I’m going to describe six volleyball skills which you need to play volleyball and not to be surprised by any ball.
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Volleyball is a complex sport, it’s not easy to learn it. It’s impossible to describe everything in a single post. I’ll concentrate on volleyball skills which a player needs to control the ball and to be ready to perform at his or her best.
In volleyball, just like in any other sport, the most important element is technique. In volleyball, technique plays a crucial role and it takes relatively long time to master it.
Without a correct individual technique of every player, no team can even think about performance that they and their coach want to achieve.
In volleyball, we have six volleyball skills that we need to develop. They’re attack, block, serve, set, defense in the field and reception.
In practice, we focus on these skills and their development. Obviously, everything has to be done step by step. Start with the basic things and later move on to the most complex volleyball elements.
It also depends on which position you play. In practice, we do a specialized training according to player positions, be it a spiker, opposite, setter, middle blocker or libero. Some details and skills are different for each position and each position has its specifics.
Let’s describe individual skills closely
Attack
Attack is, and always has been, the alfa and omega of volleyball. You can’t win without attack. Attack brings teams most of the points so we regularly focus on it in practices.
During attacking, we use our maximal jump and power to hit the ball, we try to spike next to the block, over the block or to use the block to win a point.
In attack, it’s not only strength and power, sometimes we use technical hits, tips behind the block, powertips. Some sets are not perfect and to make a point out of them is very difficult.
We also distinguish attacks after good and bad set. Fast balls, transition balls to sides, pipe to the spiker, sets for middle blockers, backrow attack for the opposite. A huge role also plays the offensive strategy of the team, individual abilities of individual attackers.
Attack is simply our biggest weapon but it takes a while to become a great attacker.
Block
Block is also a big weapon which brings us points. In block, we need to be calm with a well timed jump and arms as far as possible over the net to cover the court as much as possible.
We jump from a standstill or short sidestep to block. The priority goal of the block is to block our opponent straight to the ground. However, we also use the block to slower the incoming ball or to make the attacker spike next to the block.
Specialists in blocking are middle blockers who are the most involved ones in blocking. We can have an individual block when we block alone. Or we set double, triple block and help middle blockers block the attacking middle blocker or pipe.
Block is a part of defensive play together with defense in the field. We can’t block everything so the cooperation with defense in the field is important.
Similar to attack, block is not an easy skill either. We are constantly in the air and we have relatively little time to be successful.
Serve
We have got to serve. For a long time, service only served as an initiation of a rally. Recently, the role of serve has changed from simple putting the ball to play to immediate creation of pressure on the opponent.
In modern volleyball, it is the first attack of the team. However, serve is not only about power, we can use float serve with jump or from the ground. We usually choose the direction of our serve to the weakest receiver of the other team or between spikers.
We can also use short serve, technical to a certain zone. Sometimes we try to make the receiver receive with overhead hit or we serve to certain side from the receiver.
The goal of serve is to make the attack of the opponent as much difficult as possible, be it an ace or an inaccurate reception.
Serve is a big weapon, together with attack and block, it brings us points and points matter.
Set
We get to set almost after every serve reception or defense in the field. We can do a jump set, if I’m the setter, or we can set from the ground in case of other players.
There is always a specialist for set in a team, the setter, who has the best setting technique. The setter sets mainly with overhead hit but they can also use bagher if they have to chase the ball or the ball is too low to use the overhead hit.
The setter sets to all attacking players, he must be able to set to sides to spikers, quick sets to middle blockers and back sets to opposites. The setter touches the ball the most and is the brain of the team on which the performance and result of the team depend a lot.
The goal of the set is to set the ball to attacking players to the perfect position so that they can attack in various ways.
Defense in the field
Together with block, defense in the field is a part of defense. In the field, we defend in bent position, ready to dig any ball coming from the opponent.
Defense in the field doesn’t bring direct points but avoids opponents’ direct points in case of defending an attack. At the same time, it gives us the possibility of a counter attack.
The biggest specialist in defense in the field is libero but other players have to do it too. In the field, we play the defense in our zones according to our positions.
We use bagher, overhead hit, dive or different part of the body if a hard spike is coming to us. We need to have a good defense in the field to succeed as a team.
Reception
Last, but equally important as the others, is reception. Reception comes after opponent’s serve. In reception, we stay in the court in bent position, we want to pass the opponent serve to the net.
Reception is similar to defense in the field, our goal is not to suffer a point and to put the ball high as good as possible for the setter.
Specialists in reception are spikers and libero. We usually receive with bagher or overhead hit. In reception, we expect that a spike or float serve will fly to us.
Reception is never only about one player. Always receive at least two players in case of the float serve, three or four players in case of the jump serve.
As I mentioned at the beginning of the video, volleyball is not an easy sport. In every skill, you need to master various subskills, different variations, individual technique.
At the end, it’s necessary to combine everything well in a common work in the team to perform at our bests in a game or a practice. Also, don’t forget that you can keep improving all skills and becoming better players.
