Volleyball Practice: Watching Video...How to Play Better Volleyball Without A Ball
By April Chapple

Usually there are two basic reasons why a coach has you watch video...in preparation of an upcoming a game or to get better at performing a particular volleyball fundamental. It's easy to get lulled into or lost in the moment of the game on the small screen but instead of watching every play just for the sake of saying "hey I finished watching the video" pick a particular volleyball fundamental that you need to improve and watch the best one or two players perform that fundamental over and over again.

If you need to serve receive or "pass the ball" better then that's the part of the game to focus on watching other more experienced players do. Unless your coach has instructed you to watch something in particular (like the way a team plays defense or the way a player transitions off the net) focus on watching a better player perform the skill that you need to work on the most. How does she do that?

What are they doing? How are they standing while the server still has the ball? Do they have a stutter step or jump as the ball is crossing the net? Which foot is forward? Is their upper body straight up or crouched over? Are they straight legged or are they in a slight squat position?

What happens when I'm watching video...

If I'm watching someone serve receive well....I watch this player execute the right technique over and over and over again. I want to take that "scene" and take that "visual" with me so I start playing that scene repeatedly in my head. I start visualizing that player doing the same thing in my mind after I've stopped watching. When I go home, when I go to bed, when I'm washing dishes, before practice I get used to seeing this player do the serve receive correctly in my mind.

Then... I start hearing my coach's words on how to do this skill correctly. So I hear my coach, I hear my coach say "step to the ball", "present my platform", "use my legs", and I keep hearing my coach's words over and over like a tape recorder in my mind. This is actually kind of easy because when you aren't performing a skill correctly THAT is when your coach starts yelling at you anyway, right? What they are yelling at the top of their lungs already exists in your mind so you just start playing that tape, over and over.

Then little by little both what I SEE in my mind and what I HEAR in my head start meshing together. When I re-play this continuously in my mind these two things start coming together where I form a mental movie of my own. When this mental movie starts playing then after awhile my body starts to respond to the mental voice I hear and the mental picture I've been playing.

My body starts doing the things that I have been rehearsing over and over again in my mind. I start seeing myself -take the place of that player and in my mind I see myself performing the pass correctly over and over.

And the aspects of the game that I am playing over and over start to become automatic and I start doing these things physically- not just mentally- in real life.

That's how I make watching video work for me.

It's great when you can hear someone who has played for years commentate on the game. Singin Smith, Karch Kiraly, Mike Dodd and Holly McPeak do the color commentary with Chris Marlowe for the AVP Beach Pro Volleyball Tour games on television. All these Champions represent some of the greatest players in the history of the AVP and all are past Olympians with multiple gold,silver and bronze medals in Indoor and Beach Volleyball. Listening to them talk about the game is like going to volleyball school. The more you do it...the better volleyball player you become....and that's one way to practice volleyball without a ball.

April Chapple is a former USA National Team member and Volleyball Professional. As President and owner of Volleyball Voices Inc. April has created the first virtual volleyball mentoring community consisting of various volleyball information sites including http://www.top5volleyball.com and http://www.volleyballvoyeur.com for all females who play. !f you enjoyed this article then Subscribe to the free Volleyball Voices Newsletter!

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