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Can You Spike a Volleyball Without Looking at it?
Ronaldo – Tested to the Limit
I was first shown this before a lecture in Cardiff and I recommend you watch it first before reading on.
It was one of the most amazing things I have seen. Basically, Ronaldo had to score a goal from a cross but the room would go dark mid-cross. It sounds difficult and when you watch it in real time, it looks nearly impossible to do. But of course, Ronaldo was able to do it. Ronaldo was still able to score, with his shoulder no less, when the room went dark just after the ball was kicked. That was truly amazing.
Application to Volleyball
If what Ronaldo did is reproducible (maybe Sky used the three times Ronaldo scored and left the 17 times he didn’t on the cutting room floor; since Ronaldo is one of the best players of all time and maybe a regular elite player, e.g. Antonio Valencia, is not able to reproduce that physical response), I have been thinking how this can be applied to volleyball. If the same experiment was repeated for a volleyball spike where the room would go dark mid-set, can the ball can be spiked in the dark by an elite player? If this was achievable, the elite player can use that same time when the room went dark, i.e. mid-set to the actual spike, to look at the oppositional blockers and defenders before spiking the ball. The tactical advantages for the spiker would be tremendous. For example, the spiker could:
* Look for the blocker’s arms and aim for the outside arm for the block out/ wipe off/ tooling the block. * See where the defenders are positioned and aim for the gap between the defenders. * See the space behind the block and tip the ball. * See a gap in the two person block and hit in between it. * See the back row setter is defending too high so hit hard line. * See where the blockers are and hit around the block, thus never getting kill blocked.
I’m sure there are many more situations like this that you can think of. The point is there is a weakness in every block-defence system and a spiker could fully exploit it if they are able to see how the defence is set up before spiking the ball, i.e. by not looking at the set ball the whole way.
Testing the Idea
It would be cool to do but it would be too difficult to do the volleyball application of the original experiment where the room goes dark mid-set. It would require a completely dark sports hall and an infrared camera to see what happened in the dark. What can work is for the spiker to look at the blockers and defenders mid-set. We can set up a Go-Pro on the spiker’s head to verify where the spiker is looking and another camera to see the result of the spike. We probably also need to do an interview with the spiker to hear what the experience was like. Watch this space…
*** Update 30 January 2021 | I never manage to get around to this idea but it would still be a nice experiment to find out if it can work. I was also thinking it can work for defence – if the room went dark at the point when the spiker makes contact of the ball, can the defender predict where the ball will go? ***
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