April Chapple is a former professional photographer in Italy who has been coaching coaches with her regular monthly column entitled "5 Quick Tips" in the American Volleyball Coaches Association's "Coaching Volleyball" magazine, covers volleyball in Las Vegas for the Las Vegas Sports magazine and website and also fundraises to create volleyball scholarships.
Starting in March, April's "5 Quick Tips" volleyball articles will also appear in USA Volleyball's magazine "VolleyballUSA".
The volleyball serve is the first opportunity to attack and immediately make a point against the opposing team. Since it's the only volleyball fundamental that is completely under your control its important to be able to check your form to be sure you have the most effective serve as possible.
Here are three tips to focus on to optimize your serving form!
Elbow
Keep your elbow high while serving - During the armswing. Keeping your elbow high increases your chances of getting the ball Over the net. How do you know if your elbow is high enough? When you pull your elbow back before your toss Stop and look to see if you can look underneath your elbow. Your elbow should be higher than your ear. Now start all over again and make sure when you pull your elbow back before you toss... its higher than your ear...now follow through with your swing.
Toss
Try and Toss the same way Every Time! Practice just your toss by letting the ball rest in the palm of your hand (LEFT hand if you are right handed and Right hand if you are Left handed). Your toss should be 2 to 3 feet in the air - your arm should be straight and fully extended in front of you. Let the ball fall. It should fall every time 6 to 8 inches in front of your front foot. (Left foot if you are right handed and right foot if your are left handed.) Keep your weight on your back foot until you are ready to start your armswing.
Three feet in the air and 8 inches in front of the toe of your front foot. Three feet in the air and 8 inches in front of the toe of your front foot. Three feet in the air and 8 inches in front of the toe of your front foot. We use to have to practice Just tossing over and over over again. It really improved my serve. Make sure you keep your body balanced. Tossing to the right or Left will knock you off balance. Your front foot toe is your guide.
Face Your Target
Face your entire body in the direction you want to serve. If you want to serve down the line - face your body - square your shoulders and hips, place your toe and your straightened tossing arm - Down The Line.
You are not going to be effective if you try to Hide, mask or fake out where you are going to serve.
You won't surprise anybody on the other side. If your toe and lower body are facing cross court and your upper body is facing down the line you can't effectively guide the ball to go to specific part of the court nor do you ahve the power to generate to consistently get the ball over the net.
With consistent practice your serve will improve in not ime!
April Chapple is a former USA National Womens Volleyball Team member and Volleyball Professional who created Volleyball Voices the first virtual volleyball mentoring community for girls volleyball players and volleyball coaches with stories by champion women volleyball players and coaching volleyball articles that break up volleyball skills so females learn how to play better volleyball.
A Chance to Fly: Essays, Poems, and Art from Starlings Girls by Byron Shewman
....
A Chance to Fly..
“Each athlete is encouraged to write about what the Starlings has meant to her...put the two together, fundraising and writing, and the result is this book. To anyone who asks, “Why should I support the Starlings?” Read this book, you’ll find out why.”—Karch Kiraly (three-time Olympic gold medalist)
Website: www.starlings.org
Heroes
VolleyballVoices.com is dedicated to the memories of those great female volleyball players who left us prematurely:
Flo Hyman
Judy Bellomo
Lauren Townsend
Patti Lucas Bright
Barbara May
Ashlyn Dyer
Kim Blankinship.
If you'd like to share any thoughts on how they impacted your (our) lives
please feel free to celebrate their memory here.
Thank you.
Rest In Peace, Champions!
..
To Read more about Olympian and Champion Volleyball Player Flo Hyman Click Here
To Read more on Volleyball Player Lauren Townsend
Click here.
To Read More about Volleyball Player Ashlyn Dyer Click here.
Reward Increases for Information on Ashlyn Dyer Hit and Run. Click Here for More Information
About Volleyball Player Kim Blankinship
as reported by USA Volleyball:
"Former beach volleyball player Kim Blankinship, considered the greatest female athlete in Torrance High School history and set for induction into the Loyola Marymount University Athletics Hall of Fame, died suddenly on Oct. 16 of an apparent heart attack.
Blankinship, who turned 31 on Oct. 14, died Monday night at St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach, hours after her fiancé awakened in the morning to find her unconscious in bed at their Seal Beach home, said her father, Mike Blankinship."
To submit a memory or condolence please go to the Loyola Marymount University webpage dedicated to Kim.
We at Volleyball Voices offer our condolences to the Blankinship family.
Rest in peace, Champion
The University Of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN
Graduated: 1986
Student status: Alumni
Major: Speech
Minor: African American Studies
Clubs: Volleyball/USA Volleyball Team, MLV NY Liberties, WPVA, Federazione Italiano di Pallavolo
About me: Volleyball Voices-where female players come to find volleyball heroes.
Founded by April Chapple, President of Volleyball Voices, inc, and a former international indoor and beach volleyball professional with more than 20 years of elite world class competition, training and coaching, April has successfully filled the virtual volleyball
mentoring niche by uniting younger generations of female volleyball players with current and former Olympians and Champions by providing an alternative method for players to seek coaching and mentoring through online player interviews, articles, Player's personal columns with skill instruction and personal accounts of overcoming obstacles using a variety of media including photography, video, podcasts,
animation and graphic design.
In 1999, April initiated the Volleyball Voices editorial project. She asked world class female volleyball teammates, friends and coaches to submit stories of the greatest personal obstacles they overcame as children or teenagers and to describe how that obstacle contributed to them becoming an Olympic player or how it contributed to them reaching the pinnacle of their sport.
The result was a compilation of extremely powerful and revealing stories never before told from some of America's greatest volleyball players including Mary Jo Peppler, Kim Oden, Elaina oden, Nina Matthies, Teee Williams, Sharkie Zartman, Liz Masakayan, Laurel Brassey, Paula Weishoff, Deitre Collins-Parker, Penny Lucas White
and Heather Bown just to name a few.
A work in progress, Volleyball Voices.com is an online resource center containing links to resources and information highlighting the accomplishments of our greatest players as Elite Athletes, Team Captains and Leaders, for special recognition and awards received and as Coaches.
Volleyball Voices is set to become a recognized name brand with strong player support that reaches globally to female players, their parents, coaches and community.
Volleyball Voices is dedicated to those great volleyball players who are no longer with us including Flo Hyman, Judy Bellomo, Patti Lucas Bright, Lauren Townsend, Ashlyn Dyer, Kim Blankinship, Kenyan national team member Doris Wefwafwa and Barbara May.
With an assembly of international volleyball coaches, players, fans and friends Volleyball
Voices on Myspace is one of the top volleyball sites with over 5000+ MySpace friends.
Various initiatives are scheduled for 2008 including the FRONT YOUR FRUIT promotion encouraging volleyball players to increase their daily intake of fruits and vegetables to 5 servings a day. The grand opening of theVolleyball Voices Chariteeshirt Shop was created to help promote and increase the charitable giving among the international female volleyball community.
The Volleyball Voices Chariteeshirt collection is a work in progress that will feature one of a kind, original and limited edition designs, graphics and artwork by April's Assigns and by special guest artists communicating their vision and relaying information they feel will help to promote better eating choices and will empower and encourage athletes to increase the amount of fruits and vegetables they consume on a daily basis.
A portion of the proceeds from the sale of EVERY "Front Your Fruit" tshirt will be donated to one of the following charities:
One of our regularly featured columns will be the Volleyball Voices Product Review section. If your company has a volleyball product-book, DVD, video, gift idea or website please feel free to contact us so we can write a review in an upcoming edition. We will also have a summer camp and volleyball club profile section so our readers can find a camp close to where they live.
Coaches are encouraged to submit information about their 2008 Summer camps and clinics which will be posted for free. If you speak or write in English, Italian or spanish you are encouraged to submit your volleyball clinic and camp news. Thank you for making Volleyball Voices one of the top volleyball sites on myspace!
Who I'd like to meet: New volleyball friends are always welcome.
Volleyball Voices.com and its sister sites www.top5volleyball.com and volleyballvoyeur.com were created as international sites-with information that can be translated into all the major languages of the world.
Among men and women volleyball is consistently one of the top three most popular sports in the world and Volleyball Voices will provide content-stories, interviews and news and video that reflects this trend-that is what sets us apart from our American competitors.
We regularly report on international volleyball news and events from as far as India, Japan, Africa and Europe and we encourage our readers, coaches, players and international journalists to stay in close contact with us by emailing or mailing us releases with upcoming volleyball news, video reports and newscasts that would interest the international female volleyball community.
If you are an international journalist please include media@volleyballvoices.com on your media contact list. You are invited to send international news releases to pr@volleyballvoices.com.
We have been able to answer many questions from both coaches and players from around the world and would like to continue to do so. We encourage our readers to send in their questions or concerns especially about volleyball skills, drills, nutrition, conditioning or charity.
Coaches can contact us at coachquestion@volleyballvoices.com and players contact us at playerquestion@volleyballvoices.com or by posting questions on the volleyballvoices.com blog. Posting comments on the blog will get a quicker reply to your question.
We'd also like to hear from you if any of our advice has helped you in the past or if you think of any recommendations, suggestions or topics you'd like covered please feel free to contact us.
SERVE Stronger
In girls volleyball the ability to serve receive or to "pass" the ball from an opponent's serve is one of the most important volleyball skills to learn in order to play competitive indoor or sand volleyball games and tournaments.
You will quickly learn that what you do with your feet and lower body determines how well you will perform all volleyball fundamentals, skills and drills. That's why I always start my coaching instructions and volleyball tips focusing on the correct positioning of the feet and lower body.
Feet
Your feet should be shoulder width apart in a comfortable balanced position with knees bent so that you are in a slight squat. Your feet should be slightly staggered so that your right foot is two-three inches in front of your left foot and you can move quickly in any direction.
Lower Body
Your feet initiate the first movement you make by getting you in position behind the ball you want to pass. You will find that getting your body completely behind the ball you want to pass is the most important part of passing the ball. Anticipate where you need to be and getting your body behind the ball EARLY will make the rest of the serve receive process alot easier.
Upper Body
Your upper body is in a slightly crouched position in a position that permits you to move quickly in any direction in order to get behind the ball quickly. Once in passing position - BEFORE making contact with the ball your shoulders need to be squared up to the target. Your shoulders face the target and will guide the ball where you want it to go. Remember shoulders should be squared up to the target BEFORE you contact the ball. Arms Keep your arms apart as you move to get your body in position behind the ball to pass it. Your arms should be in the same position as when you run.
Once you stop, because you have determined where you need to be in order to serve receive - your right hand should form a fist which you place in the palm of your left hand. Your left hand should close around your right fist. Place both thumbs together- side by side and point them downward towards the ground. Pointing your thumbs to the ground will create the serve receive platform you use in order to make the pass. You must contact the ball on this platform created by your forearms between the wrist and inside elbow.
With practice and repetition you will learn to control the ball consistently on your platform. Many times alot of people mistakenly contact the ball BELOW their wrists - on their fists and thumbs. You will never be able to control the ball consistently if you contact the ball below the wrists.
Remember that serve receive means that you are receiving the serve. Most serves come at a speed fast enough that when you receive the ball very little additional arm movement is needed in order to get the ball to your target (your target is usually your setter).
So your serve receive platform should never finish above your shoulders since you don't need to swing your arms. When contacting the ball remember your shoulders are already squared up to your target so you just shift your body weight stepping from your back (left) foot to your front (right) foot -keeping your platform still and just using it to guide the ball to your target.
This is why expert volleyball coaches say you actually serve receive with your legs. Your shoulders and platform are there JUST to guide the ball to the target only.
Serve Receive Quick Review
1. Feet shoulder width apart with right leg slightly in front of the left. Shoulders and upper body in slight crouch ready to move in any direction quickly.
2. Anticipate where you need to be and get there BEFORE you start to pass the ball keeping arms and hands apart.
3. Get stopped with right foot slightly in front of the left.
4. Present your platform by wrapping your left hand around your right fist with thumbs pointing straight down to the ground which forces elbows and arms to from a super straight platform.
5. When contacting the ball don't swing your arms to serve receive - keep your platform below your shoulders and thumbs pointing to the ground - always. Use YOUR LEGS to get the ball to the target by shifting your body weight from your back (left) foot to your front (right) foot.
6. Shoulders should already be squared to the target before you contact the ball so you don't have anymore adjusting to do with your arms once you contact the ball.
7. Keep your eyes on the ball. Visually track it as it leaves the servers hand all the way to your platform. By focusing on the ball you can tell if you need to make minor adjustments in the angle of your platform in order to get the ball to your target.
8. Have fun playing volleyball in your next beach volleyball or indoor volleyball tournament!
Hello Volleyball Voices. Good news, I made the under 17 state volleyball team, to my surprise. I'd like to thanks you for your help. I've also given up one of my most loved sports Australian Rules Football to concentrate on volleyball. This was a big decision, but I think I've done to correct decision as I think I still need room for improvement. Cheers, Alexey.
Thanks for the insight:) that is a lot like what my club coach says:) I'll continue to challenge myself with those attributes:) Do you think someone has to be on Varsity for 3 yrs. to have a chance at getting scouted by a UC...because I'm a sophomore at Cerritos High and I was on JV this year and we won league, I'm most likely going to be Varsity next year. I'm a 5'4 1/2 libero/ds.
Hello:) Volleyball Is AMAZING<33 My life for sure:) What do scouts look for in a player?? especially a ds/libero? Any tips/pointers are appreciated:) ttyl:p
