thevolleyballanalyst – The Volleyball Coach

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thevolleyballanalyst – The Volleyball Coach

I’ve decided to expand ‘s blog to include my experience as a volleyball coach.  I did want to keep the blog to its original purpose – a performance analysis blog – but since I have undertaken more coaching roles this season, I feel it is silly for me not to engage in some reflective writing in this area.  To kick this off, I’m going to write about the coaching roles I have this season and my two coaching philosophies.

Coaching Roles in the 2013/14 Season

The coaching roles I have this season are:

This is my first season with the club.  A player asked me if I was interested in becoming their coach after I coached her at the 2014 All Nations Volleyball Tournament.  I asked if it was paid, she said it was and I said I was in.  They compete in London League Division II Women.

This is my second season with the club.  The university couldn’t enter the team into BUCS this season.  It’s a real shame because there’s nothing like focusing a team than competitive matches.

This is my third season with the club.  They compete in National Volleyball League Super 8s Women.

Coaching Philosophy

I have two coaching philosophical points that I truly believe in.  They are:

1.   – if a player volleys a ball a million times, I don’t care who you are, that player cannot be anything other than an effective volleyer.  I’ve read many examples about the power of practice.  One personal example of why I believe in this was when I was coaching at the Wales Schools training camp in Germany.  With an empty gym between training sessions, two trolleys and 50 balls, I decided to practice my jump serve.  I don’t remember how long I did it for (30 minutes?) or how many balls I jump served (300+?) but with every jump serve, I got that little bit better.  I was learning to get that ball toss perfect (I tried to minimise the arm movement), I was learning to lean my torso so my hitting arm was in line with my opposite hip/ leg (research showed that’s what the top jump servers do to probably gain a couple of inches on their ball contact height) and I was trying out if relaxing the hitting arm could improve the power of the hit (it certainly does!)  In the end, I got pretty good at it and this reconfirmed my belief in the power of practice.

2.  – this is because players are able to translate their skills into real matches.  One personal example of why I believe in this was when I was playing basketball in high school.  I was great at training but terrible at matches.  One of the main reasons I feel was because I encountered something that I hadn’t really face in training – the opposition guarding me wanted to steal the ball off me!  They would defend hard and I would panic a little.  The training sessions I remember didn’t involve opposition (e.g. three man weave) and the few that they did, the opposition didn’t really defend that hard (e.g. when learning set plays).

Inherent Conflict

I can’t always achieved both high reps and game-like drills.  One is generally sacrificed in favour of the other.  For example, high reps is best achieved with fewer players.  For example, you can maximise reps by having a player volley against the wall so that player will volley the ball at a rate of 1 volley every second.  Have two players volleying to each other and each player will volley the ball at a rate of 1 volley every 2 – 3 seconds.  More players and there’s an increasingly bigger gap between each volley.  Conversely, best game-like drills are best achieved when the whole team is involved.  For example, if you are working the reception line-up, you would need the starting 6 players in their actual position so the players can learn what the shape is like.  However, a weakness here is a player may only touch the ball once in the duration of the drill, minimising the number of ball touches.  Of course, you can find a middle ground of having a drill with less players but is still game-like.

Conclusion

So those are my two coaching philosophical points.  I feel that’s a good starting point for my reflecting writing in coaching because I truly believe in them and thus I don’t feel apprehensive about stating it.