Beach Volleyball Defense Strategy 

Thanks alot for the kind words! You are right, in some way it's like the higher the level, the smaller the differences that make all the difference haha. :) In general, I'm trying to make content that I actually feel people will get helped from.. when you do quick explanations that are not so detailed, they can so easily be misinterpreted by the masses and that can actually lead to people getting worse at the sport.. It's happened to me and I've seen it happen to others. So trying to make a change in that! :)

Hey! Thanks for the suggestion, I will most definitely create more videos on defense throughout this project, both free videos, and also a defensive course that goes into basically all details I already have and will figure out over time! I need to check my notes, if I remember right I have a podcast episode planned that basically takes the concept of these videos and explores them deeper.. That would probably be a good one to create soon I realized now because I should have more podcast episodes that talk specifically about technique/strategy kind of stuff! :)

Thanks man! I will! :)

Awesome to hear! :) Sometimes if I play against players who primarily rely on shooting short and long as their attack strategy, I stand sideways (like snowboarding) instead of towards the player, that way I feel you move both backwards and forwards quicker! :)

Thank you! :)

Yess! Soo..! I just recently interviewed David Åhman on my podcast (coming out in a few days), and his opinion at least was that on the highest levels you need to sort of commit to some outcome (after the set but before the ball is hit) and forget about other outcomes, the court is simply too big and attackers too good for you to cover everything. And I think it's fair to say that he is one of the top defenders in the world right now so he is probably not completely wrong hehe. However, I think I want to add something here. There's a difference between "going for something" as a defender but getting completely frozen up if that thing that you went for doesn't happen, vs still having the ability to react super quickly if something surprizing happens. Let's say you have "read" that a cut-shot is coming so you move a bit in that direction, but the attacker actually goes for a line-shot.. However, your partner/blocker actually reaches high and gets a finger on the ball on the lineshit, and happens to fling the ball sort of towards the middle of the court, not to you, not very close to you, but close enough to you that with lightning quick reactions and a full lay-out, you are able to pick it up and continue the rally. Here, I'd say it is much better to have this ability to still just react (and react fast and well) even though there is a quite complex thing that happens before you react (you read, realize you read wrong, blocker touches ball, the ball is within your reach after all), rather than just getting frozen because the cut-shot didn't come your way. And if it matters, I believe top defenders like David Åhman have this ability whereas some lower level players that try to "read" in defense don't have this ability. So in the end, my belief is that regardless how much a defender reads, the ability to react to unexpected events is always key to good defense anyway. And that way I believe both David and the "good" players in your community can both be right. "Reading" vs "reacting" can be seen as opposites and one can't exist without the other, but I believe in reality they can both exist at the same time and they are both important.

Thanks! Haha this comment reminded me of something that I have heard but not necessarily experimented with too much myself yet: if you think about it, leaning towards the opposite side than where ypu want to dash, actually in some ways gives you power to push off towards where you want to go.. So in a way if you know she's going to go cutshot, then lean the other way and let her see that, and then dash to the cutty haha. Does that make sense? Personally I have so far mostly just worked on staying still until I know where the ball is going and then making my way there in the most efficient way. There's almost like a whole science how to do that better too and once you figure out some things about "relaxed readiness" (state of mind and feeling in your body), steps towards the ball and then the actual touch with the ball, defense can become super fun to play really. One great drill/game is "dig or die" no jump games with like 3 points for a team if they kill a ball straight in the sand without the defending team even getting a finger on the ball. Or the even more agressive scoring version: if you let a ball touch the sand on your side without touching the ball before, you lose all your points haha. It's super fun and makes people in a pretty natural way start figuring a lot of the things I just mentioned out.

Learn Beach Volleyball Fast Dig or Die sounds great. I’m gonna try that out. Yea I think leaning one way and then goin for the cut shot is probably the best move. I saw the McKinnon brothers talk about leaning instead of stepping during a fake out. I’ll give it a try today 👌🏻

@@ChrisPetrone Yep, it might be from their video I got that idea, or maybe it was one guy I coached with this summer, I don't remember haha. Did you do any other sports before you now started with beach volleyball?

@@LearnBeachVolleyballFast I used to play baseball and basketball so this is pretty new to me. One thing I'm struggling with right now is my approach. Since I played a lot of basketball, I'm used to ending with my right foot in front, like when I'm going to take a shot. In volleyball, I'm trying to teach myself the opposite, and make sure I step right left right left, ending with left foot in front. It's tricky. I'm just trying to get reps in.

@@ChrisPetrone Yes, I've heard about basketball players struggling with that before too.. Did you ever attempt any 2 foot jump dunking in basketball? Because that's where basketball players seem to have the same footwork as volleyball players, of course mpre of a showoff/trick thing than actual gameplay thing but in case you'd habe any past reps from that iy could help to shift your mind to see the similarity between a volleyball hit and a dunk rather than a basketball shot.. But wait, layups also have the left leg as the last step for a righthander right? Maybe thinking of it more as a layup could help?

Hey, and thanks! :) At what age did you start playing and where are you located? :) I am still on the journey, unfortunately the reality is that restrictions around the corona pandemic have put an unimaginable amount of troubles my and this projects way, so things have been severely slowed down and not at all where I both hoped and believed they would be. But hopefully this is all over soon so I can continue without hindrances and make this project what it is bound to become. There's so so much stuff coming up, I have endless plans haha. Thanks for being here!

Thanks for the comment, always nice to know these videos have been helpful! :) I will not stop, there's videos for years to be produced, soo many things to be discussed hahah! :)

Hahaha! 😅 Many different ways to play defense out there that can be successful, different pros all playing high level beach volleyball use different tactics etc.. Maybe your partner was used to something, or had a strong belief of something being better than something else? I guess there is also plain undisciplined and poor defense, where you do something inbetween in a sense but do nothing properly, which leads to missing both difficult balls but also easy ones.. It could be a good idea to 100% commit to one strategy one day and another on another day, and also let ones partner know that you are experimenting to learn better for the future what seems to work for you! :) Then of course one also needs to remember that what tactics work best today might be different from what tactics work best in a few months, if one builds technical/physical defensive skills in that time period. :)

Hehe, the standard answer when someone wants a quick answer about something in beach volleyball..! :)

Good question! Probably depends on the players' tendencies when they attack from the middle. But I think a strategy that isn't completely bad is the blocker doing a "split block" (hands quite far away from eachother, taking angles but leaving the straight hit open) and the defender being right in the middle behind, to dig up the hard driven ball or try to run up shots if they come. If its a bad set and the attacker end up in the middle and a bit off the net, probably pulling from the block and both players splitting the court is the right thing to do. So yeah.. I guess situational like usually in beach volleyball defense. The important thing to know is that our job is not to stop every ball, but some balls, especially the ones where the attacking team makes a bit of a mistake. A good attacker with a good set will very often score, regardless of how good you are as a blocking/defending team. I think thats my answer right now, but I havent thought about the middle situation too much as I find it doesn't happen too often.. But there might be others out there with better solutions, not sure! :)