro teams use such modifications of the 6-2. A few such
teams happen to have one setter who has such outstanding ability that they
use a configuration called a 5-1 (FIVE hitters / ONE permanent setter). This
configuration acts as a 6-2 when the setter is in the back row, and as a 4-2
when he is in the front row.

I recommend that only VERY experienced teams and players use a 5-1. The
reason is that all of the defensive and offensive responsibilities and
positions for back row players, are VERY different in the 6-2 and 4-2
configurations. Continually altering between the two systems can lead to
confusion and mistakes by back row players. As long as two decent setters are
available, it is usually not worth the added chance of back-row mistakes to
use a 5-1. In my opinion as a coach, the additional value offered by using a
5-1 with one impressive setter would have to overcome the various times when
an inexperienced back row might make mistakes due to it. For almost any team
below "A" or possibly some "BB", that means I would avoid it, except as a
'fun' experiment!

.

Terminology
For clarity sake, we will occasionally use standard player position numbers
to describe individual players. These numbers also indicate the serving
sequence: 1 is in the current serving position; 2 is the next server,
currently in weak side front row; 3 is middle front; 4 is strong side front;
5 is power alley back; and 6 is middle back. Since players will often switch
positions soon after a serve (to get to a "specialist" offensive or defensive
position), we will be mostly concerned with where they end up playing, so
that is the position we will generally be referring to.
There is a DIFFERENT numbering system used for hitting locations in the front
row, going from 1 to 8 from left to right (hitting location 1 is strong side
very near the antenna; hitting location 8 is weak side near that antenna.)
This numbering system can also include a second digit which describes the
highest height of the ball set to this position. That second digit times 2.5
feet is approximately the height above the net. The two digit system was
originally developed to describe any of 64 different sets! It was quickly
discovered that many of those 64 were sets that had little actual value. For
example, a 48 (middle, extremely high) set would give the opponents enormous
amounts of time to assemble a triple block on our middle hitter. Nowadays, a
shorthand version of this system is generally used. The full two-digit set
description is seldom used except for requesting or describing refinement of
some existing set. For example, if a particular strong side hitter calls for
a '5' set (described later) [which is described in the two digit system as a
'15', position '1', '5' high] and would prefer it to be a little more inside,
he would have a private conversation with the setter that he would like it to
look like a '25'. This helps the setter visualize the change he is
requesting. If he instead wanted it just slightly higher, he might tell the
setter to set it as a '16'. Both would still call it a '5'. The setter would
then have to always remember that this particular hitter expects an
adjustment to always be made to any '5' set to him by that setter. This sort
of conversation seems most common and necessary regarding strong-side '4'
sets where there are different understandings of just what a '4' is. Various
hitters, setters and teams consider a '4' to be a '14', a '13', or a '12'. It
is rather important that the specific setter and hitter are in agreement
about the interpretation on such things, but that interpretation can be
unique to the pair of them.

This is the proper description of the heights of sets. A ball that is set '2'
high never gets much more than about a yardstick above the top of the net.
(According to the description above, the top of the ball would get to about
five feet above the top of the net, so 'a yardstick' is slightly off, but
symbolically visualizable.) Most modern teams and players have come to
SERIOUSLY distort this description! I have been on teams where setters set
middle-'2' high sets that are well above double the height of the net, around
20 feet high. (Strictly, that should be called a '5' high!) I have been a
setter on such teams, where hitters call for a '1' but I had to translate
that to a '2' in my own mind to give them the set they were expecting. Until
taught otherwise, as a setter, I consider a middle-'1' to be strictly that, a
ball that is essentially hit at the top of its path! As a 6-2 setter, one
will sometimes be setting any of the five other players, and so all those
individualized modifications must always be remembered. If I would
occasionally forget to modify a middle-'1' into a '2', the hitter can have to
almost hit off of his ear, both looking bad and being less effective for the
team.

When most teams first start practicing, setters and hitters SHOULD have to
learn about each others' attitudes and capabilities, to define for themselves
just what a Middle '2' or a Strong-side '4' is actually going to be.
Interestingly, many hitters do not really know what kind of set they hit
best! They just say "set it up there, and I'll hit it!" A team-centered
setter will be attentive to each hitter during the warmup hitting line.
Occasionally, a set might be slightly high or low, or inside or outside, and
the hitter destroys it! An observant setter sees this, and attempts to make
future sets just like that one. Even if the hitter isn't aware of that need,
a really good setter should be. After a tournament, that hitter will feel
pleased with his/her performance, without even realizing that the setter
really enabled it!

Therefore, in general, it usually winds up to be the setter's responsibility
to learn and remember the unique variations for each and every hitter. As it
happens in real life, many allegedly 'good' setters never see cause to make
such adjustments or tailoring of sets. They arrogantly feel that THEY are
making 'perfect' sets and it is the hitter's responsibility to then hit that
'perfect' set. Those setters are WRONG! Every hitter has 'favorite' (also
called 'cherry' sets) that he/she is confident he/she can destroy! An
observant, flexible setter can recognize that an otherwise weak outside
hitter happens to regularly crush balls that are slightly 'quick', even if
the hitter is unaware of this. If the setter then always tries to supply
slightly 'quick' sets to that specific hitter, the hitter's effectiveness
greatly improves, his/her personal confidence grows, and the team wins more
points. No one even ever knows or realizes that the setter enabled all that,
and at the end of the tournament, teammates all congratulate the hitter for
having such a great day. It may have really been a very observant setter,
sitting quietly across the locker room who enabled it! In my opinion, a
setter can be "great" even without special athletic abilities, if he/she
tries for accuracy and consistency, and to continually tailor sets to the
unique needs of each hitter.

On a personal note, during setting for a hitting line during warm-ups before
a match, I would sometimes intentionally or unintentionally set a ball
particularly close to the net or particularly back from it, or quick or slow.
I would watch to see how adaptive that particular hitter was at still making
a good hit out of it. Some hitters, even really strong ones, have virtually
no adaptability at all, while others seem to always be able to create a valid
hit. This is valuable knowledge for during a match. Who would YOU want to set
when a critical point is at hand? On a related note, I have discovered that
MANY setters become 'lazy' for good hitters who can make valid hits out of
any sets; they just get sloppy and careless in their sets to that hitter.
That's unfortunate for their teams! If a hitter is that good or that
experienced, the odds are good that HIS favorite set/hit might be awesome. A
lazy setter never allows that to happen, except by accident. An observant
setter might privately ask such a hitter whether he preferred sets close to
the net, or high, or low, or quick, or whatever. That observant setter could
enable that 'flexible', 'dependable' hitter to put craters in the opponents'
floor! Think about it!

This continuing discussion will stick with the original set-description
system described above, where each height number times 2.5 gives the number
of feet above the net. Therefore, a '1' gets to a height where the TOP of the
ball is no more than about 10.5 feet above the floor (2.5 feet above an 8
foot high net), a '2' gets to about 13 feet above the floor, and a '5' peaks
at about 20 feet high. Regarding Middle '1's, most middle hitters are plenty
tall enough and jump high enough for the height described. It's roughly
equivalent to slam-dunking a volleyball through a basketball basket, which
anyone who is a serious (male) middle blocker better be able to do. In
reality, the setter initially sets the Middle '1' so that it would get that
high, but an experienced hitter actually usually hits the ball on the way up,
so he hits it before it ever gets that high.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Another anecdote! When I was on the Purdue team, the Coach that was obtained
had been a (mostly bench) Member of the US Olympic Team the year before. It
is not clear what he expected, but when he first had us go through a hitting
line so he could see us, he made very clear that he was totally disgusted
with all of us! For a Coach to first be meeting his team, it seems a bad sign
that he was making snide comments about us (which he knew that we could
hear). In the converse of those anecdotes above, after watching us for just a
few minutes, he was apparently so disgusted that he felt the need to
humiliate all of us. I believe he took his suit coat off, but in shirt, tie,
trousers and street shoes, he called for a set. He hit the first ceiling shot
that any of us had seen (up to that point) and in fact his ball hit the
ceiling so hard that a ceiling tile came loose and crashed to the floor.
I actually took that as motivation, as he was the same height as me and his
jump was roughly the same as mine then was (consistently Sargeant's standing
jump of around 38" with an occasional one of around 44") that I decided that
I could also break ceiling tiles loose with ceiling shots! In my career at
Purdue, I believe I helped 24 or 27 tiles to become freed from the ceiling!
That was a long time ago and I have forgotten the exact number!

OK. Getting to the anecdote! The Coach truly hated us and he made clear that
he felt he was wasting his time with us. So he would have us run hitting
lines for at least two hours every single day. That was a LOT of swings!
After a couple months of that, my right shoulder would constantly hurt nearly
continuously. It also seemed clear that he had no intention of stopping all
the practice hitting. So I got an idea which turned out to be brilliant
(personal opinion!) Many of the times that I had to go through the hitting
line, I swung left handed instead of right. I was actually simply preserving
my right shoulder, but my jump was plenty high and I started actually being
able to make decently hard hits left handed.

In itself, that is not that big a deal I guess. But I soon altered my hitting
approach. Since Coach dis-respected us so much, he never even paid attention
to how many steps we used in our approach, or whatever flaws we had, so he
may never have even noticed that I had changed such an obvious thing. When a
right-handed player approaches Strong Side, he generally tends to hold his
right shoulder back, so he can torque his body to add some extra speed to the
hit. THAT is what I changed! When I would then approach the net, neither
shoulder was ahead of or behind my body, I approached the net head-on. Next,
I made a change that even I knew made my hits a little weaker, that I raised
BOTH my arms up. Again, a right-handed player twists his body and holds his
arms so that he can benefit from some aspects of a windmill motion (even
though an actual windmill spiking motion is among the worst of all!)

Why was this a good thing? Well, I jumped quite high, and I actually had a
lot of time while in the air. Where normally a strong blocking defender tends
to wait for a spiker to commit to an exact direction to spike (I am NOT
talking about TEAM area double-blocking here, but what is sometimes
criticized as psych-blocking), I would generally wait for the blocker or
blockers to commit to where they were going to block. Really good competition
(such as Purdue played) generally had extremely good double blockers, and
they were generally WAY taller than I am. I often realized that their block
was so good that there was NO available right-handed spike available that
they would not stuff-block back on me. I never liked to be stuff-blocked! So
I discovered that once their block location was established, there were
usually some wonderful left-handed crush spikes available, which would
usually pass just to the right of the block and authoritatively hit the
floor! The best, in competition and Tournaments, was when such top level
blockers KNEW that they absolutely had me blocked, and they could not
understand how I got the point on them! When one of their teammates would
yell at them "he hit it left-handed" THAT was as good as it gets! As long as
THEY didn't know which hand I was about to spike with, they not only could
not set their block in the right location, but the (outside) person who had
the responsibility of setting the block would sometimes become uncertain, and
some blocks even knocked each other down!

Volleyball is much a mental game, I think even more than a physical game.
This anecdote is meant to show that. Players who were far taller than me
might have an airtight block waiting for my hit, but that would only happen
if I "agreed to play by their rules, right handed!" As long as I was alert to
what they were doing, and adapted and made fairly good choices, I always felt
that I was the one that was in control, and I certainly got a LOT of left
handed kills. I don't think anyone kept good statistics back then, but I am
tempted to think that I may have gotten more left-handed kills than
right-handed, in the very highest level competitions. (In lower level
competition, I tended to hit right-handed at least 90% of the time, although
I can't actually say why).




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.
Position Specialization
Each player will generally switch to one specific position as soon after the
serve as possible. Therefore, each person only needs to fully learn all the
offensive and defensive responsibilities and intricacies of that one
position. A front row player may be defined as a Middle Blocker, a Strong
Side Hitter or a Weak Side (or Off-Side) Hitter. Wherever he is required to
line up during the serve, he quickly moves to his specialty spot. If WE are
serving, that's immediately, because we have a moment to make this change
while the opponents are getting ready to receive our serve. If THEY are
serving, we generally shouldn't switch immediately because that could screw
up our serve reception efficiency. Therefore, we will often make the first
play with our hitters NOT IN THEIR SPECIALIST POSITIONS. Then, as soon as we
get the ball over the net, we do our switch(es). The exact same thing happens
in the back row. The Setter always shifts over to near the sideline in the 1
(back-right) position, and the Middle Back and Power Alley players switch as
necessary to be in their proper spots.
NOTE:


There are many very high-level teams that have serve reception specialists;
these teams will often severely distort the normal serve reception pattern to
allow these people to receive most of the serves. This distortion invariably
(intentionally) removes at least one of the players from participating in
serve reception. When a team has only two true serve return specialists, the
distortions become truly weird. In order to be legal at the moment of the
serve this sometimes involves three of the players standing in various
corners of the court. When a team has four serve return specialists (or one
very weak serve receiver), there are distortions (often called Flip-Flops)
that bring the setter and the remaining player to the net. On those
very-high-level teams, passes to the setter are often very low and direct to
get the offense going before the defense can react, and having the setter
already at the net allows him to get to the setting spot in times for these
bullet passes. (Such passes are sometimes called "clothesline" passes because
they travel nearly directly from the serve-receiver to the location of the
setter's hands. Virtually any team below 'A' that tries this discovers that a
lot of bad things can happen!)

Weaker teams sometimes use flip flops. They are either trying to be like the
"big boys" or they are trying to "hide" a player who is a poor serve
receiver. Even though this sounds like a good idea, it is not. Intermediate
and weak teams should NEVER use flip-flops or other serve reception
distortions. It is far better, for a team standpoint, to maintain confidence
in each of the member players, and it is far better to maintain the same
serve reception pattern, for consistency and fewer mistakes due to surprises.
Occasional, or even regular, flip-flops cause serve receivers to have
different responsibilities than they were normally used to, in the
recommended 'W' serve reception pattern. Contrary to what a lot of players
think, a flip-flop has NO intrinsic benefit regarding serve reception. It's
only real value relates to higher-level teams which use clothesline passes,
to permit a back row setter to actually get there in time to receive the
pass! Otherwise, he/she would still be running when the pass arrives! So,
unless your team is good enough to use clothesline passes, there is no actual
value of trying to use a flip-flop. As an observation, some setters call for
a flip-flop, in my opinion, out of laziness! Running back and forth hundreds
of times during a tournament gets 'old' and such setters do not seem to
realize that they are damaging their team's serve reception consistency just
for their own personal laziness. (That was an editorial opinion! As a setter,
I ALWAYS felt it was my responsibility to "be invisible" during the actual
serve reception, so the other five could concentrate on starting things off
with a good pass. Wherever the person in front of me chose to stand, I kept
my mouth shut and allowed that person not to be distracted by my presence.)


Consistency is the ultimate desire of all teams. That is the main reason for
the switches of players to their specialist positions. Each player can focus
his learning on the nuances of what happens for that position for all
possible contingencies. He doesn't really have to fully understand or worry
about what the other players are doing, as long as they are each consistent
in what they do. The level of team play can greatly increase by this
specialization. A front row hitter can concentrate specifically on 3 or 4
pre-called sets to that position and get used to the necessary adjustments
due to setter mistakes or quirks and opponent defensive efforts. A Power
Alley back-row player can learn and adapt to the hits he is supposed to dig
and can get really focused on that responsibility without having to worry
about balls lobbed over his head that HE KNOWS the middle back guy will get.
Regarding serve reception or defensive passing, many intermediate players
seem to be concerned about who they're passing to. In the 6-2 offense, these
serve receivers do not see anyone as a target to pass to, and they get
nervous! With decent setters, this is generally an unnecessary concern.
Players should attempt to pass to a spot, generally about at the hitting 5
position, slightly right of the center of the net, and 2 to 3 feet from the
net, with a fairly nice arc. A setter from the back row is theoretically
supposed to miraculously appear at that spot, set the ball, and disappear,
without affecting or distracting any of the other players at any point. This
theory allows the remaining 5 players to concentrate on the defensive
responsibilities of their own positions without distraction and without
worrying about complicating factors. (Some coaches add modifications [like
the flip-flops mentioned above] to simplify the very busy life of the setters
and to allow regular double-quick and triple-quick offense. As mentioned
above, for intermediate teams, these modifications generally represent
complications in the minds of the serve receivers and passers. It is
generally NOT a good idea to use such Flip-Flops or other distortions of
serve reception or defensive coverage. The advantage of saving a couple steps
for the setter is far offset by the disadvantage of possible uncertainty and
confusion on the rest of the players on the team.) A 6-2 setter's life IS
really complex, but after players get used to it, everyone else actually has
a simpler existence. The 6-2 is very advantageous for most teams. And even
though it can sometimes seem an impossible task to be a 6-2 setter, it
eventually can become a very fulfilling experience.

.

Serve Reception
I guess I'm pretty traditional. I suggest (virtually) ALWAYS using the 'W'
pattern of serve reception. The front three people should be virtually
straight across, about a step behind the 10-foot line, with a clear W pattern
obvious. If a 6-2 is being used, those three people are all "officially"
front row players. If a 4-2 is being used, one of the three is a back row
player, whichever one is necessary to fill in the missing spot of the three
needed places. The two players at the bottom of the W usually start off about
two steps in front of the back line. (This depends on the level of
competition, with weaker play having them a little closer to the net.) If a
serve comes in above the waist of the front players, the agreed to convention
is that the ball is supposed to be played by those back two. To make sure of
this, the nearest front row player is supposed to quickly turn his body
sideways to show that he will not play it. A W serve reception pattern is
always available, whether the setter is in any legal starting position. Once
the 'W' is in place (several seconds BEFORE the serve) the setter always has
a preferred spot (and path). The entire 'W' can move forward or back a half
or a full step in response to very weak or very strong servers.
There are some Coaches today who teach any of many assortments of this basic
pattern. Many include what are called flip-flops, where one of the five
receivers is removed from the reception pattern, with the single desire to
make it so the Setter has a couple fewer steps to run to get to where he/she
needs to set. IF the Setter is truly World Class, I would agree! But for
virtually all Setters that I have ever seen involved with flip-flops, there
was not the slightest value at all except toward the laziness of the Setter!
Therefore, I very rarely see any merit in running flip-flops.

Many Coaches today simply decide to have a Serve Reception of fewer than five
Receivers! Actually, I have played on truly high-level teams where there were
two Receiving Specialists, who always received EVERY ball! In order to avoid
illegal overlaps, the rest of the players were often bunched up in a corner!
The result was that it resembled Beach Doubles, where you only HAVE two
people to receive serve! Without having truly spectacular Serve Receivers, I
have always seen value in having FIVE warm bodies receiving serve rather than
four or three or two! I suppose their approach might be acceptable, as long
as their specialists don't get hurt and don't have bad days! Still, I would
rather be able to slightly adjust the pattern one way or another to reduce
the size of the area of a player who is currently having some problems.

The reasoning that such Coaches give is usually minimal, and some Coaches do
not even know why a flip-flop might even be appropriate. There ARE a few
Coaches who have established their own approach toward this TEAM game, and
their approaches may not always be fully compatible with these comments.

The logic of the 6-2 serve reception includes the following: About 60-70% of
serves are expected to be taken by the back two players. These players are
always legally back row players and cannot be front-row hitters. As soon as
the three front row people are sure that they aren't supposed to pass this
serve, this permits them all to begin to move to the spot to start their
hitting approach. This is the reason for trying to have the two BACK ROW
players receive most of the serves. On a short serve, one of the front three
must pass the ball. If that hitter has a quick-set hit called, he may have
trouble making his normal approach for that hit. That means that the setter
suddenly has to improvise, which is often a bad thing! In principle, the 'W'
serve reception is actually a 2-man serve reception pattern with 3 helpers on
short or ferocious serves. The dependence on those two back row players to
receive most serves relies on their passing ability. As long as all four
non-setter players are equal passers, things are as good as possible. At high
level play, however, teams require consistently perfect passes to run their
double-quick and triple-quick plays. Such very high-level teams sometimes
distort the 'W' beyond recognition in order to have their team's two very
best passers ALWAYS receive the serve (even if they are front row hitters at
the time). This system is usually called the 2-man serve receive. It
eliminates all possible help the other 3 players could supply. (In a sense,
it resembles Beach Volleyball doubles serve reception.) It also sometimes
requires some of the non-passers to stand along the back line or in a back
corner during serve reception! When watching nearly any country's Nationals
team on TV, try to figure out the legal positions of each player! As a
defender against such a team, I can state that it's a nightmare to keep track
of who are the various front row hitters to block if you don't play close
attention. Often, a setter on the team that is serving chooses to call out
the three player numbers of the receiving teams front-row players. Without
such help, I have occasionally been guilty of forgetting this and have gone
up with a back row player's fake '1' allowing the guy I was supposed to
defend to hit free. Coach was NOT amused! Intermediate teams should NOT use
such distortions and Flip-Flops.

.

Each Position
.
Strong Side Hitter
Offense
Commonly gets about 50% of sets. Generally should assume he will be
double-blocked. Assuming the defense has a good double-block, has 3 valid
hits:
Hard line shot just outside block,
Hard Power Alley shot just inside block,
Roll shot (lob) over the block.
Quicker sets (Fours, Shoots and 32s) are intended to surprise the defense and
only have to deal with a single block.

Most spiking approaches start out-of-bounds behind the 10-foot line with
about a 45-degree angle into the court which allows strength in hits to any
available direction.

If the set goes to either of the other two hitters, turn toward that hitter
and back off to about 8 feet from the net and get your hands low in digging
position. This is so that if our hitter gets blocked, you are prepared to up
any ball deflected in your direction.

The Four Set is a unique set which has some variation among teams and
players. Many 'B' teams set it as a "lob shoot" which isn't a lot lower than
the normal Five Set. Most 'BB' and better teams set it as a "soft shoot"
which is about '3' high. (There is also a "hard shoot" which is about '2'
high and lightning fast.) For consistency, we usually treat Four sets as the
"Soft shoot" variety. Individual hitters usually have unique preferences on
this set which the setters should try to learn. Arc (speed), closeness to the
net, and nearness to the antenna represent the X, Y, and Z coordinates, and
most Four hitters have personal preferences on all of them.

Specific sets:

'5' is a '15' and is designated by a hand with all 5 fingers out and spread.
'8' is an '18' and is designated by a closed fist (or a closed fist with the
thumb pointed up). (We will not commonly use an '8', and will generally
consider a '5' as the highest set we use. An actual '8' high set peaks out at
around 30 feet, higher than the ceilings in many facilities. (For avoiding
setter mistakes in seeing 4 fingers or 5 fingers, I like us to use a fist to
describe a '5', even though it is technically wrong.) With this signal, it is
still possible to call for an '8' by having the fist with the thumb up.
'4' will be a '13', a '14' or a '12' (depending on the specific understanding
of the team members) and is designated by 4 fingers. (Again, to avoid myopic
setters making mistakes here, I suggest designating this set with the 'shoot'
hand sign of a gun (index finger out and thumb up, bent) The '4' that we
normally tend to use is virtually identical to the 'shoot' or 'soft shoot'
('13') anyway.
For the rare situation where a 'hard shoot' or '12' is desired, I like to use
the gun signal but with two fingers out rather than one.

'3' or '33' is a '33', indicated by the middle 3 fingers (spread, so the
setter can count them). This set does not go all the way out to the outside
position, and the hitter angles inward even more than for hitting normal
outside hits.
'2' or '32' is a mini-shoot or a quicker version of the '33'; two fingers
(index/middle) and an understanding between the hitter and setter.
There is no realistic outside '1'. Setters are rarely strong enough and
virtually never accurate enough to do this set. A setter can try practicing
it. The ball must still be going upward when it gets to the sideline, the
place where the hitter would be, so it requires very high speed to be put on
the ball. It also has to consistently pass through a circle about 14" in
diameter so the hitter could actually hit it. Some setters on Olympic teams
are capable of reliably setting outside 1's. I only ever tried one in an
actual competition, when the opposing team's two-man blocks were shutting
down everything we had. But I aimed poorly and my hitter couldn't hit it. It
went past the referee and over the bleachers and hit the wall! It was
somewhat humiliating and I never tried it again except in practice!

Defense
If blocking outside (their Weak-Side hitter), face hitter and stays centered
on the hitter's hitting (right) shoulder, moving along the net as necessary;
stopping and planting as it is clear this hitter is hitting. Feet 18 inches
apart. This positioning must be done very quickly. The inside foot is the
identifying target for the middle blocker to come to for double blocking. He
is kind of busy and doesn't have time to determine just where to set the
block. He totally trusts the outside blocker to already be planted in the
proper place. He runs over to where his feet are 6 inches from the inside
foot of the outside blocker and jumps straight up. As he extends his arms, he
finally is able to make slight adjustments in hand position to "close the
block". The back row defenders are also watching just where the outside
blocker sets the block, since they assume the middle blocker will arrive and
must then deal with the shot options available to the hitter past the
double-block. It is critical for the team concept for the outside blocker to
get in the habit of lining up early on with the hitter's hitting shoulder and
to move along the net with him.

If the other team's Middle hitter is hitting, the outside blockers are NOT
supposed to block: he should quickly turn inward to hopefully up any severely
angled shot toward him or any ball deflected off our middle blocker coming in
his direction. There is only one exception to the no-block rule: If their
middle blocker is hitting a high set (like a 5). A good opposing should never
need to try that.

If the other team's Strong-Side hitter is hitting, this position should
quickly back away from the net almost to the 10 foot line, turn inward and
crouch to be ready for a severe angle shot in his direction.

Common Strong Side Sets (Five, Four and 32)




.

Middle Hitter
Offense
Commonly gets 20% of sets. Generally will be single-blocked. If a double
block ever shows, the setter should option to whichever hitter is
non-blocked. Only 4 valid sets exist: 1, 2, 3 and a deep 5. The 1 is intended
to be so fast that it is minimally blocked, so an angle hit either way is a
good idea. The angle is a good idea just in case the opposing middle blocker
happens to be in the right place, to avoid accidentally letting the ball
bounce off his hands. That 1 has a more useful purpose. A credible 1 threat
holds the opponent's middle blocker long enough so he cannot consistently get
out to double-block our outside hitters on reasonable quick sets. Therefore,
many teams will ONLY consider 1s or 2s for the middle hitters, with the
requirement that the middle hitter make a full, valid, believable approach
and jump EVERY TIME WE HAVE THE BALL. This decoy action helps loosen up the
defense on the outside hitters.
Even though the defending middle blocker only expects you to get set 20% of
the time, he has to respect the possibility that it could be this time, if
your approach and jump are believable. Dogging it when you know you are
unlikely to get set hurts the team effort because the opposing middle blocker
feels freer to commit earlier to the outside double-block. Even if you get
stuff-blocked on a middle 1, there is team value in the necessary respect
their middle blocker must then give you to keep you from doing that
unblocked. Most team offenses should NOT depend heavily on hitting for points
by the middle hitter. That's usually a sign that the overall offense has
major problems. If the team is in an offensive lull or if the other team is
on a blocking roll, a deep 5 could be called, 5 feet back from the net. (This
is NOT a hit that most teams consider for a middle hitter, because it
violates that idea of forcing the opposing middle blocker to hesitate in the
middle before heading out to double-block the side hitters.) If hit at an
angle (generally toward the opposing setter's spot), the single middle block
can't stop it, and a standard organized defense doesn't really have a plan
for this hit.


If the set goes to either of the other two hitters, turn toward that hitter
and back off to about 5 feet from the net and get your hands in digging
position. This is so that if our hitter gets blocked, you are prepared to up
any ball deflected in your direction.

If the pass causes the setter to set from a slightly different position, the
middle hitter must adjust his position and approach accordingly. On a pass
that causes the setter to be standing in the 7 hitting position, the middle
hitter should approach just in front of him in the 6 hitting position.

Specific sets:
'5' is a '45' and is designated by a hand with all 5 fingers out and spread
(or a fist). It is very seldom used because it develops so slowly that it
would likely be triple blocked. If it is to be used, it should be set back
about 5 feet from the net, so our hitter can angle the hit downward past the
expected triple block.

'3' is a '43', indicated by the middle 3 fingers (spread, so the setter can
count them). As with the '45', this set should probably be set 3 to 5 feet
back from the net, because the defense will have time to establish a solid
block, and our hitter needs to have room to angle the hit past it.

'2' is a '42'; two fingers (index/middle). If this set is hit straight, often
it will accidentally hit the blocker's hands. I find substantial value in
generally angling this hit (either direction). Against a standard defense, I
personally tend to hit it at about a 30 to 45 degree angle toward their
setter (depending on how close the set was to the net). If I can make their
setter play the ball, even if he gets it up, their sophisticated plays are
gone because the setter will not be setting the ball.

'1' is a '41'; one finger (index) The hitter jumps an instant just BEFORE the
setter touches the ball! It's weird to learn!

'back 2' is a '52', two fingers (little/ring) set just behind the setter's
head. This is another ball that I tend to hit at a 45 degree angle toward
either side, so the blocker doesn't accidentally block my hit.

There is no middle '4' or '8'


Defense
Middle hits: If the hitter approaches for a 1, you HAVE to go up with him
since there is no time to jump later. You both actually wind up jumping
BEFORE the ball is even set! In this case, only jump 6 inches high or so,
because generally he is a decoy and you have to get back down on the floor to
run over to where the real action is likely to develop, at an outside hitter.
If he has a delayed approach (for a 2 or 3), you can watch the setter to try
to figure out just where the set will go. If it is then actually a middle
set, you should have plenty of time to put your block up. Sometimes you can
get clues for where he intends to hit it from where the hitter looks, his
approach angle, or small differences in his arm, shoulder or upper body
positioning. Since you're blocking ALONE, you need to be alert for these
clues to pick the most likely spot to block. A Middle-Blocker is really very
lonely on a middle hit since absolutely no one is in a place to help.
In my experience, there is value in VERY slightly delaying a jump on anything
higher than a middle-'1'. The advantage is in avoiding letting the hitter
know exactly where you are intending to block. Even though I am rather short
(6'1") for a Middle Blocker, that instant of hesitation has allowed me the
luxury of making the hitter make a decision about where he intends to hit
before I have to make any commitments. It is hard to describe in words, but I
always have felt that that momentary delay gives me a tremendous advantage in
blocking.

On more advanced teams, a middle blocker is taught to "area block". Rather
than trying to figure out where the hitter is intending to go, you would
always block in exactly the same place. Obviously, this makes it easier for a
hitter, once he figures out that you will never adjust your block. The reason
that this is actually a good idea for advanced teams is because your own back
row defense knows where your block is going to be and they can position
themselves to best cover the remaining target areas. On less advanced teams,
a very good blocker might do those "adjustment blocks" or "psych blocks" to
get a lot of blocks, but such adjustments makes organized back row defense
almost impossible! I have played on both types of teams. In my opinion,
extremely organized, very well coached teams should use area blocking, while
most lesser teams might sometimes better benefit from a very alert,
observant, and effective psych blocker. Sometimes, that decision is a tough
call!


Outside Hits: after you've come down from blocking the middle fake hit, you
need to quickly get over to the outside hitter who is actually going to make
the hit. Always look for the location of your outside blockers inside foot.
He has the very important responsibility of ALREADY being at the correct
lateral position. (He CANNOT be wandering around or waiting to get to his
blocking location.) The Middle Blocker generally has VERY little time to get
out there and absolutely needs this consistent information of that foot's
proper position to be able to participate in the outside double-block. Plant
your outside foot 6 inches inside his foot and jump straight up. At high
level competition, all this often happens without even actually having had
looked at the opponent yet! You are TOTALLY trusting the outside blocker to
"set the block" by being in the right place. Extend your arms and AREA BLOCK.
It is usually necessary to make slight hand adjustments to close any gaps
between the two blockers' hands. As long as you and the outside blocker
consistently block the same angles (areas) with no gaps between, the back row
diggers will become familiar with the few specific options still available to
opposing hitters, and they will up nearly everything that gets by the
consistent double block.

Drawing of the net area showing **** 20 ft high
common Middle (1 and 2) sets and

common Weak-Side (Back 2 and 5) sets.



.

Weak Side Hitter
Offense
Commonly gets about 30% of sets. Generally will face a double-block. Assuming
the defense has a good double-block, has 3 valid hits: Hard line shot just
outside block, Hard Power Alley shot just inside block, Roll shot (lob) over
the block. Quicker sets (Back Twos and 72s) are intended to surprise the
defense and only have to deal with a single block. Most approaches start on
the out-of-bounds line behind the 10 foot line with about a 30 degree angle
into the court which allows strength in hits to any available direction.

If the set goes to either of the other two hitters, turn toward that hitter
and back off to about 8 feet from the net and get your hands in digging
position. This is so that if our hitter gets blocked, you are prepared to up
any ball deflected in your direction.
Specific sets:
'back 5' is a '85' and is designated by a hand with all 5 fingers out and
spread (or a fist).

'back 3' is a '63', indicated by the end 3 fingers (spread, so the setter can
count them).

'back 2' is a '52'; two fingers (little/ring is best, otherwise spread apart)

'back 1' is a '51'; one finger (little) The hitter jumps just BEFORE the
setter touches the ball! A very tough play to pull off!

'1' is a '41', one finger (index) this set obviously requires the agreement
of the middle hitter so there is no crash. This is often the first half of
some of the more exotic combination sets such as 'tandems' and 'X'es. In
response to this, the middle hitter will often take a middle '2' which is
automatically shifted out strong-side about 3 feet, making a standard
'tandem.' We will seldom try these maneuvers in matches, but they're fun to
practice!
'C' is designated by a hand cupped like the letter C. This is a newer set
designation, and different teams have different interpretations of it. Many
treat it as a 'back 5' ('85') or a '74'. An arcing, wide back set.
Another set has joined the pattern for weak-side hitters, called a Slide. I
am not aware of any hand-signal for a Slide.

There is no back '4' or 'shoot.' A 'back 8' (very, very high) does exist but
is seldom used. It would use the fist symbol that we have confiscated for the
'back 5.' If you are ever around players from stronger teams, they have some
additional calls such as the 'C' and 'D'. These types of symbols (except the
'C') cannot easily be shown as a single hand signal. Such calls are usually
parts of combination set plays or higher-level teams where the setter
specifies a play number or designation and all three hitters have specific
sets due to the play. These setter-initiated plays are necessary for very
high-level teams which regularly run Xes, tandems, double-quicks and
triple-quicks. We will seldom do such plays, and I prefer to let each of the
hitters have some input into our team's strategy.
The Slide has become very popular with many modern teams. So some discussion
of it is appropriate. What is called a Slide today is NOT the same as what a
Slide originally was! I was there and I know! The set of today usually
resembles a soft shoot to the weak side. Technically, the Setter is still
supposed to be facing the opposite direction, but many Setters turn around in
order to make this set. Any intelligent Defense can see that some Sets are
NOT going to be made, and they tend to abandon at least one of the blocking
positions to double up for the Slide. The Hitter is usually the Weak Side
Hitter who has wandered in to be standing right behind the Setter. As the
Setter begins to set the ball, that Hitter runs and does a sideways broad
jump. The common way it is done today is that the Hitter catches up with the
ball around the usual 8 position.

That somewhat defeats the purpose of the concept! You wind up bringing the
hit right to where the Blocker(s) are already waiting! More than that, the
Blockers know that the Hitter is having to somewhat look backwards to see
where the ball is coming from, and in my opinion, the Blockers get an
advantage!

The ORIGINAL Slide was very different! And FAR more effective! BUT it
requires a quality of Setter that is extremely rare! Similar to what was
described above, the Hitter has wandered to a location just behind the
Setter. However, the Hitter actually starts running FIRST, before the Setter
even receives the Pass. And it is CRITICALLY IMPORTANT that the Hitter make
the SAME jump each time, same height, same width, same position!

Here is the logic: When that Hitter jumps, he/she follows a parabolic path
through the air. If the hitting arm is held up for the whole trip, then the
hitting hand is following that parabolic path (along maybe 5 feet of net).
Now, say that the Setter is SO good that he/she can set a volleyball which
will follow exactly the same shape parabolic path, but a few inches toward
the net from the hand. Ah HA! The hand and ball will then be flying in
formation! As long as both parabolas are identical, then the Hitter can
CHOOSE to hit the ball early or late! He/she and the ball will be cruising
through the air, passing blockers AND GAPS. Instead of having to be at the
mercy of a Block, all you have to do is wait a fraction of a second until you
have flown PAST the Block, and there is an open court in front of you. When
done correctly, it is nearly a 100% kill shot! If there were a lot of really
good Setters around, this would be wonderful! Unfortunately, in real life,
few Setters seem to be able to do the necessary Physics mental calculation
for the ballistic trajectory of the Hitter and then to do the needed things
to duplicate that for the ball! And when the ball is NOT where it is needed,
this can often turn into a really ugly situation!

Even in the high-level play that I was then involved in, probably HALF the
time the set was NOT where it needed to be! IF the Hitter could hit it at
all, it was then usually just a poke to try to get it to go over the net, and
the other team then had the advantage.

A True Slide is truly impressive when done well! And virtually a 100% kill.
Unfortunately, until more Setters take Physics Courses, I am not sure that
the True Slide will really be all it might be.

In the mean time, there is the set that is CALLED a Slide, which seems to get
a LOT of interest! I am not sure it merits it either!


Defense
If blocking outside (their Strong-Side hitter), face the hitter and stay
centered on the hitter's hitting (right) shoulder, moving along the net as
necessary to stay lined up with that shoulder; stopping and planting as it is
clear this hitter is hitting. Feet 18 inches apart. This foot placement is
the identifying target for the middle blocker to come to for double blocking.
He is kind of busy and doesn't have time to determine just where to set the
block. He totally trusts the outside blocker to already be planted in the
proper place. He runs over to where his feet are 6 inches from the inside
foot of the outside blocker and jumps straight up. As he extends his arms, he
finally is able to make slight adjustments in hand position to "close the
block". The back row defenders are also watching just where the outside
blocker sets the block, since they assume the middle blocker will arrive and
must then deal with the shot options available to the hitter past the
double-block. It is critical for the team concept for the outside blocker to
get in the habit of lining up early on with the hitter's hitting shoulder and
to move along the net with him.

If the other team's middle hitter is hitting, the outside blocker is NOT
supposed to block: he should quickly turn inward to hopefully up any severely
angled shot toward him or any ball deflected off our middle blocker coming in
his direction.

If the other team's weak side hitter is hitting, this position should quickly
back away from the net almost to the 10 foot line, turn inward and crouch to
be ready for a severe angle shot in his direction.

.
Setter
The responsibilities of a setter in a 6-2 offense are quite extensive and far
beyond what could be covered here. For the most part, we are going to rely on
the Lord to supply us with enough experienced setters for our Outreach teams.
Only a few brief comments follow:

For setters: A crucial aspect of being a 6-2 setter is to never interfere
with or even distract a server-receiver or digger. Therefore a setter should
loop around (out-of-bounds, if necessary) to get up to the net during serve
reception and finding the least disruptive path back to his nest afterward.
Each receiver should be encouraged to stand anywhere he wants to best prepare
to receive the serve - - - those receivers should not have ANY concern about
potential overlaps (totally the setter's responsibility) (except with other
serve receivers, a minimal problem with the 'W' pattern) or about getting in
the setter's way on his path to the net. Such concerns should not even occur
to the receivers, to allow them to get entirely focused on making a good
pass. As to the sets themselves: consistency is the first requirement. If
your sets aren't actually 5s or 4s or 32s, but are consistently the same,
most hitters can adapt. Diversity is nice but consistency is better. My
personal practice is to stand at a free-throw line and set toward a
basketball basket. I try for consistent arc shape and height and hope to have
the ball land on the rim 50% of the time. Since basketball baskets are always
present wherever a volleyball tournament is held, I always have a consistent
target environment. The 15 feet from the free-throw line to the basket is
roughly like the distance from the setter spot to a strong-side hitter (#1)
spot. For no particular reason, I virtually always practice '3'-high sets,
that go two to three feet above the top of the backboard at their highest. I
am convinced that if I can visualize this well enough, I can duplicate the
arc during actual setting in a match.
Many "B" and "BB" teams use serve reception distortions during serve
reception. I used to wonder why that was. I'm now pretty sure it's
exclusively because they want to copy and play like "the big boys." Such
teams don't seem to understand the reason why those "big boys" use Flip-Flops
and such. The reason is almost entirely because they ("AA" teams) generally
make "clothesline" passes to their setter's hands so that they can then run
double-quick and triple-quick plays to get the best possible advantage on the
defending team, which will consistently double-block otherwise. In such case,
the setter must get to the setting spot very quickly, and so Flip-Flops and
other serve receive distortions are necessary. If you are ever on a team
which passes directly on a clothesline to the setter's hands, then you are
already part of a "AA" team and beyond the realm of most of these comments.
Teams which generally intend to "lob" passes to their setters cannot benefit
in this way. The only potential advantage of such distortions for lob-passing
teams is that the setter has fewer steps to run to get to the setting spot.
This advantage (for lazy setters) comes at the cost of making inexperienced
serve receivers even more insecure than they were to start with, and
compounding this by only letting 4 of them receive instead of 5. My opinion
is that virtually all teams should avoid such things, to allow constancy and
consistency in the receivers' environment. If a setter insists on having a
flip-flop for such a team, he's probably displaying a selfishness and should
re-consider what would be best for the team effort.


For non-setters info: Appreciate your setters! A great setter is effectively
invisible most of the time, making sure to stay out of the way of all
teammates while they are doing their things. He magically appears,
remembering all three set requests of his hitters. He evaluates the pass
coming to him and determines whether any of the exotic quick sets asked of
him are still possible. Then he evaluates the strengths of his three hitters,
the game situation, and the defensive strengths of the individuals in the
opponents' front row. He then adds in factors for making sure he is
distributing sets reasonably among his hitters so none feel left out and for
unique, temporary situations such as a hitter being in a slump. He totals all
this up to decide who to set to. Now, he has to become aware of just where
that hitter is and whether he is making a good approach, whether he needs to
adjust the set for a player who normally makes an early or late approach. He
makes adjustments due to what he sees the defense doing. Finally, he adds in
the personal preferences of that specific hitter to put the ball a few inches
closer, further, higher, lower, inside, quicker, etc, to increase that
hitter's performance. As soon as he has made the set, he is supposed to be
ready to dig any balls blocked straight down. If that doesn't happen, he is
supposed to disappear from the face of the earth!

The setter is defensively positioned such that HE SHOULD VIRTUALLY NEVER HAVE
TO TAKE A FIRST BALL. This is done to make sure he can run whatever offensive
plays his hitters are looking for, because he is the only person who knows
what they have just requested. If the setter has to take a first ball, he
normally passes to the Weak-Side hitter position, who is the automatic
alternate setter in this situation. Usually, the other back row setter is in
this position, but if not, the pass still goes there for consistency. In such
situation, only two hitters are now available, and neither should expect any
set other than a generic high ball (5). Most of our significant offense has
evaporated if our setter has to take the first ball.

Another subject which is related:

Remember that all of the 6-2 offensive strategy is geared to generating the
most firepower possible, since a strong defense generally dominates over a
similarly strong standard offense. There is another version of the 6-2 which
you may see from time to time. A number of women's high school coaches
regularly seem to teach this variation as the only and true 6-2. It is not! I
often call this variation the "women's offense" (even when men's teams use
it!) The main variation is in where the setter is on defense. In the "true"
or "men's" 6-2, the setter stays out-of-the-way, covering the tiniest area
possible, to make sure he will not play the first ball and therefore will be
available to set the advanced plays the hitters are expecting.
The "women's" 6-2 has the setter "float" back and forth across the court at
the 10-foot line, just behind wherever the block develops. The upside of this
is that the setter sometimes ups dinks just over the blockers, but there are
two tremendous downsides to it. First, the setter then has to pass to the
alternate setter (who was supposed to have been one of the hitters) which
reduces the offense to two hitters, as mentioned above. These hitters will
now have to swing at generic high ball sets, which are very blockable.
Second, the fluctuating presence of the setter floating across continually
affects the coverage areas of the back row defenders. This adds to the
uncertainty of those players of doing consistent plays.

The "women's" version of the 6-2 is reasonably effective when defending
against teams with very limited offense and who often dink or roll (read this
as "weak" teams.) The "men's" version is much more versatile and is far more
effective against strong opponent teams. Most really strong women's teams use
the "true" or "Men's" version described. Generally, only intermediate women's
teams use this variation of the 6-2.


.
Back Row - Power Alley
Offense
If our strong side hitter is hitting, you are to move forward to be directly
behind him and a half-step behind the 10-foot line and be ready to react and
dig. This is in case he gets blocked straight back.

If our weak side hitter is hitting, you go toward the center of the court,
again just behind the 10-foot line, again ready to react and dig. This is in
case he is trying to angle his hit inward and it gets blocked - it would
generally come right in the direction you will be waiting at. In both cases,
your quick reactions are essential.
If our middle hitter is hitting, the play generally develops so fast that no
one can move very far, so you just turn and crouch, leaning and advancing
forward as possible to get near the 10-foot line.

Defense
The standard 6-2 defense expects a high percentage of the hits to come from
the opponents' strong side hitter. If he IS the hitter, this is what you are
supposed to do. As he is starting his approach, you are just inside the
sideline about 3 feet in front of the back line. You move forward a small
step and a bigger one, building acceleration. At that point you turn 45
degrees right to head directly toward the hitter, getting lower and lower as
you go, with your arms already extended in digging position. You should time
this procedure to the hitter's movements so that your arms and the (expected,
spiked) ball arrive exactly in the center of our court, 1 foot above the
floor at exactly the same time. This obviously means a sprawl or similar dive
on EVERY opponent strong side hit!. You get low to give yourself a few
additional milliseconds to make small arm adjustments. You get to that exact
location because that is the only place that the hardest hit ball can
normally be hit into the court past our double-block. That hitter is actually
given a thin stripe down the line (about a foot wide) to go outside the
block, but few hitters regularly try that because many hits might then land
out-of-bounds. So most hard hitters aim exactly at YOU! I sometimes refer to
this position as the human sacrifice position, since you're only about 15
feet away from and unprotected from their biggest, scariest hitters, and
you're running directly into the area of greatest danger! Sometimes, I'm
convinced my life has flashed before my eyes as I realized a particularly
strong gorilla was zeroing in on me!

If their weak side hitter is hitting, you advance directly behind your
double-block to almost the 10-foot line, for any potential dinks or any balls
that were partly blocked and dribbling over.

If their middle hitter is hitting, you are supposed to try to advance to near
the 10 foot line. Some coaches want you to be directly behind the single
block for dinks; I tend to think that 5 feet left of being behind your
blocker still allows you a shot at those dinks but also gives you a chance of
upping a hard-driven ball just past your blocker. The odds are that you would
never get there anyway, if the opponents' middle hitter just hit a 1, but you
will be in the general area.

.
Middle Back
Preliminary comments
If you've looked at where everybody else on the team is, IN EVERY SINGLE
CONTINGENCY both on offense and on defense, you have noticed that they are
ALL either inside or on the 10 foot line at the time of a spike. That leaves
the remaining 2/3 of the court for YOU! Now, exactly how you are going to
cover it somewhat depends on the playing level of your opponents and how
totally you can believe in your front row to consistently double-block.

With strong double blocking and strong opponents, you should always play
MIDDLE DEEP. This means that you back up to (or for "A" and above, even
behind) the back line in the middle of the court as the other team's play is
developing. If their hitter lobs the ball ANYWHERE, our defense is considered
a success, and you MUST up the ball, ANYWHERE in your 2/3 of the court. Both
back corners and middle short are all yours. If our block deflects the ball
ANYWHERE, in-bounds or out-of-bounds, YOU are the only one expected to play
it. (This is why you are behind the back line against extremely strong teams;
as deflections often go beyond the back line or outside either sideline.)

If the opponent team does not demonstrate such crushing hitting, you should
consider playing MIDDLE UP. If few balls are ever likely to be deflected that
far off of our blocks, you don't need to worry about that possibility until
they prove the power is there. Intermediate and weaker opponent teams tend to
lob and dink many more balls into the very center of the court, which, again,
of course, are YOURS. With Middle Deep, there is a theoretical weakness
against roll and dink shots to the exact center of our court, but most strong
power teams' hitters usually choose a spectacular hit rather than a dink or
roll, so this weakness seldom shows up at that level of play, and is less
worth covering than the long and wide deflections.

If your blockers are inconsistent on creating solid double blocks, then
middle up is also better. Since our teams will probably seldom play against
teams capable of the ferocious attacks referred to above, this represents a
second good reason for considering Middle Up. Playing Middle Up DOES NOT
relieve you of the responsibility of upping most lobs and roll shots, across
the entire width of the court, including both back corners. Sometimes, with
Middle Up, the Power Alley player is willing to slightly modify his
positioning to help cover lobs and rolls back over his head, but it really
isn't his job! The Middle Back player obviously needs to be able to cover a
lot of distance quickly.

Your responsibilities on offense are similar to those on defense. Again,
since everyone else is occupied up around and inside the 10-foot line, you
have the other 2/3 of the court. If our hitter gets blocked and the ball goes
a long way IN ANY DIRECTION, it's yours.
.

Various Other Subjects
'X'es
Most intermediate teams like to experiment with 'X' plays. It's the closest
most people ever get to playing like "the big boys." If we do such
experiments, these comments apply:
An 'X' is ONLY used when the opponents are serving to us, and only played
ONCE immediately at the serve. It is also ONLY used when front-row serve
receivers are not already in their "specialist" positions where a switch will
eventually be necessary. The 'X' combines this switch within the offensive
play itself. All serve receivers receive in their (original) normal
positions. After the pass, the two hitters who will 'X' make angle approaches
to the necessary hitting spots (their normal "specialist" spots). An 'X'
ALWAYS involves a 1-high hit (first) and a 2-high hit second. The hitter for
the 1 always crosses in FRONT of the other in order not to be delayed on his
hit.

Under any other conditions, an 'X' is undesirable. If hitters are already in
their "specialist" spots, an 'X' would move them to wrong positions where
they would need to re-switch. Generally, the setter does not try the 'X' if
either of them passed the serve, again for timing reasons.

There are actually three possible 'X'es, only one of which is usually logical
to use. A Strong-side X could be used if the Middle and Strong need to switch
(Index and Middle finger crossed). The Middle hits his normal '1', with the
Strong hitting a '2' with a foot between their shoulders. A Weak-side X could
be used if the Middle and Weak need to switch (little and ring fingers
crossed). The Middle hits his normal '1' and the Weak hits a Back '2'. The
third variety of X is virtually never used by teams at any level. It is the
Wide X, where the two outside hitters need to switch. This X is so rare that
no consistent location is even established for where it is to happen and
there is no hand signal for it. There is also no consistent plan for where
the Middle Hitter might hit at. In my entire volleyball career, my teams have
only tried it 3 times. In each case, it got screwed up and failed.

A primary hoped-for effect of an 'X' is that the opponent blockers don't
switch or shift coverage to still block both hitters. This is identical to
the reasoning behind a "pick and roll" in basketball, where you're trying to
get both defenders occupied with (either) one of you which leaves the other
undefended. Adding a little confusion in the opponents often helps the team
cause. Even an unsuccessful 'X' should cause them to have to be continually
thinking of that contingency for the future. I have noticed that in
tournaments, some teams run 'X' plays in their warm-ups but then never use
them in the actual matches. There is value in this in that opposing coaches
who see this may inadvertently add new distractions to their teams when
commenting on this possibility just before a match.

The circumstances for the possibility of using an 'X' occur only about 20% of
the time. 'X'es should probably be rarely used at intermediate levels of play.


Tandems
Several Tandems are possible, but only the Strong Tandem is generally used.
The Middle hits his '1', and the Strong comes in for a 2-high set right along
side the Middle (with a foot between their shoulders). The hand sign
resembles a '2'. For a '2' the fingers are supposed to be clearly separated,
partly so the setter can count them to distinguish from '1' or '3'. The
Strong Tandem signal is the index and middle fingers tight together.
A Weak Tandem would involve the Middle Hitter hitting a 'back 1' (a difficult
hit unless the pass is absolutely perfect) with the Weak-Side Hitter hitting
a '72' right next to him. This 72 is a blind set, and it is also a set that
few setters ever practice, or that Weak-Side Hitters practice hitting. Bad
idea!
A Stacked Tandem is a variation on the Strong Tandem. Instead of the Strong
coming up alongside the Middle, he actually approaches directly behind him,
with his '2' hit coming from about 4 feet back from the net. The value is in
timing. The block that went up with the Middle Hitter is now nearly back on
the ground so there is effectively no block. Sometimes, opponent blockers get
confused as to who is supposed to try to block each hitter (thinking an X may
be going on), and neither blocker goes up! I have also noticed a minor
additional advantage. I was usually the front half (Middle) of such Stacked
Tandems, and my arm during my now-fake swing was sometimes in the way of the
actual hit from behind me. This often deflected the ball at an unexpected
angle into the opponents' court, making their digging efforts wasted. Of
course, my arm also occasionally accidentally blocked my teammate's hit back
to him!
Flip-Flop comments
Removing one person from the 'W' requires common sense adjustments to the
server reception pattern, on the parts of all the receiving teammates. Either
an "arc" or a "wiggly line" is appropriate depending on just where the
hitters are and where their "specialist" positions are. If the Middle Hitter
is actually in the middle to start with, such an outside flip-flop using an
"arc" would have him receiving near one sideline and makes it less likely
that he could get to his Middle '1'. Instead, he should receive near the
middle of the court, with the player legally behind him shifting out wide to
receive serves to near our Weak sideline.
.

Serving Comments
When practicing serves, you should practice at least 3 different varieties.
In general, a hard, topspin serve, an intermediate normal serve, and a lob
creampuff dead-ball serve are good choices to practice.

In all normal game situations, you would virtually always use your
intermediate serve which must be in bounds 80-90% of the time. It is meant to
make sure the ball is put in play but allows the opponents a chance of making
a bad pass.
Your ferocious hard, topspin serve should still be 60% or better. There are
only a few situations where you should consider using it. NEVER in a close
game, whether you're ahead or behind. Seldom when you're way ahead, since
that comes across as unsportsmanlike and non-Christian. NEVER right after
your team has invested heroic effort into getting a sideout. NEVER when your
team is presently playing well and just getting bad breaks. This only leaves
the circumstance of being in the desperate situation of being far behind in a
game where your team's spirit has been (temporarily) broken. In this
desperation situation, a ferocious serve to try to get an ace could be your
team's best hope. If you fail, your team was probably going to get snuffed
anyway. If you DO get a couple aces, hopefully the team optimism returns
which should enable ensuing team play, so you should go back to your normal
serve rather than rolling the dice again. This is true even if you are still
well behind. After all, you must get the ball in play to score points.

If you have total confidence in your team's play (compared to the opponents),
knowing that we will prevail in any extended rally, you can use a creampuff
(dead-ball, non-rotating) lob serve (98% or better). The lack of ball
rotation (less than one-half rotation by the time the ball crosses the net)
can cause some quirky jumps in the ball. And it gives your team a chance to
win the play.
Such a serve can even be served under-hand. In all cases, the trick is to
make sure that your hand is slightly cupped (as it should always be for
serves or spikes); the entire perimeter of your hand must contact the ball at
the same instant; and you make a VERY conscious effort to keep your wrist
from doing its natural snap. Many people will try this a HUNDRED times before
getting ONE serve that is not spinning in the air. As you watch the ball
leaving (which is extremely important, for feedback), you will see balls
spinning in every imaginable way, but usually either backspin (because you
let your wrist be too weak at the moment of the impact and it snapped
backwards) or topspin (because you let your wrist do the forward snap that
all hitting coaches always try to teach spikers). After you get one to fly
with no spin, you will start to fully realize the importance of no wrist
movement during a dead-ball serve.

The value of a dead-ball serve is RELATED to the fact that it flies so
slowly! The person who is to receive it has plenty of time to watch it come.
More importantly, he/she also has plenty of time to watch it zig and zag in
the air due to wind currents! This is especially true of indoor play, where
the lighter ball is used. It does serious mind-games to you as the receiver
to see the ball shifting several inches sideways or up or down and then back.
IF you use this and get a point from a bad serve reception, YOU MUST make
absolutely sure that you allow the same person to receive the next serve. If
he/she shanks off that one, then you must make sure to serve EVERY following
serve to that person, as long as they are not on the bench! It gets to a
point where your serving ability is no longer the issue. That person is
beginning to doubt if they are even capable of returning your serve, and all
kinds of psychological problems are occurring inside their head. I have seen
cases where I wondered if "professional help" might be appropriate after a
match!

OK. Say you had a little success at this. You already know WHO you are going
to serve to next time. The best part is, so does he! Since there are already
psychological things going on inside his head, I consider it fair to
emphasize that! So, you are allowed several seconds before being required to
serve, right? I get back there as quickly as I can, and I just stare at that
person. It actually motivates me to make sure of accuracy, but some opponents
almost seem to have a breakdown. I recall at least 20 who, after realizing
that I was going to stare right through them, would make a point of not even
looking at me! Here, I am the person with the ball, about to serve, and about
to serve to him, and yet he wouldn't even look at me. Can you see some
advantages in that? (I must admit that I am not sure what the Lord would
think about that maneuver. Is it sportsmanlike? I don't really know for sure.
But I know that I am allowed a certain number of seconds before having to
serve, and so I discovered an advantage of taking nearly all of that time.
And I have to look somewhere, and I truly did think I got better focus and
motivation to serve to that same person.

By the way, in Beach Doubles, nearly all stronger players will explore the
hubby-wife spot. There is some dividing line between where the two opponent
players have previously determined specifies who receives the serve. In
general, the strong-side player tends to take the middle, to be able to play
a higher percentage of plays and then spikes. Nearly everyone has been around
when a really accurate server keeps making slight adjustments toward the
weaker player. For a while, the stronger player keeps reaching farther and
farther, but then starts making poor passes. At some point, the weaker player
chooses to take one. On the very next serve, it must go to that exact same
spot. If you have found it, each of the two opponents assumes that the other
will play that ball, and it just drops in, easy as pie. And then they yell at
each other. I suspect the hubby-wife spot has caused some divorces, and it
certainly has caused many competitive teams to break up. There is also the
situation where BOTH decide to play the next ball, and there is no one to set
the ball.

Finally, still considering mush-ball or dead-ball serves, there is value in
practicing a very high, underhand-served version of it, often called a Moon
ball. Just serving high can have a tiny benefit, but usually not out-weighing
the number of times that the ball lands outside the court. But if the very
high serve is not spinning, the receiver has an extremely long time to watch
the ball jerking around in the air. It is amazing how many really strong
players will shank off some Moon ball serves!


.
Blocking
Blocking is the part of the game that I have always been known for. Between
sanctioned tournaments and sanctioned leagues, it appears that I have made
around 100,000 blocks during my extended volleyball career. If Guinness
cared, that might be a record! In any case, it is an area where I think I
have some special expertise.
First of all, there are two overall approaches or concepts regarding
blocking. The technically "correct" approach is called Area Blocking or Team
Blocking. The other approach does not actually have a respectable organized
name. The two systems will be discussed separately here.


Area Blocking
A blocker is part of a team effort. Team Blocking is done with that concept
centrally in mind. Nearly all of the discussions of the back row players
defensive responsibilities above have been based on this central concept. ALL
really good teams ('BB' and higher) MUST use this approach, to enable the
back row players to effectively participate in the defense. As mentioned in
the various Position discussions above, for opposing outside hitters, the
Outside Blocker lines the center of his body up with the hitting shoulder of
the hitter, and continually adjusts to keep this true. In the event that the
hitter decides to hit straight, the block will stop the hit. This precision
of positioning is critical to the team concept, for several reasons. First of
all, it intentionally actually allows a sliver of free court along the
sideline available to the hitter. If he feels lucky, he might choose to try
to hit just outside the block at that foot-wide strip of inbounds. Most
hitters won't generally do that, because there's too much chance of hitting
the ball out of bounds. Second, this positioning establishes the correct
positioning of the block, so that the Middle Blocker, who necessarily arrives
later, will know where to jump. This being done accurately, his hands block
an area roughly at a 20 to 35 degree angle for the hitter, a favorite hitting
angle, because geometrically, it represents a very strong hitting motion.
As long as these two blockers are consistently in the precise same positions,
the two very strongest hits available to the hitter are discouraged. This
only allows one remaining very strong hitting direction, that at about a 45
degree angle toward the middle of the court. But our team concept has
arranged our Power Alley back row player to be exactly right at that one
remaining spot. This now accounts for ALL of the ferocious hits. A somewhat
weaker hit is possible at a more severe angle (say 60 degrees), but we have
the opposite side front row player placed to receive this hit.

This now accounts for ALL significant hits (downward hits). The only
remaining possibilities for the hitter are upward hits, dinks and roll shots
(lobs). If a strong side hitter makes a dink just over the double block, this
is a symbolic victory. The other team's strongest hitting position didn't
even try to actually hit! In this single situation, our back-row Setter
receives the ball. For absolutely any other UPWARD hit ball, aimed ANYWHERE
beyond the 10-foot line, the Middle Back player HAS TO up it.

As long as BOTH of our blockers consistently present their blocks at the
correct positions, our entire team concept works very well, and nearly every
ball is either blocked or upped. Notice an important fact. The two blockers
are Area Blockers. They are NOT necessarily actually trying to block
everything they could reach. Their consistency of positioning is actually
more important to the team concept than their individual blocking skills or
effectiveness. The back row players can develop confidence in them of being
consistent, so they soon learn exactly where they need to be and what they
need to do to do their part in the team defense. I have played in games where
I did not block a single ball, but I know that I contributed greatly to the
team's defensive effort. Since hitters chose not to challenge my blocking
ability, and I was consistent in precise placement of my attempts at
blocking, they consistently hit balls that my teammates invariably upped.
Even without being ever blocked, opposing teams get demoralized when they
just can't seem to put the ball away!

There are a couple additional factors that affect how well this works.
Specifically, the skill of the opposing setter and the ability of the
opposing hitter. All this logic is based on the opposing setter being good
enough to regularly set the ball around two or three feet from the net, and
the opposing hitter then knowing what to do with it. If this strategy is used
against a really terrible team, it works terribly! Our team commits two
people to block when no actual hit will occur! And if their hitter can
accurately lob the ball to the back corners, we really wind up having five
bystanders and only one person actually being the defense! So, if you ever
wind up playing against a really bad team, I recommend forgetting all this
strategy and simply backing off into a serve-reception W pattern. Let them
hit, and practice your serve reception skills! They're not going to win, are
they?


The Alternative, regarding Blocking
All of the above has been described as being for 'strong teams'. The
following comments may sometimes be useful for teams that do not fit in that
category. For example, 'C' level teams and Co-ed teams of almost any level. I
will use the example of a 3-3 co-ed team, with genders alternating.
Generally, women are the setters on such teams. Some of the very, very best
setters are women, but often they are not very tall. An opposing Strong Side
Hitter often has a short woman directly across from him (in the 2, or Weak
Side Hitter, position). No matter how significant a (male) Middle Blocker we
have, the hitter can pretty much hit at will, straight, over the top of her
little hands! As a hitter in Co-Ed tournaments, I have found it an easy way
to win a LOT of points. Yes, it is chauvinistic! Sorry! As a Middle Blocker
on such Co-Ed teams, correctly doing my Area Blocking thing, I have felt
enormous frustration at watching countless hitter avoid my block by hitting
directly over our girl outside blocker!
There are several other possibilities for this same situation to exist. On a
Men's Team, sometimes the setters are really short and cannot significantly
block. On some 'C' teams, the person judged weakest in the front row is
shoveled over to the Weak Side Hitter position, where he/she never gets sets!
That person is seldom a great blocker! In any case, it is a consistent and
serious problem to be dealt with.

My solution is this. (ONLY for weak teams and for teams with circumstances as
described here!) If there is a good blocker in the front row, then put him in
the middle, and allow him to freely improvise in 'Psych-Blocking'. Only a
single-block is even planned, where he is free to go sideline to sideline to
block, with the other front-row players being either diggers or hiders! My
thinking is this. Without a valid consistent double block, all the rest of
the team strategy becomes somewhat irrelevant, since strong hitters are going
to continuously bury balls straight down the line. In that case, of a
free-hitting hitter, the BEST we can hope for is that he accidentally hits
one out of bounds! NOT a very good plan! Since the lack of a solid and
consistent double block has disabled nearly all aspects of the defense
anyway, why not let a decent blocker freely range back and forth along the
entire front row. With this concept, there is not even any attempt at making
a double block! The short outside blocker actually normally assures a hitter
of somewhere to aim! Instead, with this premise, those 'outside blockers'
would step back (not so far as to be hit by a hard driven ball), to allow the
Middle Blocker to go freely antenna to antenna.

OK. I admit that this is a really bizarre concept! Worst of all, our back row
players do not have the slightest clue as to where a block might appear, so
they have no possible information on where to place themselves. They are
sometimes VERY distressed at the hot-shot psych-blocker! My thinking is that
they weren't going to be much use anyway, not from THEIR fault, but from the
lack of a solid and consistent double Area Block. Since we're in deep water
anyway, why not let our one good blocker see what he could do.

Yes, he does get a reasonable number of blocks. But there are two side
benefits from this weird strategy. Opposing teams are sometimes distracted by
the oddness of what is going on, so their offense might make some extra
mistakes. Better, if our blocker manages to get a few blocks, their hitters
might panic and decide to do a dink or lob. We've got LOTS of people standing
around for that!

In any event, I personally have seen great advantage of trying this for the
sorts of weak defensive teams mentioned above, where a solid double block is
not a reality. It has contributed to teams that I was on getting many
thousands of points from blocks I managed to snag. From a team point-of-view,
(for those teams!) that seems like a good thing!

There IS a dark side to this! IF a strong male blocker (such as me!) chooses
to participate in BOTH strong Men's competition (where Area Blocking is
absolutely mandatory) and also in Co-Ed competition (where the lack of valid
double blocking encourages this peculiar strategy), I know from personal
experience that there soon develops a great tendency to want to Psych-block
when Area Blocking is the ONLY acceptable method. I have watched opposing
hitter eyes and shoulder movements and approach, and have known that he was
going to hit the ball just inside of my block. On a Co-Ed team, I would just
slide my block over to simply block the hit for a point. But on a strong
Men's team, even knowing that, it has often taken all of my self-restraint to
NOT adjust my block, totally trusting my back row teammates to up that ball!
(They nearly always did!) To KNOW that you could do something, but to
intentionally hold back, for the benefit of the long-term team concept, is
sometimes really tough. But those back row players have to KNOW that they can
trust me to be where I am supposed to be. Even if I would be a hot-dog and
block a few extra balls, the long-term effect on our back row play would not
be worth the price.

These last comments should encourage great thought before you try using this
approach. It may help you win a few extra games, but if your team is
attempting to build a structured team, with mutual trust, it wouldn't be
worth it.


Personal Blocking Skills
Of course, it helps to be able to jump really high, but that is not
absolutely essential to good blocking. Being observant and logical are FAR
more important, particularly if you are going to regularly be single-blocking
(and not Area blocking). Most hitters got to their current hitting ability by
becoming VERY consistent AND PREDICTABLE in their approach and their hitting
motion. Watching each of them and learning can give you, as a blocker, a
tremendous advantage over the great majority of decent hitters. (It will NOT
be of much use if you wind up competing against Olympic or Pro players! I
have occasionally looked like a total fool in that situation!).
Watch ANY hitter go through a hitting warmup ten times. You will soon see
very consistent patterns that even he may not be aware of. Depending on where
he intends to hit, he may approach at a slightly different angle. He may have
his shoulder differently, like more forward or farther back, or lower than
usual. REALLY beginning players tend to look in the direction they intend to
hit, but even experienced players often make a quick glance, or turn their
head very slightly one way or the other, for different hits. As the arm
motion begins, most hitters display all kinds of clues as to what they are
about to try.

Have you seen that TV commercial where Bill Russell commented that he got
most of his blocked shots / rebounds BEFORE the opposing basketball player
even took the shot? He was being extremely observant, watching for the exact
same sorts of clues. A volleyball blocker can do this, and it is a LOT easier
than most people think.

It's funny. Most hitters believe that THEY are in charge of whatever is about
to happen. I never felt that. By being observant like that, I already had a
lot of information about the likely tendencies of most opponents. (When at
distant tournaments, against teams and players I had never seen before, while
the other team was warming up with a hitting line, I would generally watch
their hitters very carefully, looking for any patterns or clues. Many times,
during the following match, I knew what their biggest hitter was going to do
and was able to block him. At a tournament near Detroit, during warm-ups for
the very first match of the tournament, one opposing hitter hit half a dozen
balls down so hard that they bounced up and hit the very high roof of the
building. Pretty intimidating! But he seemed to be extremely consistent is
certain movements. In the first game, he allowed me to block him for eight
consecutive points! Being ahead 8-0, we easily won the game and match. He was
SO easy to read it was amazing! After those eight, he never even tried to hit
again against us, even when I was in the back row! In the rest of the
tournament, he and their team annihilated all of the other teams. So, we met
them again in the tournament finals. Fortunately, he remembered me, and just
dinked for the whole match, and we won! Their team [and he] were FAR stronger
than we were, but his rigid consistency of hitting allowed us to beat them
twice.)

There have been players who are so consistent and obvious like that, that
even when they would hit back row hits (from ten feet back from the net), I
could go down a specific distance and jump up, and he'd hit the ball right to
me! Everyone would congratulate me for such things, but they really occurred
more due to the stupidity of those hitters allowing me to look good!

I want to mention one other area regarding blocking. This is more logic. The
hitter. The blocker. One-on-one. The hitter has to COMMIT to some plan, and
then jump and hit. You, as the blocker have several advantages. First of all,
YOU have not yet had to commit to anything (again, this is referring to
single-blocking and NOT Area Blocking). So you have freedom to use that
little bit of time after he has committed to his hit, to decide what you want
to try to do. You can even increase the time you have for this by VERY
slightly delaying when you jump. You can't wait a long time, but if you can
jump even 0.1 second after he did (and you both jump the same height) you
will be in the air (and capable of blocking and thinking) for 0.1 second
additional. That isn't a lot, but it is sometimes REALLY helpful!

Between such a hesitation, the fact that you have time for observing and
thinking and choices AFTER he has had to commit to a hit, and your 'scouting
report' on that hitter, I believe that YOU have a tremendous advantage over
most hitters! Let them THINK that THEY are in control! Let them be bewildered
when you block a shot of theirs, or three hits, or five hits! If they never
understand how or why you block them so well, you will OWN them! In future
tournaments, they will remember your blocking effectiveness and be
intimidated before you ever even do anything! It's GREAT!!!

Nearly everything discussed here has been mental and logical, being
observant, and virtually no mention has been made of physical ability. A
certain amount of ability is necessary, of course, but these comments are to
suggest that almost anyone could greatly improve their blocking performance.

On most of the Men's teams I have ever played on, I was used as Middle
Blocker. That's pretty unusual, because I'm just a little guy (6'1"). Often,
the guy across from me was 6'6" or 6'8" or taller. It is always sort of fun
to block such giants! In the locker room after tournaments, when we are all
congratulating each other's teams, a number of times people would say (about
my size), "Well, I could block pretty well, too, if I was 6'5". I take that
as an awesome compliment. When I stand up next to them, and they see that I
am no taller than they are, they say little else!

Be observant. Be logical. Use whatever skills and abilities you have. You can
probably be at least three times as good a blocker as you think you are! And
consider that, when YOUR team serves, the opposing team gets the first
attack, so your blocking is often for POINTS, even better than side-outs!

In modern Beach Doubles tournaments, teams choose to receive rather than to
serve. With every serve counting as a point, and if a team has decent serve
receivers and strong hitters, it makes sense. But still, a blocker who is
observant can occasionally get a nice block, and that one block can make the
difference between winning and losing.


Ambidextrous Hitting
(Some of this was discussed above)
I am right-handed. However, after a serious injury to my right hand pinky in
Seventh Grade, I vowed to try to learn any sports activity with either hand.
Early attempts at clubbing at a volleyball in alleged spikes must have been
hilarious.
At Purdue, the first Coach we had was somewhat cruel and even inhumane. Every
day, we had to go through hitting lines for hours, hitting many hundreds of
balls as hard as we could. There were some mornings when I woke up barely
being able to raise my right arm. But, showing up later for practice, I was
expected to hit hundreds of spikes. In a self-preservation move, I began to
regularly take left handed hits in the hitting line. It turns out that we hit
so many balls that I eventually got really good at it!

This has been a good thing for me! With all those thousands of hits, my
left-handed hitting developed fairly quickly. Within a few months, I could
bury a left-handed spike virtually as hard as my right-handed spike. Not
quite as precisely though, maybe ±3 feet instead of ±1 foot for
right-handed.

When ANY hitter is approaching the net for a hit, the defense builds its
double-block based on the location of the shoulder of the hitting hand. That
places the block to cover the correct angles for the Team Area Blocking
strategy. I soon discovered that, in many such situations, when I realized
that a double-block was about to snuff me, I could hit the ball left-handed,
hard, to a spot where no defender and no blocker was! From the Strong-Side
position, there is an impressive angle crush shot that hits the opponent's
floor about 5 feet back from the net and in the middle of the court. No
defender is anywhere near that spot (because it is a spot virtually
impossible to get to right-handed) and the Area Double Block is irrelevant. I
quickly found that it was gold, nearly 99% down balls! Since it made me look
PRETTY good, I started really using it a lot. A side benefit was that,
sometimes, the opposing oustide blocker couldn't decide whether he should set
the block on my right shoulder or my left shoulder, and I could sometimes hit
without any block at all! There is also a new available hit down the line,
because there is no blocker in front of it. One can sometimes really terrify
the setter that is standing there! I found the same benefit to exist on what
is called the Weak Side. In that case, blockers had to respect my left-handed
power, which allowed me countless impressive right-handed severe angle kills!
Pretty cool!

There is a downside. A right-handed hitter is asymmetric while approaching
the net, with the hitting shoulder slightly behind and the body somewhat
turned. Those things are necessary for maximum power. Since I was regularly
hitting with either hand, I discovered that there was an advantage for me to
make my approach pretty much face-on to the net. The good part is that, even
after I had jumped, I still had the option of hitting with either hand, and I
usually decided that based on where the double block was. The slight downside
is that a face-on approach eliminates some of the physiological twisting
movements that add power to a spike. Therefore, my spikes (unfortunately)
were reduced in speed to between 80% and 90% of my initial right-handed spike.

In my opinion, the tremendous advantage of being able to select which hand to
spike with, AFTER a defense has committed itself, FAR outweighed the fact
that the ball flew slightly slower. My number of kills greatly improved with
the ambi-hitting. Maybe it wasn't as showboaty for fans, but innumerable
sideouts and points arose from it. As a result, I encourage all players to
investigate hitting ambidextrously.

.

The Team Concept:
The net effect of all this is as follows:

Offense:

If we hit from either side, a circle of 4 teammates effectively surrounds the
hitter to up any ball that gets blocked downward, with only one person
(Middle Back) for all other blocked (upward) deflections.

If we hit Middle (quick), all teammates try to get prepared to up anything
blocked toward them.

Defense:

If the opponents hit outside, we will have a double block controlling the
action. The remaining players effectively rotate one direction or the other
to cover the dinks and other various available shots available to their
hitter.

If they hit middle, our one block does his best with the rest of the team
closing in from all sides (as much as possible) to up any deflections or
angled hits.

In every situation (except one), the setter DOES NOT ever play the first
ball. This is to allow running all the set plays the setter has arranged with
his hitters. If he would play the first ball, an alternate setter would have
to set, which eliminates all the quick sets or combination sets (like tandems
and Xs), eliminates one hitter, forces high sets and allows the opponents the
time to ensure a double-block. The one exception is if the opponents strong
side hitter dinks over the block. In that one situation, the setter always
passes to the weak side hitter position, where the other setter usually is.
Even if the opponent does a high lob 2 feet behind the setter, the Middle
Back person is supposed to get it, again to still allow running the pre-set
plays. It's weird to be a setter, seeing this easy-to-play high lob coming
directly to me, and to leave the area! I must count on the Middle Back
getting to that ball, to pass it to me up at the net! It's sometimes pretty
spooky!

You can see from all this that if all the players on the team understand and
play the same defense, there are very few weaknesses. Consistent defense can
up virtually every ball that isn't blocked. That minimizes the likelihood of
the opponents making points. Then our offense, by using all three hitters and
some quick sets, make enough points until we have 15. Simple, isn't it?

Once all the team members are comfortable with the same offense and defense
strategy, the only likely downfall tends to lie in sloppy passing. With
intermediate-level ('B') players, such a team-spirited approach, would allow
regularly winning 'B' tournaments and being very competitive in 'BB'
tournaments. If passing consistency is developed, a team could play at even
higher levels. In my opinion, if a team consistently passes to within 4 feet
of the setter's hands 90% of the time, such a team could be very competitive
at 'BB.' If to within 2 feet of the setter's hands 90% of the time, the same
team could decently compete in 'A' tournaments, although I don't know about
winning there! This is all with fairly standard hitters!

A friend of mine (Charlie, 5'7 tall) once moved to a new city and looked for
serious volleyball to get involved in. The better teams there disrespected
him for not being tall enough. He wound up playing in pickup games at a local
YMCA. Eventually, he collected a set of very motivated athletes (mostly
basketball players) that were all about his same height. None of them had
ever received much recognition as athletes because of how short they were.
Charlie took these people, none of whom had ever played any serious
volleyball, and who therefore didn't know any strategy, and taught them to
all think and act exactly as HE did.

It was an interesting team to watch! They never made mistakes! There were
never any holes in the defense because they all thought with the same brain!
For several years, they won virtually every tournament they entered, against
teams that all averaged more than 6 inches taller than them! That proved to
me how much volleyball is a team game, where the sum of six short players
consistently won over opponents that were far taller and more athletically
proficient. Keep that in mind!

Unfortunately, with this "team" concept where everyone is dependent on
everyone else, if even a single team member is unfamiliar with his
responsibilities and duties, the whole team suffers immensely. This is
equally true of a single player's lazy effort. So all members must remember
this onus in order to not let the teammates down.

Whenever a team has a new player or players who are not used to showing hand
signals to the setter, I like to encourage the setters to say "yes" when he
has seen the signal. This helps both the setter and the hitters to remember
to do this. After a while, it become second-nature to automatically do it,
but remembering at the start is hard. The hitters are supposed to be getting
focused on the opposing server or the opposing hitter and shouldn't feel the
need to turn around to make sure the setter has seen the signal. The hitters
are supposed to show their hand signals until they hear the word "yes" three
times which means that all three signs have been seen. When hitters only hear
two "yeses", all three need to keep displaying the hand signal. The setter
may not have yet looked at all three, or one signal may not have been
readable, or somebody may have forgotten to show a signal. The three yeses
approach reminds the one who forgot to be spurred to show a sign; the other
two hold their sign until certain it has been seen. From the hitters'
points-of-view, it is reassuring to hear that your desires have been noted,
and you can then get fully focused on the opponent server.

There is one other observation I have to share. I have sometimes noticed that
players new to the 6-2 who suddenly have the option of calling their own
sets, seem to go berserk. On every single play, they each call for a random
assortment of sets. It's understandable to get carried away with a new toy,
but this sort of thing is often a nightmare for some setters (including me!)
The setter has so many things to be thinking about, that he's pretty much
occupied. When he also has to deal with new and exotic set choices from all
three hitters on every play, life gets even more complicated. SO, in
appreciation for your setters, I request your indulgence for setters
everywhere to stay within reasonable bounds with your requests. Setters on
teams who pass poorly enjoy seeing "5 - 2 - 5" pretty often. In general,
these are the default sets anyway. Optimistic hitters on such a poor-passing
team sometimes call for "4 - 1 - back2" (triple-quick offense), none of which
can be set on a bad pass. What is a setter supposed to do in such a
situation? He soon tends to ignore all of those requests and just set high
balls. If a hitter expects to get good sets from a setter he needs to
consider just what the setter has to work with. The ideal situation from most
setter's points-of-view is for each outside hitter to generally choose
between a high ball (Five) and one single quicker option. In the middle, the
equivalent is the "2" and the "1". Occasional variations from this sort of
pattern are fine, but hitters should generally repetitively practice and
refine just a couple options, to have confidence in them "at crunch time."

The 6-2 includes the most consistent offense and defense against reasonably
strong teams. There is an odd aspect about it though. If a team uses the 6-2
against a very weak team, it can look pretty bad. If the opponents' efforts
at sets are often 8 feet back from the net, our double-block is seldom
effective. If that opponent hitter becomes intimidated by our big blockers,
he may not even hit but just consistently dump the ball over the block into
an area that is pretty vacant. (This is especially true if we are running the
high power version of the 6-2 defense, where the Middle Back plays very
Deep.) If that opponent team accidentally or intentionally dumps a first or
second ball over the net and just over our front line, we can look pretty
bad! If your team regularly finds itself in this situation, you're in the
wrong league! Find better competition! If it occasionally happens, make
temporary adjustments. Maybe don't block; back off and cover rolls, lobs and
dumps. Maybe play Middle Back "UP" against weak opponents to be in position
to up all these dumps. (I personally find that in strong Men's play, Middle
Back "Deep" is best, but for most Co-ed teams where there are a lot of single
blocks, Middle Back Up is more advantageous. Use common sense in such
situations. Don't let dogmatic belief in the 6-2's strengths blind you from
recognizing that it also has a few weaknesses under some circumstances.

I recommend that ALL of the team players read ALL of the strategy sections
and learn the position-appropriate sections of the above. Even the sections
about positions other than their own "specialty" position. If each player
develops confidence and respect for all of the teammates, it will be possible
to concentrate more fully on his own responsibilities. The team effort will
benefit from that!


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推 elviralin:可以幫忙翻譯嗎? 揪咪
推 ta317520:找些etp的來吧
推 balwy:96頁  就算會翻也懶的翻吧= =
推 ta317520:所以我才說找"些"嘛     不是找"個"阿
推 mayday90764:無法
推 balwy:一人翻一頁好了
→ steve10042:下面有已經翻好的兩篇了 所以就其他的就加強英文囉！