Advice From Club Volleydads Part 2
Move Your Feet!
Winter is here. That means club volleyball season is here for juniors volleyball coaches in the USA. Therefore, much of my content is tailored for club coaches. In the past, these have been some of my most popular posts. Check out this summary post which has links to last year’s Club Winter posts.
If you’re not a club coach, don’t worry! Although this article series is tailored for club coaches, the topics apply more broadly, to coaches at any level. I think you’ll still find some insights in here.
Webinar Info: On Monday, January 13, 8pm ET I’ll be releasing my January webinar. The topic is “First Tournament Prep.” For many coaches, the MLK Weekend is either the first tournament or first major tournament. I’ll talk strategies you can use to prepare for, and succeed within, your first big tournament of the club season. This webinar is only for Premium Subscribers, so make the jump today! I’ll go live at 8pm New York Time, so if you can’t make it in-person, send me an email or drop a question in the comments and I’ll do my best to include all those questions for when I put out the recording.
Previous Articles In This Series:
Part 1 - We’ve Got To Talk Out There!
They say there’s a kernel of truth in every good joke. I think that’s probably true. I also believe that there’s a kernel of truth in every helpful piece of advice that is screamed from the sidelines politely offered by the parents of your club volleyball players. In the first installment of this article series, we talked about… talking. Now, we’ll hit another common exhortation, said by both parents and coaches alike:
Move Your Feet!
If there’s one thing that your team parents don’t want to see, it’s people standing still. But it’s not just parents, one of the most common things I hear coaches say at practices or tournaments is, “move your feet!” It’s also a very common question to get at coaching clinics, something like:
Anyone know good passing drills for third graders who consistently run with their hands together to get to the ball? How do we break this habit?
I’ve tried the run to the ball and catch it drill, which has helped them move around more. As soon as they start passing again, they run with their hands together.
As I say in this mailbag post, there’s two assumptions going on here that are worth addressing. (1) That volleyball players shouldn’t run with their arms together and (2) that volleyball players… run.
How Far Do The Feet Actually Move?
In the recent 50-Play Friday posts, I share some defensive clip montages. Let’s look at a couple gifs from some of those clips.
If your player makes a dig like this, you’re fired up. For many of you reading this, you’ve never had a player make a dig quite like this. But yet, let’s look at the overall foot movement:
Okay how about another one:
Amazing dig! Let’s see how far her feet moved.
Her right foot is in an almost-identical spot on the court!
Now yes, sometimes players do need to make a farther run for the ball. Here’s Penn State setter Izzy Starck running laps around the court in the course of this play:
So yes, volleyball players do indeed run and very often they accelerate to the ball. But there’s a surprising amount of volleyball plays that aren’t made by moving your feet. And in fact, excess moving of the feet will often mess you up.
The Kernel Of Truth
I said there’s a kernel of truth in all of these common unhinged rants from the sideline coaching cliches and there is a kernel of truth in this one. I think to get to the truth, you replace
Move Your Feet!
with:
Cover The Court!
When I see coaches imploring their team to Move Your Feet, what I’m really seeing is a desire to not let balls hit the ground. But as we see with good defenders, keeping the ball off the ground is more a function of the 4 Ps:
Positioning - Where you stand on the court
Posture - How you stand
Perception - What you see
Power
The first 3 set the table and the 4th P, Power, is what allows dynamic plays like the ones above to happen. But the power to do what? It’s not necessarily moving your feet quickly. In fact, that doesn’t really require a whole lot of power actually. Think about something like “quick feet” drills or “ladder drills.” Feet are moving very quickly, but they are actually low-to-moderate power at best. A better expression of power is the ability to “push through the floor” and accelerate your body. When we watch the players above, and other powerful volleyball players who can Cover The Court, it’s this ability to push through the floor and “extend to the ball” that separates them.
So coaches: don’t be too hard on your volleydads out there. When you hear cries to “move your feet!” just know that what they really mean is, “push through the floor and extend to the ball!”
And teach your team to Double Push!