Our friend Leo Keegan over at Beach Volleyball Update sent us his latest writeup of the beach volleyball Olympic updates and qualification standings for men. We are pleased to share this with you below.

With 6 months of Olympic qualifying remaining on the calendar, let's examine the Top 4 international men's teams. For reference the current Olympic ranking is as follows:

Anders Mol and Christian Sorum

The current Olympic ranking is led by superstars -- Norway's Anders Mol and Christian Sorum. These youngsters (Mol is 22 years old and Sorum is 24) are the team to beat. Mols/Sorum won 50% (7 of the 14 FIVB) events they played together in 2019.

In the highest pressure, biggest events, Mols/Sorum finished first twice (Gstaad and Vienna) and third twice (World Championships and World Tour Finals).

Viacheslav Krasilnikov and Oleg Stoyanovskiy

Russians Viacheslav Krasilnikov and Oleg Stoyanovskiy are second on the list. This team is also young; Oleg 23 is years old and...

Our friend Leo Keegan over at Beach Volleyball Update sent us his latest writeup of the FIVB and beach volleyball Olympic updates and qualification standings for women, which we are pleased to share with you below.

The USA women are doing very well on the FIVB. In the Olympic qualification standings (shown below) there are 4 USA teams in the Top 10 of which 2 will qualify. Alix Klineman and April Ross hold the top slot by a large margin. However, the second slot is a tight race among three teams: Sarah Sponcil / Kelly Claes, Kerri Walsh-Jennings / Brooke Sweat and Kelley Larsen / Emily Stockman. The race has never been so competitive!

One of the reasons is the addition of Beach Volleyball as an NCAA sport. Check out this article, with an AVP focus, by Wayne Holly with a lot of statistics supporting this argument: (passed on from Ricky Pszenny): NCAA to PRO.

Now let's take a look at the top competition that the USA teams face in the beach volleyball Olympics. The top four...

The next piece of footwork we need to go over is called our Defensive Chase footwork. We're going to start from the base and then we’ll show you how it goes into a full play. Watch it here.

Digging the line shot can seem outright impossible at times. Even the most tenacious defenders can look like a statue against great hitters. One of the most important things a beach volleyball defender can do is work on their chase mechanics. Don’t think of this situation as a guess. Think of it as a race. “Can your best high line beat my balance and footwork?”

Get balanced. Initiate your move with a crossover step while allowing your lead foot to pivot in the sand. Be patient. Remember, a late move is better than a wrong move. Good luck and happy digging

Our Complete Serve Receive course starts at the bottom and takes you all the way to the top. Whether you are a true beginner, or you've been playing for decades, this course will offer you a...

We recently welcomed native Floridian Kelly Goncalves to the 7-day training camp at VolleyCamp Hermosa. Based on her review, Kelly had a blast. She blogged about her experience and was kind enough to share her thoughts with us, published below with her permission.

By Kelly Goncalves

Traveling to California is an adventure regardless of where you go. The rumors are true, the weather really is perfect all the time and the traffic is terrible all the time. I didn't rent a car and lived by the beach for eight days during my stay and I recommend you do the same. Hermosa Beach is an hour bike ride south of Venice beach. It's a smoke-free beach with miles on end of beautiful deep sand, high waves, and plenty of volleyball courts to share. Bring your own ball and make some new friends there is always someone playing.

In late August I flew out to the West Coast to watch the AVP games and attend a 7-day training camp.

Since writing this post, the training camp has added a...

Watch our Practice Plans for Passing Footwork and Attack Accuracy. Enjoy!

Welcome to my beach volleyball practice plan video. This is a pretty typical practice at VolleyCamp Hermosa in Hermosa Beach, CA. The players in the video are from one of our private advanced men's groups.

If you are looking for more practice plans for beach volleyball I highly recommend our free beach volleyball drill book. It's go 36 different drills for beach volleyball and you'll get the ability to download it to keep! 

While these drills are awesome, nothing is quite so good as a beach volleyball coach as when your practice plan is completely made for you. We have 20 2-hour practice plans timed out minute by minute, rep by rep. If you are a coach who knows the game, but you hate building practices, you're going to love this. Get rid of the guesswork and use the beach volleyball practice plans I've been using for 10 years on the AVP tour. All of the practices have specific categories so you...

Hey guys: the AVP just published a trending article from beach volleyball pro Mark Burik, CEO and co-founder of VolleyCamp Hermosa. Mark shares his perspective on the sport he loves and the path he took around the world — from Queens, NY to Hermosa Beach, CA — so he could play pro. Learn some great insights from a pro player and coach whose life mission is to help players get better at volleyball.

“If you’re like me, you didn’t find volleyball early on in life,” Mark says. “I grew up playing every sport I could and while I still enjoy them all, beach volleyball has completely hooked me for the last 10 years.”

At VolleyCamp Hermosa, we’re in Los Angeles living the dream. In this sporting life, passion is still in fashion. Be sure to come see us at VolleyCamp Hermosa.

We want to show you this juke that happens on this video. Huber ends up running a four which means that he is showing the cross and going to the line, but he does it in a really advanced way.

A lot of people will juke in one direction so that their opponents will think they're running to the line but then they'll just stay in the cross and then they’ll end up having some luck and just hit a nice easy ball into their lap but what Huber does here - because he's playing at such a high level and he knows that the offense can see him and is paying attention to him - is he does a double Juke so he intentionally shows that he's going to the line and then he comes back and sits in this cross for a second which misleads the hitter to think “what a terrible early fake, I'm not going to fall for that. I'm still going to go for the high line” and then Huber runs down to that high line. That's a tough concept to get.

He wanted his opponent to see this bad move to the...

Hey beachvolley fans and players!  If you've come to this page, it means you are ready for a deep dive into how to win beach volleyball matches. Beach volleyball players from around the world send us their videos and we give them private lessons. Most private lessons for volleyball take place on the court but after a decade one tour, I know 100% that there are times when video lessons and film study can win you more points than actually continuing your physical practices.

In Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach and Manhattan beach, you can wake up any morning and see tons of pro practices, volleyball classes and lessons happening but what you don't see is the hours every top level player spends on their phones and computers watching their video. Every FIVB and AVP player tent is just a coffee shop full of tall people watching their previous match to check for strengths and weaknesses. We also study our opponents to find their tendencies.

If you are trying to become a...

You guys want to hear more about DEFENSE, so that's what we're going to go over today. We're going to talk about positioning of the blocker and where the defender should be, or could be, throughout the extent of a point. This is a replay match of our team against the team of Sean Rosenthal and Chase Budinger.

I want to remind you to subscribe, like, share and keep commenting so that I can keep bringing you guys some videos and information that you like, and follow us on volleycamphermosa.com

Do you want an AVP Pro to give you live critique and advice on YOUR GAME? 

Aside from actually practicing, there is NOTHING as crucial to your development as studying your own game and practice film. Professional teams from all sports spend 100’s of hours analyzing themselves on video from workouts, practices and competition. It’s time to get with the program. Purchase our One on One Video Analysis session and get a 45 minute detailed breakdown and review...