Volleyball Yin & Yang: Improving by upgrading the opposite

You want to get better at serve receive? Improve your serving.

You want to get better at defense? Improve your offense.

How often do you put your players in antagonistic situations in practice? By that I mean the players aren’t cooperating with each other, but rather are in opposition. I don’t necessarily mean games, though that can certainly be the case. I mean one side is working on something that the other side is inherently working against.

A serving and passing drill is a classic example.

If the servers are intentionally going back and working on making the passers’ lives difficult, that’s antagonistic. If the servers just lob relatively easy balls over, that’s more cooperative. Which of those do you think will force the passers to be better?

If you regularly use antagonistic activities – servers vs. passers, offense vs. defense, etc. – then improving one side of the relationship inherently puts pressure on the other to adapt. That could be technical improvement, better communication, different positioning – whatever is under pressure.

That said, make sure the players recognize their progress. Let me explain.

I once coached a team where we did regular practice stats on reception. About midway through the season the captain – one of our primary passers – came up to me frustrated. The passing numbers weren’t improving. We did a lot of serving work along the way, so I asked her, “Has our serving improved?” She acknowledged it had.

I then asked, “If our serving is better and our passing stats are the same, what does that mean?”

She immediately made the connection. That made her feel much better, which is important. Players who don’t see improvement after putting in the work get frustrated and demotivated. We obviously don’t want that, so it’s important to ensure they see they’re getting better.