Teaching Volleyball Positions to Kids and Beginners
Teaching volleyball positions to kids and beginners can start them on life long love of a game that is growing in popularity not only in America but also in the world. Volleyball is a great form of exercise that almost anyone can take part in and that may be played virtually anywhere—from the beach to a parking lot. So how do you teach volleyball positions to beginners?
Front Court vs. Back Court
Rather than going straight to naming the volleyball positions, it is good to teach beginners the difference between the frontcourt and the backcourt. Players should begin by understanding that the backcourt players are responsible for “digging” balls and getting them back in play.
A simple definition for “digging” is getting your hands underneath a ball that the opposing team has served or volleyed into your court.
The frontcourt players are responsible for blocking, setting and spiking balls back into the opponent’s court. In the beginning, it is best to keep teams to six persons to avoid confusion and players running into each other.
Many coaches also find it useful to name the volleyball positions P1 to P3 for the frontcourt positions and P4 to P6 for the backcourt positions.
The Opening Serve
Just as in tennis, one of the more difficult skills to master for beginners is the opening serve. Players often have difficulty striking the ball with enough velocity and height to clear the net but still land in bounds on the opponent’s court. For this reason, many coaches allow servers to strike the ball underhand in beginner games and wait for another day to teach the overhand technique.
Other coaches dislike this method because it makes beginning players start with a type of serve they will have to give up later on. Underhand serving, however, is preferable to a long boring first session where you spend the entire time trying to get a beginner to serve correctly while the vast majority of the participants just stand around.
The underhand serve also has the benefit of creating a high arcing ball that is easier to get into play.
The Three Touches
Right from the beginning, you will want to teach your players about the three touches of volleyball and how they relate to volleyball positions. You will want to tell them that the goal of the team should be first to dig the ball, then to set the ball, and finally to return the ball. It is sometimes useful to allow beginners four touches rather than three to aid in this process.
The first touch is all about bringing the ball under control. Later you may want to teach them about blocking and about how a surprise return back into the opponent’s court on the first touch may sometimes be the best strategy. But for right now, you will want to teach them that the role of the players in the backcourt on the serve and throughout the court at other times is to keep the ball in play.
This is also a good time to teach them about letting balls go out of bounds and knowing how to position your body relative to the lines to know when a ball is heading out, but you should not spend too much time on this finer point in early sessions.
Once the ball is controlled other player need to call out for it as setters. These players may be in the backcourt but are preferably in the frontcourt. The second touch is about positioning the ball close enough to net so that another player can come up under it and spike it. Define “setting” as volleying the ball in an easy manner so that another player can strike it without difficulty.
Finally, there is spiking the ball. Most beginning players and kids don’t have the height to get up over the net so it is best to get them to set the ball somewhat back from the net so that a player can get a good hit on it. Usually for beginning play, this is just a simple toss over the net rather than anything more complicated.
With this beginning strategy set in place, you can slowly introduce the other terms on later practice sessions. Soon your team will be referring to themselves by the appropriate volleyball positions as “weakside hitters” and “strong side hitters” and even “liberos”, a beginner favorite.