Volleyball Passing Drills - Passing Fundamentals - Page 2

Explore basic volleyball passing drills and tips how to practice the fundamentals of passing.

If you haven't read the page 1 about fundamental passing drills, you can read it by clicking the link below.

Volleyball Passing Drills on the Net - Tossing

When doing passing drills on the net, the coach needs to add a target to a passer by the net.

• The coach tosses the volleyball over the net. The coach stands fairly close to the net and makes a player to take couple of shuffle steps to the left, right, forward (short balls) or backward before the pass.
  
  
• The coach can work to one direction (i.e. toss to the left) at the time to ease up the learning in the beginning. This helps to put each technique into the memory bank of the player.

  

• The coach focuses on the same aspects as in the previous phase:
  
  
  • shuffle steps
    
    
  • movement behind the ball, keeping the ball in front of her body
    
    
  • stopping the movement
    
    
  • placing the arms under the volleyball to direct it to the target (no extensive swinging).
    
    
• The coach progresses by stepping back a little by little until s/he feels passers are ready to start passing a serve.

Volleyball Passing Drills - On the Net - Serving

When serving same principles apply, start close to the net maybe around 20 feet off the net.

• If the coach has an accurate serve, s/he can work out one side at the time. First, the coach serves multiple serves to the left side only, next round to the right side only - and so on.
  
  
• The coach needs to remember to serve different kind of serves.
  
  For example at one practice s/he focuses on float serves and the next practice s/he teaches players to pass top spin serves.
  
  
• When players progress, the coach moves further back toward the back line.

Volleyball Passing Drills - Combining Passing with Other Skills

When players are able to perform passing on the high accurate level, the coach can consider moving on combining it with other skills (for example set and spike).

Important Tips for Training Volleyball Passing!

• Shuffling and the basic position should be learned first
  
  
• It is extremely important to stop before passing (bumping) the ball
  
  
• Direct the ball WITHOUT an extensive arm swing to the appropriate target.

Volleyball Passing Drills – How to Organize the Drill?

• When doing over the net passing, each tosser/server should have two players in the group. While one passes, one catches the ball. The coach can easily put four of these groups on one net.
  
  
• To keep the drill moving fast each group needs to learn “two ball- system”. Always when the serve is floating over the net, the target tosses the other ball to the server. Especially in the beginning when the passes are not accurate, a target needs to have an extra balls by him/her.
  
  
• Generally speaking limit the passes to fairly small amounts before switching the passer, around 8-15 passes is good enough. It is very common for players to lose their focus, if too many reps are repeated in a row. Require players to perform every single pass fully focused.
  
  
• It is also a good idea to break down one drill to smaller sections, instead of having just one long drill. That way the players stay more focused.
  
  
  • For example: it is a good idea to tell players they have 5 minutes to practice passing from the left side of their body before working out the right side vs. telling them they will practice passing for the next 20 minutes.
    
    
  • It is much easier for players to stay focused 5 minutes at the time, than preparing for the whole 20 minute session. That’s a good way to trick players to focus on monotonous technical drills.

Important Tips to the Coach!

• It is not undermining when tossing/serving the ball by being close to the passer. It is extremely important to do so, especially for the beginner players whose passing skills has not developed yet.
  
  It also allows the faster tempo, accurate tosses and better feedback.