American School of London 2023 Coaching Reflection

Introduction

I dropped three of my teams for the 2023/24 season due to burnout and wanting to focus on sidestepping careers to be a Data Analyst.  However, one team I really wanted to keep and was excited to go back to was the American School of London.  It’s a great experience to work there.

So I knew the team would be vastly different to last year’s ISST’s winning team as nine players from that team had graduated.  So how did the season go and what did I learn?

ASL Competitions Report

Friendlies | 11-4 Win-Loss Record

I’m surprised this was the same win-loss record as last year.  However, a lot of the wins (and two of the losses) went to the final set.  So it wasn’t easy.  The American School of Paris (ASP) was probably the loss where I felt they were better than us.  We did have two losses to TASIS; the first match was a 15-13 loss in the final set and in the second match, we were missing our starting setter so it was hard to overcome that.  

London Invitational | Silver Medal | 3-1 Win-Loss Record

I was happy to get second place out of eight teams.  However, we were really lucky with how the two pools were arranged.  In our pool, we had already beaten the three teams in our pool and the other pool had two teams (ASP and TASIS) that had previously beaten us.  So we won our pool and faced ASP in the final, where we lost.

International School Sports Tournament (ISSTs) | 6th Place | 2-3 Win-Loss Record

This was the final tournament of the season where we played seven other International/ American Schools in Europe.  This was a tournament where we were extremely unlucky with the pools.  The two best teams in the tournament, ASP and International School of Brussels (ISB), were in our pool and the other team, Frankfurt International School (FIS), actually won the ISSTs in the other conference.  It was the group of death.  

We lost to ASP and ISB.  ASP won comfortably but we played extremely well against ISB.  We managed to get a set off them and was leading in another set.  I was really happy we stuck in there but they were better than us in the end.  The match against FIS was a battle!  We were 0-2 sets down and after some tactical changes, we managed to come back to win it in 5 sets.  That was a fun match to be a part of.

This meant we were third in our pool and we played the fourth placed team in the other pool, who were Munich International School (MIS).  This was a comfortable win.  We then played FIS again in the 5th vs 6th.  I thought I could just apply the same tactics in our comeback win but FIS played amazingly and with us not playing great either, we lost in 3 sets.  This meant we placed 6th overall.  This was harsh because I did think we were a top 4 team. 

ASL Coaching Reflection

Put Even More Time in Coaching Block-Defence Systems I purposely put in more time to time to coach systems of play.  The area where I saw the biggest improvement was when defending a free ball.  Spike cover was pretty good too.  I did think the defence positioning was better but was still not perfect.  I can see some players in the right spot but some players not defending the right zones (or defending at all).  So I should dedicate more time to coaching defence systems.  This could be a focus at the beginning of the season and then refocus on it midway through it.  

Coaching Hitting On 2 I did drill hitting on 2 (hitting the ball on the second ball touch) with Flaming Six Leopards where any player could do it (be creative) but it was a disaster.  I modified it this year with ASL so only the setter and libero can do it, usually on a free ball.  The setter was able to do it a couple times in a match, which I was pleased about.  The libero was able to do it a couple of times in game situations but not in a match.  

Middles Calling For Hitters and Whether the Setter is Front or Back RowThis was something I worked on early in the season when I was focusing on coaching block-defence systems.  I basically didn’t want the blockers to jump with the back-row setter.  I did work on this for around two sessions early in the season.  However, I found this would require a lot of training time to make it work properly and it may not be the best use of the training time as setter attacks do not happen too often (usually 0 to 2 per set).   

Adopting Player at 6 Defending LineThe defence system I use is 6 defending cross-court (see first picture below).  However, I did have it in mind to coach 6 defending line (see second picture below) to give me some options if I needed to change something during a match, e.g. the outside hitter likes to hit line.  I have previously used 6 defending line in my final 2 seasons at City University (see link and link).  

6 Defends Cross

6 Defends Line

When I looked into what zones we made the most dig attempts (it’s not the same as where the opposition attacks the most as attack errors are not included), I found there were a lot more dig attempts in zone 1 than I expected (15% of all digs – see below).  This persuaded me to practice 6 defending line and make it the standard defence system.  It also helped that my libero was really good so he could cover more area.  

Zones we defended most on a left-side attack

Naming The Six Passing Rotations I employed an additional strategy where I put in the second setter as an opposite.  The stats showed he could possibly do a job as the opposite.  Also, I could flip the rotation so the opposite becomes the setter and the setter becomes the opposite if we get stuck in rotation.  I drilled this in training so the team wouldn’t get confused that the rotation was flipped.  I found the players would call out the rotation, e.g. “full stack”.  This was really good because the players could quickly orientate themselves when I made the switch.  I later found out that the Assistant Coach actually named the six passing rotations and coached it to his Junior Varsity team, where many of the current Varsity players came from.  

I remember the Wales School Girls Head Coach did the same when I was the Assistant Coach at the Germany training camp way back in 2012.  I thought back then it was a bit unnecessary to do but 11 years later, I can see the benefit of this.  

If you want to know, the named rotations are:

Setter in 1 | “Hide the setter” Setter in 6 | “Hide the oppo(site)” Setter in 5 | “Half stack” Setter in 4 | “Full stack” Setter in 3 | Just 3 Setter in 2 | Just 2

Incorporating Block Jumps in the Warm-UpIt’s that simple drill where you block in the middle and then swing out to block at the antenna.  I originally did it as I had two new players playing middle so they needed reps with their lateral blocking movement.  I liked it because I don’t really work on blocking so this was easy to get the reps in.

Incorporate Eye Work in Every Warm-UpIt’s the idea of trying to coach the eye sequence of ball-setter-ball-hitter in block and defence.  I find it really hard to coach it because you can coach it but you don’t really know if the players are doing it.  I did a drill where pairs volleyed to each other.  Player 1 should volley the ball and then look at Player 2 to shout how many fingers Player 2 has up (from 1 to 10).  At the same time, Player 1 should stick up a certain number of fingers so when Player 2 volleys back, he can look at Player 1 and shout how many fingers are up.  The pattern continues.  This makes the player look at something else rather than watching the ball the whole way.  It progresses when peppering where the other player has to shout what technique the player is using (volley, dig, downball, tip).  The important one is tipping so the player can recognise the straight arm and move accordingly to defend it.  I did this drill for a couple of sessions but I think it needs constant practicing for players to get used to the eye sequence.  

Ask for the New(ish) V2000W Mikasa VolleyballsASL has the older Mikasa MVA200 balls and I felt the team struggled to pass when using the new(ish) Mikasa V200W balls.  There was a lot more shanking of the pass and I put it down to an ever so slightly different ball flight trajectory that the passers are not used to.  Or it could be due to facing tougher serves.  In any case, it is a good excuse to ask for the new(ish) Mikasa V200W balls.  

Ask for a Vertec Jump Tester It would also be useful to have a Vertec Jump Tester.  It’s that equipment with those vanes that measure vertical jump.  It would be interesting to see the block jump and spike jump height of the players.  It could help with team selection.  I’m also sure the ASL basketball team would use it.

Follow Through on Implementing Strength and ConditioningI did reflect last year I wanted to implement this.  I did ask the Assistant Coach to do as he does it for his Junior Varsity team (the second team).  However, I never followed through on it and I should have.

Show The Highlights in the Weekly Video SessionsI did implement weekly video sessions.  Explaining and reviewing stats is not the most exciting thing in the world.  I could see some of the players half-bored.  I did reflect that one good thing to do is simply watch the highlights (kills, block kills, aces) of the match.  It would keep them motivated.

Final Thoughts

I guess I had a lot to reflect on.  I would normally condense or delete some but I thought I would leave it all out there so I can remember it for next season.  As for the season itself, I really enjoyed it.  It did feel like we did so much but nothing much at all.  It was fun to see all the teams at the ISSTs, as last year it was split into West and East Conference.  Sixth place in the ISSTs is a harsh result but we did have some nice performances, including taking a set off the best team and coming back from 0-2 down to win it in 5 sets.