#offensive systems

Setting up your starting rotation: 5-1

How should I set my line-up? I’ve addressed this in broad strokes in the Putting together a starting line-up post. Here, though, I want to drill down. I’m going to look specifically at how you place the players on the court by position. Here’s the most common way teams line-up when playing a 5-1 system. Let me explain the abbreviations. S = Setter M1 = Stronger Middle M2 = Weaker Middle O1 =…

In Jiu-jitsu, there are several techniques that you’re likely to learn early on, no matter where you train. One of them is the cross choke from closed guard.

And it’s effective at all levels.

But there’s a problem. Almost everyone learns it. That increases the chance that the threat will be recognized and addressed early.

For that reason, some make the choice to focus their attention elsewhere…

Audible offense or setter play-calling

I recently received a question from a reader on the subject of offensive communication in volleyball. It’s a fairly complex subject which may actually require a string of posts to really fully explore. We can at least start talking about the subject here, though. So without further ado, here’s the email that starts the conversation. Hello Coach, I really enjoy your blog! The recent post about…

Working on out-of-system play

The other day a coaching friend of mine back in England asked me for some ideas on how to work on out-of-system play with his group of U15 boys. What that really comes down to is the first ball element. How do you start the play or rally? Let’s start by defining what we mean by out-of-system. Broadly speaking, that usually means there are few, if any, attacking options available. Certainly, the…

Why no high level teams playing a 4-2 system?

It’s another trip to the (e)mail bag for this post. The coach of a boys’ junior varsity team has a question about running an international 4-2. As a JV coach … I’ve found that the learning curve (especially for the boys) is so steep, that simplicity is often the best strategy. This is why I’ve moved to an international 4-2 system (with no back row switches). After 2 seasons of experimentation…

Coaching Log – Jan 4, 2016

This is an entry in my volleyball coaching log for 2015-16. Although we didn’t have anything official going on between December 17th and 26th, that didn’t stop the organizational stuff. The Sport Director and I exchanged a number of messages about planning for Gran Prix, player stuff, and thoughts on training scheduling moving forward. As top seed for Gran Prix, our semifinal is second at 12:30…

Coaching Log – Nov 2, 2015

This is an entry in my volleyball coaching log for 2015-16. There was only one other match besides our last week, with Örebro beating RIG. No surprise there. That pushed them to the top of the Eliteserie table on 8 points to our 7. They’ve played 4 matches, though, to our 3. There were no other Oresundliga matches, so Engelholm’s win over us sees them to of the table there on 7 points from 3…

Coaching Log – Sep 14, 2015

This is an entry in my volleyball coaching log for 2015-16. Here’s how things went over the second week: Monday We had two guest players in training, including an OH who played for the club two seasons ago that we’ve been trying to bring back into the fold (logistics have been a problem). I knew about one of them, but didn’t find out about the other until about 30 minutes before I had to leave…