Polarity of Words
One of the earliest lessons I was given as an aspiring coach came from my high school coach. Not only was he a great example to follow as a player, but also as a coach, and he helped serve to mentor me in my pursuits to better understand the game. As a person who coaches youth, it is important to remember that there are subtle differences in the ways you get a point across to your players, and that some ways are better than others.
Venting Frustrations
Note: This is a rant, not an instructional post, and thus will lack any semblance of proper grammar. Enjoy my run-on sentences and ill-conceived thoughts.
There are a few main points I'm going to be venting about in this post, so if any of them interests you then by all means read this post. Otherwise feel free to glaze over and browse my past postings which are a lot more relevant to player/coach development...
- Geographic difficulties and frustrations
- Over-confident yet unsuccessful coaches
- Unwillingness to change
- Idiots
Offspeed Attacks
Learning to vary your attacks is key to becoming a successful offensive player. Changing direction, speed, and type of attack is largely dependent upon the game situation set in front of you. For more on this theory, see my previous post on Power vs Finesse.
As previously discussed, less experienced players will learn to spike the ball at a consistent speed and power, mostly at body-line. This is the most common line for an attack and the easiest to defend. As an attacker, it is your job to move your attacks around the block and to hit the ball away from or past the defense. Changing the type of attack is vital to your success. In this post we will discuss the most common types of off-speed attacks that you can utilize to further expand your offensive repertoire.