CT Adult Volleyball
In my 3+ years living in Connecticut, I have had a great deal of difficulty finding opportunities to play. 18+ leagues and open gyms are scattered across the state, and often times are difficult to join because of a lack of available information. I will use this post as an ongoing listing of available adult opportunities in CT -- split among Open-Gyms, Tournaments and Leagues.
If you have additional information on any of the following Open-Gyms and Leagues, or if you know of any other opportunities to play, please leave a comment, send me an e-mail, or respond to @volleynut on Twitter.
*Disclaimer* Please double check either by web or by phone with each of the venues/town recreation departments on the times and schedules. Some of these may have changed since I last checked.
Last update: Jan 25th, 2012
In the process of updating with Spring 2012 dates, stay tuned.
Coaching with conflicting philosophies
The situation: You're assisting with a struggling high school volleyball program. The head coach has been there for 30 years with varying levels of success over the years. The full-time JV/Freshman coaches have minimal coaching or volleyball experience and follow the head coach's philosophy and teaching methodology verbatim.
Your background: You've been coaching for under 10 years, but have been working with perennial state championship contending high school programs, top ranked collegiate programs, and international coaching staffs. Your philosophies on how to teach the game from the ground up, as well as general theory, have been built upon a foundation of winning.
The question: How does one go about subtly changing the way things are run for the betterment of the struggling program?
The Correlation of Effort and Motivation
As a player, it's inevitable.
You are playing against lesser competition.
You get bored. You lose focus. Your effort level drops.
You play down to your opponent's level.
You make mistakes you normally wouldn't.
You don't get to balls you normally would get to.
It happens as an individual. It happens as a team. It happens just because.
Why, all of a sudden, when you normally play at a high level, do you slack off?
Competitive nature is what drives any athlete, in any sport. This innate need to out-perform those around you, to better your own game, to prove to the world that you can lead your team to victory.
And yet there are times when it seems to fade...
Virtues of Consistent Setting
Perhaps one of the most under-rated characteristics of a good team (or maybe I am biased because I'm a setter) is consistency of setting.
You see a lot of setter changes with competitive teams at the juniors level as well as in adult recreational open-gyms/leagues. Sometimes a coach decides to run a 6-2 simply to get more players involved in the game (rather than for proper strategic reasoning.) Other times at a recreational (however competitive) league, teams may decide to run a 6-2 or just rotate "middle setter" to keep more players involved or to "keep it simple."
I need to whole-heartedly disagree with the notion that having two drastically different setters splitting the touches, or changing setters upon every rotation, simplifies the game. I'll touch upon both points (6-2 and "middle-set") in today's post as well as the general concept of how having a good setter can clean up the game.
Coach the Player, Not Yourself
Take a random sample of volleyball players and ask them for a list of what they think makes a good coach. Some will say experience, others will say intellect, and everybody else will list something different. And yet, they will inevitably list many overlapping characteristics.
Depending on their strengths, coaches can be specialized as good team builders, good tacticians, or good technical coaches. It is the latter that I want to touch upon today.
I firmly believe that regardless of what sport you are coaching, there is one defining feature of a good technical coach - The ability to coach for a player's specific style, not to change the player's style to conform to the coach's own playing form.
Basic Attack Timing/Adjusting
For beginning volleyball players one of the hardest things to learn is proper attack timing (and adjusting their approach accordingly.)
Actually, let me rephrase that statement -- For beginning many volleyball players one of the hardest things to learn is proper attack timing.
And as such, I figure I might as well jot down a few quick tips that could help if you are having problems with hit timing and adjusting to sets.
Lifting for Volleyball
This is not the most common of topics when discussing volleyball, but I've been asked by enough people to warrant a brief post on the subject. The question at hand? "What can I do in the gym to improve my game?" (Or some variety of that. Usually it's more like, "How do I increase my vert?")
In general, I don't stress my high school athletes to spend hours in the gym "getting huge, brah." But maintaining an overall, well-rounded, fitness regimen in addition to their volleyball training is important. However, there comes a time when a player desires increased performance and has the drive to do everything possible to improve in their game. Improving upon your pure physical capabilities is certainly one way to improve on-the-court performance.
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.