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vb101
Advanced Member
808 Posts |
 Posted - 07/02/2010 : 2:05:30 PM
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How beach training pays dividends indoors
By: Hans Stolfus, on 07/02/2010
http://www.avp.com/News/2010/07/What-Could-Have-Been.aspx
The 2008 La Costa Canyon National Championship team proudly honed its indoor skills at Moonlight Beach in Encinitas, Calif.
This is the second edition in a six-part series Stolfus is contributing to prepolleyball.com. To view the article that started it all off in early May, click here . You can see his third submission soon on prepvolleyball.com.
Watching YouTube’d University of Hawaii men’s volleyball highlights from 1997 does two things to me: 1) makes me incredibly nostalgic and 2) makes me wish I was healthy enough to throw on gym shoes, one contoured “non-bubble” kneepad (for show), a pair of tragically unhip elastic-waisted Local Motion aloha print shorts, and a collared cotton jersey with the sole intention of “looking the part” while pretending to believe I’m ready for an indoor comeback.
The only problem with YouTube’s selective coverage is I’m nowhere to be found. For some reason, the eight matches I was lucky enough to be a part of during my freshman season were not captured and uploaded by “UHVolleyballFanToo.” I know, hard to believe, but it got me thinking: Where was I? Why was I on the bench? What was my game lacking that essentially prevented me from getting more playing time? And, if I had a floppy undercut hairdo, would I have been able to jump 44 inches and spike over any block in America like Jason Ring?
Don’t worry, these delusional thoughts of grandeur only lasted for about 30 seconds. Immediately upon regaining “consciousness,” one flashback after another flooded my cerebral cortex with images of the previous year, or my time spent as a redshirt learning the basics such as rotation and defensive alignment. I mean, how was a guy like me supposed to honestly earn a spot on the court with a team like that? Aaron Wilton bombing outside, Naveh Milo passing absolute nails and ripping his jumpy as the other outside, Sivan Leoni and Rick Tune leading the nation in hitting percentage out of the middle and Curt “I will change my hair color every game to make a statement” Vaughan setting the “bic” and “red” to the aforementioned Jason Ring to perfection. And if someone needed a rest, we had a pretty decent backup named Clay Stanley coming off the bench at either middle or opposite. To be honest, there wasn’t a lot of room in the lineup for a guy out of Iowa that picked up a volleyball for the first time at age 19. But if my career on the beach tells you anything, it’s this: the skills have always been there, I just needed an alternate platform to cultivate them.
So, if I could go back in time, what would I do differently? Simple: I’d lather up with SPF 75 sunscreen and take my afternoon skills training to the beach. Passing, setting, hitting, blocking, digging, serving, you name it…I’d do so many reps in the sand that my toes would just transform themselves into permanent blisters. Why? What would the benefits be if my primary focus was still competing alongside five teammates on a hardwood floor? How about everything: every single skill you need to be successful indoors you need tenfold outdoors. And each practice rep you get outside in the sun, wind and sand only makes that same skill in the gym come game time seem 10 times easier.
Take, for example, forearm passing: arguably the most difficult skill in the game back in ’97 before they altered the rules to allow the first contact to be taken with a player’s hands. This single solitary skill prevented me from even sniffing the court, let alone becoming a regular fixture in the starting six. I flat out couldn’t pass the rock. Most coaches use a three-point scale for passers, with 1, 2 or 3 corresponding to the number of hitters a setter can set off of a pass (e.g. if a pass is perfect and the setter has three options -- the hut, the quick and the back five -- the pass would be noted as a “3”). My passing was somewhere in the “2” range, or not good enough to run a high school club offense, let alone a collegiate national championship contender’s. But after three months on the sand in 2002, my feet starting moving to the ball, my platform was not only steadier but out and underneath the ball earlier, and my concentration rivaled that of a magician. I went back indoors with a group of old friends for a collegiate club tournament at the request of the tourney director after Cal State Fullerton pulled out last-second and passed nails all day. I didn’t even think of taking the ball overhead with my hands, I was too busy trying to get my setter perfect “3’s” from my forearms for six matches straight. And the whole tournament all I could say was, “Why didn’t anybody tell me to go out to the beach and work on my passing during college? I could’ve seriously been an All-American.” But that’s what life’s all about: living and learning.
In upcoming pieces, I’ll further break down each skill necessary to succeed at the indoor game and how a little training in the sand this summer can make your upcoming fall season one for the record books. But don’t just take it from me; take it from every professional beach player competing in Hermosa Beach this month. You’ll just have to come down to see it for yourself….
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