Girls Volleyball Fundamental Offensive Skills

Speaker: Today on Clubhouse Gas, we’re going on the offense. So, warmup your hitting arm and join us. Shelly Francis: We’re in McClesky Middle School, with head coach Burt Weller, and the Lassiter virginia Trojans volleyball team. Now we will be demonstrating some basic offensive drills for young players. Burt thanks so much for joining us today. Burt Weller: You’re welcome Shelly. Shelly Francis: When working with the young players, what offensive skills do you focus on for mostly? Burt Weller: With in the beginning, we focus most of our attention on the footwork with the lower part of the body is doing, we don’t put much emphasize on what happens with the arms of the ball, we get the footwork right and the rest of them will follow. So, in this drill here we’re focusing on their approach and their timing, to and attack, they need to right now they need to learn when to approach the volleyball, then there is a lot of depth perception involved in volleyball, but the volleyball be enough 8, 9 feet on the earth, the hardest part for them right now, is to learn when to leave and when to jump for that ball, which you will find is that the lot of them are jumping under net behind it. So, we were trying to do is get them used to setting high volleyballs, and attacking from behind the ball. We want them to jump behind the ball, so when they leave for their attack is the most important thing right now. And when they leave you wanted leave with their strong left if they are right hand hit we want them to leave, with the left, that’s the biggest step, and the last 2 steps are just to kind to get that final adjustment behind the ball, we need them to land with their knees bends, so they jump straight up behind the ball, and then they just swing with the strong fall of through. Shelly Francis: There are so many variables in an approach, how do you break down in to teaching elements that they can understand? Burt Weller: Well there is two skills I taught on their, one is to, breakdown each part of the attack, which is the approach, the jump and then what the arm do, swing, and there is the other skill which says, do not break it down their way and teach them the skill all at once I’m of the -- I use them mix both, I actually will breakdown, parts of it like the approach, and then I will put them up on a platform in, just let them work on the upper body, arm swing, and then will take and will put it all together, so they get a chance to try entire all three steps together. Shelly Francis: With your smaller girls on the team, they cannot jump above the net, what you do with them to teach them correct mechanics, knowing that they can get above the net? Burt Weller: If they hitting behind the ball, if their approaches is behind the ball, if they choose not to jump, we’re encouraging a strong wrist now. If they hit the ball hard with the wrist now, they will actually spin the ball down, and a lot of times it will role on the court and that’s an effective attack. Shelly Francis: I see a few hitting with the fist, and then I see then majority hitting with the open hand, what is the proper technic that you teach, when teaching hitting at this age. Burt Weller: What we try and encourage and open hand, we’re teaching open hand of approach and tell them to save the fist for the beach, the open hand get some chance to move the ball around the court and they can put tough spin on the ball. By hitting on the top of the ball and rolling a hand over. So, and open hand is, is what we believe is the proper way to hit a volleyball. Shelly Francis: We see them walking over to the computer. After they go through the drill, what’s involved in there in the practice? Burt Weller: Well, we’re using dot fish software, and we have it and delayed mode right now, which means that 10 seconds after they have made their attack, they can come around and a take a look at what they just did, so normally we have coach standing there, and talk them about what they saw. Shelly Francis: When you designing a practice, how do you decide, what drills to use at this age group? Burt Weller: Well, I have three things, that we must teaching them at this level, one of them is to forearm pass, the second is to be able the pass the ball over the head like setter, and the third is to be able to get a serve over the net. Without those three things we really on have a volley ball game and we found them if we can master those three, the frustration level and there are more than like this stay involved with this sport longer, we can just get those things out of the way. Shelly Francis: Great, Burt thanks so much for your time today. Burt Weller: You’re welcome. Shelly Francis: I really appreciate the great drills that you have shown us, and we will see you back your next time on a great edition of Clubhouse Gas.