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Post by kro2488 on Aug 7, 2013 18:06:21 GMT -5
I was never coached but this is how I pass the ball.
FEET: Slightly wider than shoulder width, if you are passsing in right back right foot foward more and your body facing the server a little bit, especially if they are cross court. Reverse this for being on the left side, passing in the middle you can stagger your feet some but you just want to make sure you move to the ball starting with whichever leg is closest to it, otherwise you get all goofy footed.
Hips: Don't bend at the waist but move your hips back so your knees are ahead of your toes slightly, bending at the waist hurts the back. You want your back straight when your passing not rounded as often as possible.
More upright or lower posture depends on the type of serve coming for float serves you can be a little more upright but for top spin you want to be lower with the back straight and hips back.
Arms: Always in front of you with your hands close together, you need to be able to get your palms together to make the passing platform fast sometimes if they are further apart you risk making a poor platform on a FAST serve.
Basically I try to move my feet so I can get my body behind the ball and pass on my midline alot, when that isn't possible I try to get a part of my body behind it a leg etc, besides that I try to get the platform there and angle the ball to the setter or location, or at the very least if its a super hard serve, straight up like ten feet off the net to the center of the court. If i have to take a knee or dive I try to recognize how close I am to the net, if im closer the platform has to be more parallel to the floor or it will end up being an over pass like...90% of the time. I see players make THAT mistkae even at high levels, they have their body moving forward on a serve that drops short but they don't make the platform go more flat results in an overpass especially with the body movement going forward...
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Post by kro2488 on Aug 7, 2013 18:09:13 GMT -5
PS. i HATE overhead passing, so I try to position myself where serves with decent pace are coming a the height of a certain body part, they are going out 9/10 times. If I have to pass high I try to just backup and side pass the ball generally, but if i have to i'll use just really rigid fingers and try to pass it overhead, but if its a tough top spin serve sometimes it just gets mangled ill just try to let it go generally ha, if i was going to show someone how to pass it would be similar to what I do..
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Post by salsolomon on Aug 7, 2013 19:16:04 GMT -5
I only want to weigh in on a couple here:
Prefer more overhand passing or try to take more balls with the platform? Platform unless the ball is coming from a higher trajectory (higher than tops of antenna) This summer I watched every pass my (D3 women's) team made last season. I charted where the serve came from and where the player was when she passed. I was particularly interested in deep serves - how did we do on balls taken overhead vs platform. With the exception of high, loopy, slow serves, we passed poorly when using hands. Balls too often got to the setter with a very low trajectory or skipped off the passers hands deep.
Prefer on the net or just off the net? In the study above, I also considered how accurate we were on average. I think the key is to put your target far enough off the net that overpasses and balls into the net are an extreme rarity. If your passers can consistently put balls into a 5 foot circle, 2-3 feet off the net makes sense. We are not quite that accurate, so we aim 4 feet off the net.
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Post by kro2488 on Aug 7, 2013 20:34:02 GMT -5
I only want to weigh in on a couple here: Prefer more overhand passing or try to take more balls with the platform? Platform unless the ball is coming from a higher trajectory (higher than tops of antenna) This summer I watched every pass my (D3 women's) team made last season. I charted where the serve came from and where the player was when she passed. I was particularly interested in deep serves - how did we do on balls taken overhead vs platform. With the exception of high, loopy, slow serves, we passed poorly when using hands. Balls too often got to the setter with a very low trajectory or skipped off the passers hands deep. Prefer on the net or just off the net? In the study above, I also considered how accurate we were on average. I think the key is to put your target far enough off the net that overpasses and balls into the net are an extreme rarity. If your passers can consistently put balls into a 5 foot circle, 2-3 feet off the net makes sense. We are not quite that accurate, so we aim 4 feet off the net. Also how tight to the net you pass depends on how tall your setter is, Murphy or Glass for example are tall setters so in a 5-1 especially in the 3 front row rotations as long as the location is good you can pass really tight and they can jump set and do ok no problem, but smaller setters would have trouble there and need passes more far off. Our passers aren't great enough to be able to adjust to passing off then closer to the net with the international caliber serving so maybe it is safer to aim more like 3 or 4 feet cuz it would drift a little closer than that anyway I suppose, but you need it close enough to the net to have the middle option as much as possible.
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Post by vbman100 on Aug 7, 2013 22:21:26 GMT -5
I'm kinda looking forward to some of the answers on this one, so I'll hold off on addressing the first group, but for the last 3 I drill my players with this - " It is everyone's ball until somebody calls it" and if the ball drops because they didn't communicate it's everyone's fault. I'll push my libero to be more/less aggressive, since they kinda run the back row, but serve and freeball receive take a coordinated team effort. Go into Gallaudet's gym and see how well that works.
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Post by donneyp on Aug 7, 2013 22:48:43 GMT -5
My understanding is Gallaudet calls the ball with stomps and claps. I like my players to call the ball a certain way, but I've have had players call it in Spanish and Polish with out a problem. As long as they are consistent and their teammates understand I'll go with whatever comes natural to them.
To Salsaloman,
Handpassing is dangerous if their hands are small and those are the balls you see going off the backend. I hate to discriminate against those kids but it is what it is. My men's team never has problem, and my girls with larger/stronger hands are fine with it, it just isn't a skill for everyone. If I were asking girls 6'1 or taller to receive serve I'd make sure they knew how to handpass. 5'7 or shorter I might skip it.
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Post by Edmond on Aug 7, 2013 23:14:21 GMT -5
Passing/serve reception is the only skill is 80% innate and 20% practice.
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Post by Murina on Aug 8, 2013 1:30:51 GMT -5
Basic stance. Right foot forward or left foot forward or both(situational)? Situational
Linear (midline) or nonlinear (platform)? I don't like these terms, but my passers will rarely pass the ball exactly in front of their midline. On the other hand, I don't like to see them reaching WAY out to their sides. See below, but when angle SPT is large, the ball will be contacted farther from midline. When angle SPT is small, the ball will likely be contacted closer to midline.
Passer facing server or facing target at initiation of serve? I say "face the server" until that rare day comes when we face someone who serves a side spin serve. Then I tell them the truth - they need to be facing so that the ball is coming straight at them (or as close as possible). At that point they can understand and make the change in the flow of the game if they have to (hopefully we have seen it in the scout).
Prefer take the ball slightly left, slightly right, midline, or whichever way the ball ends up. Situational - and this is the tricky part to teach. I have been putting a lot of thought into this lately, and I think I finally have a complete method that I like (it has taken far to long to get to this point!).
Prefer more overhand passing or try to take more balls with the platform? I've been all platform, but I'm changing now. For some older players, and likely bigger players, hands will be ok.
Preferred passing formation. Assuming you are starting with a new group that has never played for you before. Your regular preferred formation. No preference. With beginners it will be 5 person with 3 players deep (6-6 or 4-2 offense so it is easy). As players specialize I'll adapt to the players I have.
Pass to setter or to net position? Net position. This is one place I can see potential for evolution down the road...
Prefer on the net or just off the net? Strategic decision. I prefer to play a style of volleyball with the setter near the net, but I won't force it.
How do you determine who passes the seams between two passers? Beginners get railroad tracks. Older players get lanes, and they can go into other peoples lanes if they do so according to the rules of the road. With expert passers rules become guidelines, and we may change the guidelines to fit the team.
Who gets short serves? With developed teams it is a strategic decision, and sometimes a tactical decision. It is often going to be the primary passers, but not always.
Anything unique that you teach? Yeah, probably a lot! Well, I take that back. These things aren't unique. The unique part is how I get the players to understand these things without rambling on like a professor in class. Even that isn't really unique. So no, nothing unique here. Here are some things that I think a lot of people might be surprised to hear, or haven't thought about in quite this way:
1) It is generally easier to back up and pass than to move forward and pass (receiving a serve is a different problem than catching a baseball). A corollary is that it is easier to raise the platform and make a good pass than it is to lower the platform and make a good pass (your legs are built to stand up, not to squat down).
2) This is hard to describe in print: the ball should impact your platform straight on or within a couple degrees of perpendicular to your arms. The only angle the ball should bounce in (relative to your arms) is ball comes in close to your hands and exits closer to your nose (than before, not actually near your nose). Another way to say this is that the ball should never come in over one arm and exit over the other arm (I call this "skipping" across your platform). I hope that came across understandable... Manipulating that angle of bounce to cover both the elevation and direction of the ball is the problem. Technique is the solution.
3) Contacting the ball exactly in the midline leaves a small margin to adjust to late movement (or bad judgement) and still make an angle that will get the ball to the target. For this reason I prefer my players to take the ball a little off center even when the server, target & passer are all on the same line.
Every serve & pass creates an angle "SPT": one line is server to passer (who is the vertex), the other line is passer to target.
4) the wider angle SPT is, the more important it is that we contact the ball on the correct side of our midline (the far side from the target). When both lines are on the same line, or close to it (angle SPT=0 or close to it), we can get away with taking the ball on the "wrong" side and not get penalized very often (especially if the players are good).
5) contacting the ball on the correct side of our midline, combined with a forward lean of the trunk will expose the most platform to the ball, and ensure that the ball hits the platform straight on (or as close as possible). An upright trunk (spine vertical, like a fence post) with the ball (and platform) off to the side will expose less of the platform to the ball, and increase the chance of the ball skipping across the platform which should be avoided at all costs!
6) point of fact: if you make your platform face the target, the ball will only go to the target if the server is on the same line (angle SPT=0degrees, or close to it). A line extending perpendicular from your platform has to bisect angle SPT for the ball to arrive where you want it (angle of incidence = angle of deflection). I am amazed how this bit of high school physics is forgotten in so many gyms!
These things don't guarantee a good pass, but they load the odds in your favor, even if you don't put the ball on the sweet spot of your platform. In the end, passing a serve is a moderately complex problem of applied physics, geometry & kinesiology. Violating good passing practices increase your chances of getting a bad result. Good players and teams DO violate some of these practices at times. There are strategies that might make some violations of some of these things an acceptable risk. And,volleyball is hard! Sometimes the serve beats you. Having a good plan when the passer realizes she has been beat is important at a high level (when you have a lot of practice time).
Watching USA's last 6 matches Kim Hill follows good passing practices the most often. Hilderbrand violates good passing practices the most, and makes the most egregious violations. They must be asking her to take more of the court, but that strategy is easy to question right now. She has put herself in some positions where she had zero chance of "making a good angle," as they like to say. Worse, several times she has worked HARD to take a ball away from a player who was in a far better position to "make a good angle" than she could possibly have achieved.
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Post by Murina on Aug 8, 2013 2:30:02 GMT -5
vision- the earlier you pick up the ball the better. The ability to take a ball on either side as well as midline. Early platform preparation. Best passer takes the seam. when in doubt use your platform angle and face the ball. Have the ability to pass the ball in different ways, the game requires it. I believe we are too dogmatic and too faddish in how we teach passing. YOu need all the skills that people talk about because you have to take the ball in all different angles with the ball coming from all different directions. One size does not fit all. But see ball early, get your platform ready early, great platform angles, and stay calm. On the "stay calm" thing: I once heard someone say that good passers need to have "good nerves." This person was speaking english as a second language, but as I thought about it, I liked what he was getting at. The best passers I've seen and had were always very calm while in reception. They may not have been calm in other aspects of their lives, but when it came time to pass, they are almost always calm and free of nervousness.
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Post by bkedane on Aug 8, 2013 5:58:36 GMT -5
Passing/serve reception is the only skill is 80% innate and 20% practice. Are these numbers established by some research you can point us to or did you make them up?
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Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2013 9:09:08 GMT -5
I'm kinda looking forward to some of the answers on this one, so I'll hold off on addressing the first group, but for the last 3 I drill my players with this - " It is everyone's ball until somebody calls it" and if the ball drops because they didn't communicate it's everyone's fault. I'll push my libero to be more/less aggressive, since they kinda run the back row, but serve and freeball receive take a coordinated team effort. Go into Gallaudet's gym and see how well that works. I haven't seen Gallaudet play in a while, but there was a time when SR was a strength of theirs. They used to start very close together so they could push or tap each other out of the way. They rely heavily on their eyes, and it was always our strategy to serve the FR player in SR, but she was usually pushed out of the way as a cue to release to attack and have someone else pass. The only time she passed the ball was if it came directly to her. They throughly kicked our butts, and these were years we made it to the NCAA.
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Post by spikeninja on Aug 8, 2013 9:28:36 GMT -5
Salivating on this thread to see responses. For some...all I can is WOW! For those from the thread that criticizes our passing and defense at the international level....SEE THIS THREAD as to WHY. Some of you are on the right track which makes me happy, because about a decade ago, people would look at me like I was insane in my thinking, and I am too analytical. Glad to see others on board.
I think it's important to note, like a musician, who our influences are....for me it began with Selinger, then Matsudaira, then R. Butler, Gimmillaro, Yoshida, with a sprinkle of Dunphy, McCrutcheon, Karch, and McGowan. And then there is 20 years of observation and study at every different level, from MS to Division I and well over 100 camps.Even as confident in this topic as I am, I still learn something about passing everyday! The learning never stops in this skill. I could write a book and maybe I will someday, for now, short response.Basic stance. Right foot forward or left foot forward or both(situational)? Situational to angle of reflection at the moment.Linear (midline) or nonlinear (platform)? Both...the game challenges us to be versatile. Ideal is what I call the "midline zone" which is defined as "between the knees". For females this allows the center of gravity and lower body strength to control the ball better...men can get away with more non linear styles as their strength and C.O.G. is upper body oriented. Females DO need to develop non-linear techniques for situational purposes, the game doesn't exist in a vacuum, although some players do suck. NOTE: I think this is where the teaching of passing gets skewed in the male version of best techniques vs. female version.
Passer facing server or facing target at initiation of serve? Server, without question. Lot of reasons why. Prefer take the ball slightly left, slightly right, midline, or whiohever way the ball ends up? Someone wrote Server-passer-target situated....this is very accurate. It will sometimes be whichever way the ball ends up on the arms. Generally speaking, target to your right, pass slightly left. Vice versa, target to left, pass slightly right. Angles of incidence and angle of reflection apply. "Between the knees" as state earlier still applies. You can be in the "midline zone" and still take a ball left hip or right hip. Prefer more overhand passing or try to take more balls with the platform? Platform is strongly encouraged. I've posted on this elsewhere a few months ago. STRONGLY, but its hard to argue absolute. Occasionally a serve will cross the net high and with low enough speed to receive with hands. If you know HOW to train hands, its one thing. Most players have crappy technique, don't let them pass with hands. Side note, there is also difficulty for setters in predicting the rebound of the ball from the hands vs. a platform. I train setters to watch the platforms of passers to get a better first reaction the ball, they can't do that with a hand pass. Setters struggle predicting the rebound making their reaction poor from overhead passes.Preferred passing formation. Assuming you are starting with a new group that has never played for you before. Your regular preferred formation. With the old serving box, 3 players, now? We need to be teaching ANY and ALL serve receive systems. AND we need have EVERY non setter on the court with a role in serve receive, large or small. Yes, you will have primary passers with larger responsibility, but to not have someone involved in passing in some facet? We are missing the boat here, too much specialization at the development levels. I have had different rotations benefit from different patterns, and anyone who doesn't study those options is really short changing their team. Youth-start with 5 (get them ALL thinking they can and are allowed to pass), then work to 4, then 3. Yes, there are more seams requiring more communication, but they don't need to have a lot of range. And God forbid, they learn a young age to communicate more.
Older players, get them to open their mind to ALL possibilities systematically. Players are too inflexible these days! It drives me nuts when I hear "5 player receive for middle school teams!" Go watch the Chinese National Team kid, shut up. Pass to setter or to net position? Desired area of the net. Not a player.Prefer on the net or just off the net? Situational to your setter height/ touch point, system tempo, setter footspeed, and offensive system philosophy/personnel. Serve-receive I say get the ball to the net and train your setter to handle it. Counter transition/defense, pass to the 3 meter line. Give some room to miss to your setter and give more time in your passing arc to get a quality counter attack swing.How do you determine who passes the seams between two passers? Whoever is geometrically closer to the source of the ball, that person takes the serve landing short. Cannot ignore who has the best platform angle of reflection though either. Who gets short serves? Situational to your system. Designate somebody.Anything unique that you teach? 1) I will note one thing here because someone noted this earlier. For about 13 years, I was mistaken in teaching platform out early. Platform should not go out until the ball is about 1 meter away from the player. Reason: extending platform too early will incur upper body interference with lower body movement, and decrease range. These is what makes a float serve so effective, because ball movement in the last 3-5 meters destroys a passers ability to make adjustments with an early platform. Any twist or adjustment made takes the hip out of proper position and the ball goes haywire. I used to say as the ball cross the net, the platform needs to be out and feet established, but that is too early. Key is training the platform to extend quickly and efficiently....which leads to.......
2) Platform prep: In the last 4-5 years, I have also learned that prepping your arms to pass has a sequence. 3) Too few people training proper eye tracking....eyes are critical everyone, The rest? As Sean Connery said in "The Rock"....."trade secrets, my son."Message me anyone with questions....KCCO!
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Post by donneyp on Aug 8, 2013 13:11:47 GMT -5
OK, so having read some of these I'll toss mine in for discussion.
Basic stance. Right foot forward or left foot forward or both(situational)? Whatever makes them comfortable, probably the outside foot forward.
Linear (midline) or nonlinear (platform)? Yes. Both are necessary.
Passer facing server or facing target at initiation of serve? When passing the player must face the source, and angle to target. When setting it is just the opposite, and this is something that complicates handpassing. The harder the serve the more the handpasser needs to square to the source.
Prefer take the ball slightly left, slightly right, midline, or whiohever way the ball ends up. Get your platform below your waist and angled properly, the rest is window dressing. I will add that this is also similar to handpassing where it depends on the player. A player with long arms and a generous platform can reach and create a wider variety of angles with her platform, but the 5'1" DS with a much smaller passing platform needs to get her feet to the ball and play close to her midline.
Prefer more overhand passing or try to take more balls with the platform? As I said, some players can, and some can't. All should learn it but make sure they know their limits.
Preferred passing formation. Assuming you are starting with a new group that has never played for you before. Your regular preferred formation. 3 passers, though I'm tinkering with 2.
Pass to setter or to net position? Position, usually right of center
Prefer on the net or just off the net? 3 feet off.
How do you determine who passes the seams between two passers? Who gets short serves?
Like I said, it is everybody's ball until somebody calls it. Who calls it? Typically the player with the better move/more ability (confidence?) is going to be quicker to take responsibility for the play. If the serve is in the air long enough and your libero is good enough you can green light her to jump in front of other players or better yet, let them get a head start on transitioning to approach. Again, I've done that more on the men's side but the idea is the same. I just don't get why you want your 3rd best passer taking a ball that prevents her from preparing to hit, just because of geography of where the ball would land. Your opponent controls where the ball goes so you are taking control of the game away from your players and giving it to your opponent's coach who is calling the serve. To me that is lunacy. If they serve it hard enough that your 3rd passer HAS to pass the ball, ok, good for them but you need to make them earn everything.
Anything unique that you teach?
If the serve goes to zone 5, I ask the player in zone 1 (of if it goes to 1, I ask the player in 5) to turn and get the big picture, they can see the ball, the passer and the line, and make a call before the ball crosses the net. This is more successful and more necessary at lower levels where the serve moves slower and the players are not able to predict the flight of the ball as well, but even in college some players can do this quick enough and when it works it helps a lot with those balls that are within a foot of the end line.
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Post by salsolomon on Aug 8, 2013 16:16:35 GMT -5
Reading through the responses, I am more convinced that there are very few clear lines here. So much depends on the ability of your players and opponents. There are good arguments for so many of the techniques suggested, but there is no substitute for evidence. Watch games at your level and see what happens. In my gym, overhead passes were mostly worse than balls off the platform. My friend coaches medium level high school boys and it is the opposite in his gym. While you can get great ideas here, don't let an argument from me or another poster outweigh what actually happens in your league.
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Post by mikegarrison on Aug 8, 2013 16:33:35 GMT -5
Fewer than 13 points, no five-card major.
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