VOLLEYBALL ACADEMY PROGRAM

1. Novice Beginner: Active Start and Assessment

Players with no experience of volleyball who want to learn all the fundamentals and basic skills of the game. Player recognizes the need to “know-how”.

Description: Introduction to physical activity. Touches on the ball. Ability to follow instructions.

• Follows Coaching Instructions: Discipline, Willing to Workout, Attention.
• Agility: Motor Skills, Coordination: hand-eye coordination, Speed and Reaction.
• Athletic Skills: Ball Control, Bump and Pass.

2. Intermediate Beginner: Sport Fundamentals

Players with sports/volleyball basics and fundamentals and with the desire to continue the progression and improvement of volleyball skills. Understands the “Know-How” but still needs to get to “Do it”, with proper form and technique.

Description: Fundamentals of Passing, Serving, and Setting. Focusing on the receive, set, attack approach. Emphasis on form and technique.

• Follows Coaching Instructions: Discipline, Willing to Work out, Attention.
• Agility: Motricity
• Coordination: hand-eye coordination, Speed, and Reaction
• Athletic Skills: Ball Control, Pass Accuracy, Set Accuracy

3. Advanced Beginner: Learn to Train

Players start to recognize elements when they are present. Follow drills and repetition, improve footwork and body position. Understand space management and direction of the ball generating contact and applying aim and ability to maintain the course of the rally.

Description: Fundamentals of passing and aiming to keep a rally, understanding the goal of the attack, score a point and improving the set, attack, and defense abilities.

• Follows Coaching Instructions: Discipline, Willing and desire to work out, Attention.
• Agility: Speed and Reaction, Knows where to be, Knows when to be.
• Athletic Skills: Ball Control, Bump/Pass, Set accuracy, Spike, Block and Serve.

1. Intermediate Phase 1 – Competent

The player has the ability, knowledge, and skill to play volleyball successfully.  Is able to prioritize behaviors based on levels of importance. Accepts responsibility for choices because she/he recognizes choices made. Players are emotionally invested in their decision-making.

Description: Problem-solving indicates competence. Slow and detached reasoning (problem-solving). Make decisions.

• Athletic Skills & Agility: Speed and Reaction.
• Knows what to do, when to do it, and How to do it.

2. Intermediate Phase 2 – Proficient. 

Players use intuition based on enough past experience. Intuitive-based cognition coupled with detached decision-making. Being proficient means attributing success to the calculative aspects of success.

Description: Athletic Skills & Agility: Understands rotational sequence, offensive concepts (i.e., 5-1, 6-2, etc.), and defensive positions but may be working to solidify those skills. Knows the footwork of and how to approach hitting effectively. Solid knowledge of the game and rules.

Player Functions or responds as a result of “mature and practiced understanding”. There is a loss of awareness of intuition and decision-making. The experienced player operates simply because she/he does. The library of distinguishable situations is built up on the basis of experience. Actions are unconscious operating out of intuition and tacit knowledge. Performance is fluid.

Description: Players know all the skills very well.  Understand rotational sequence, offensive concepts, and defensive positions and can apply them in competition.

Game and player strategies are well understood. Performs consistently running offensive plays, identifying opponent weaknesses, reading opponents plays during the rally, but may still be in refinement.

This is the first contact of the ball where the object is to pass the ball to the Setter in a controlled manner.

Setting the ball means to push the ball into an arc in the air near the net in a position where one of your attackers can spike/attack the ball into the opposing team’s court in hopes of scoring.  This is done either by bump-setting the ball or hand-setting the ball.

Attacking the ball is to hit the ball in a hard driving manner whenever possible, into the opposing teams’ court in order to score.  NOTE: You can never attack a serve.

To block a ball is to jump up at the net with perfect timing to stop the ball as it is being attacked from the opposing team.  A successful block will push the ball back into the opposing teams’ space scoring a point for the blockers team. NOTE: You can never block a serve.

This is the action from the player in the server position that puts the ball into play. The ball must make it to the opposing teams’ court without being touched by anyone on the servers team to be successful. It can touch the net in what’s called a “Let serve” and still be successful unless you are playing in a league with a special rule where a “let serve” is not legal.