Blank Slate #6 (the final entry)

If you are here randomly, you can check Blank Slate #5 for the most recent entry.

This is the last entry in this series on the grand Foreign Exchange Student (FES) ‘experiment’, teaching someone volleyball who has never played before–and doing it through play rather than instruction, lecture, and drills.

I think the progress was outstanding given the limitations faced–large number of players, practice time not happening often once competition began, etc.

Random observations (since this is being added to over the last couple weeks of the non-varsity season):

• FES is back to being able to serve overhand over the net, roughly 7 out of 10 times. Underhand, she can put the ball over consistently.

• She has memorized rotation positions/where to start and understands switching to play a specialized position. This is done by rote rather than understanding the actual rules regarding overlap–but from the standpoint of teaching someone to play, learning the rules can come later if she chooses to play once she moves home.

• Her passing is tolerable when playing soft hits (tips, etc) but unlikely to be successful when passing serves or hard swings unless told in advance the ball is coming at her. Two months of volleyball is not enough experience to give her the ‘VB IQ’ to know when a ball is likely/expected to be hit in her direction.

• Setting is good. If she doesn’t have to move, she can set outsides and middles consistently and back set no worse than a normal middle hitter (hah!). If she has to take more than one step, back sets become too erratic and her outside sets

• General control–we did a 1v1 pepper drill where a play had to pass to herself, set to herself, then hit the ball back over the net to a partner (doing the same thing). FES was able to do the drill well enough that I saw two instances of her being able to succeed 3+ times consecutively with the three contacts–and that her swings put the ball directly to her partner.

• She is able to transition off the net if any other player yells out “Free ball” though without technically correct footwork.