This is my girl, Christine. Isn’t she cute? She was a young pup in this volleyball passing drill video, so misguided. You see, as coaches, we all know that there was one before us. And it’s our job to make sure these poor, misguided little Christine’s are sent in the right direction. Before it’s too late (gasp).
Check out this screenshot from a passing video, then weigh in. What do you think Christine did wrong?
And… Since you volleyball fanatics are such a shy group and we’ll probably get no comments, I’ll post my thoughts in a couple days.
Introducing yet another high stress, competitive, volleyball drill. Put your players under pressure with this score-keeping passing drill.
3 passers and a setter on one side. Servers on the other side. Watch the video, then we’ll talk.
Tell your servers to serve aggressively. After all, we’d like to have decent passers against the best possible servers.
The volleyball coach or the setter will grade the passers 0-3. Passers must get a “grade” of 2.5 in 10 serves. Here’s how we define our “grades.”
3= 1 maybe 2 steps; as long as the setter can set all 3 positions
2= 2-3 steps; but the setter can still set all 3 positions
1= the setter can still make the set but has to force it outside or back-row.
0= shank ie. epic failure
Feel free to set your own team goal. 2.5 is Donnie’s club volleyball team’s goal. Donnie tells his players, “2.5 is championship level passing.” As you can see, they didn’t quite make the grade this time. It happens. But they repeat the drill over and over until they reach their goal.
High pressure situations are very good for your team’s morale. Get them used to situations like these in practice. So when it comes to a close, competitive game, the team is a little more mentally prepared to handle it.
Here’s a new volleyball drill from Donnie’s team. Simple, continuous passing.
1. 3 players across the back row.
2. 1 target.
3. Remaining players behind the end line.
4. Server +1 or 2 players to fill in (Donnie’s serving in this video to speed up the volleyball drill)
After the serve, the server runs across to get in line behind the passers and fill in one of the 3 positions across the back. The girl who passes the ball becomes the target. The target becomes the server.
Good simple, repetition. Easy, peasey lemon squeezy.
I tell my club and high school volleyball teams all the time, “Nobody wants to put in the time, but the ones that do are the best.”
What am I talking about? Serving and passingvolleyball drills. Over and over and over and over…. There’s not a lot of flash in passing, but it takes reps to make great habits.
This volleyball drill is very simple. But there’s a lot going too. 3 passers on each side, a setter on each side getting reps and servers on each end. Servers have carts full of volleyballs to make sure they can keep serving at a rapid rate. Passers pass to the setter and the setter sets the ball to a location.
We usually switch spots every couple of minutes to help keep it fresh. This is a great volleyball drill that we will usually do the day after a long night of matches to clear our heads and find a good passing rhythm.
Passing and shuffling and passing and shuffling… One of my coaches repeated over and over and over through our first week of practice (hell week, I call it). But… he had good reason.
Shuffling through your pass is very important. It’s the dismount, if you will. Hold your forearms steady and shuffle through.
In this drill, it’s just one volleyball and one friend. Pass straight, shuffle, pass angle, pass straight, shuffle back, pass angle.
Do you teach your players passing and shuffling? Or do you teach another method? Do share!
