Learn What All of the Blocking Calls Mean

If you haven't already checked out the McKibbin brothers video tutorials, do it. They have some really great video tutorials on pretty much every aspect of the sport on their Youtube channel.  A while back, they came out with this fantastic video on blocking, which includes beach volleyball blocking signals and what to do as a blocker!  However, keep in mind that practicing with great coaches is the quickest way to get better.  We have some great coaches, so head to our classes page to start improving today!

If you're interested in this blog on beach volleyball serve receive and passing, you may want to take a look at our passing and serve receive course! And, now that the beaches are open again, we'd love to have you drop by one -- or more -- of our beach volleyball classes in Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, Redondo Beach, or anywhere in the South Bay!

Mastering the volleyball pass is crucial if you want to get better at playing beach volleyball. As you know, there are two types of passes in volleyball: the forearm pass (also known as the underhand pass or the bump) and the overhead pass (great for indoor volleyball players but nearly useless for beach volleyball).

Since we’re talking about serve receive for beach volleyball, this guide will focus on the forearm pass. If you play indoor volleyball, the concepts still 100% apply to you, but you have an extra weapon: your hands!

Beach volleyball players should only use their forearm passing platforms...

The following video is another portion of a previous video analysis that Mark had with one of his players. Our video analysis sessions are designed to have professional AVP athletes/coaches sit down with our players and they go through 45 minutes of tape review. Our coaches look at the player’s game film, the techniques and what decisions the player makes in a game. Watch a sample of Mark’s video analysis in action.

Make sure to subscribe to Mark’s YouTube channel and social media accounts if you want to see more of these.

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The following video is a video analysis that Mark had done with one of his players. Our video analysis sessions are designed to have professional AVP athletes/coaches sit down with our players and they go through 45 minutes of tape review. Our coaches look at the player’s game film, the techniques and what decisions the player makes in a game. Watch a sample of Mark’s video analysis in action.

Make sure to subscribe to Mark’s YouTube channel and social media accounts if you want to see more of these.

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 chance to build and re-build your basics and take the next jump. Take the time to follow the course and do the drills. We guarantee you are going to Get Better at Beach! https://www.betteratbeach.com/offers/LYbwq3yL

Work on your defender skill set in Double Juke with this beach volleyball training video featuring AVP pro Mark Burik.

Also be sure to check out our full line of training programs, available now at BetteratBeach.com.

DRILL NAME: Double Juke

SKILL FOCUS: Defensive Tactics

MINIMUM PLAYERS REQUIRED: 3

BEGINNER FRIENDLY: Yes

INTENSITY: Medium 

STYLE: Repetition Based

DRILL EXPLANATION: Player 1 is on the North side of the net acting as the hitter/feeder.  Player 2 and 3 will be on the opposite side of the net. Player 2 will be at the net acting as a blocker, and Player 3 will be in the court working on digging.  The point of this drill is to make a fake move to the line/cross during the attackers vision sequence of his approach. This normally takes place just before the attacker puts their last two steps of their approach.  Make sure after you make your fake move you get reset in the cross before making your move. You want the attacker to think that...

Beach volleyball pro Mark Burik sits down with Joe L to discuss how to spike with good arm swing mechanics, defensive positioning, and attack timing in this helpful training video. This is a deep dive and will probably only be interesting and useful to you if you are ready to play in tournaments. If you're looking for some quick hit tips check out our Attacking / Spiking Category Tags which have posts that are a little more bite-sized.

If you're ready for deep dive, then let's get started.

Aside from actually practicing, there is NOTHING as crucial to your development in beach volleyball 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. Try a One on One Video Analysis session and get a 30-minute detailed breakdown and review of your footage. 

Get more from our beach volleyball courses....

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...

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 of...

Hey everybody and welcome to another Better at Beach video analysis. This is a match showing beach volleyball pros Mark Burik and Tri Bourne playing against Brazil but did you know you can get your game analyzed by real pro's right here?! If you've ever wondered how  an AVP or World Tour player would fix your game, looking no further than our one on one online beach volleyball coaching. We guarantee you will have a deeper understanding of beach volleyball strategy.

Open a tab by clicking one of the links above, then come back and let's show you how much you can learn through online beach volleyball coaching.

We have about a minute of clips here and we just want to go through the details of each point with you and see if we can pick up some new skills, new tips, and discover how the pros are doing it.

In this video we take a look at what goes into scoring points in beach volleyball at the World Tour level. This is one of my qualifier matches in 2016 in Rio....

It's not only the setter's responsibility to put the hitter in a good position. Great attackers put themselves in a position after the pass where it's easy to set them a perfect ball -- and if you'd like the most effective, fastest way to become the best setter on the beach, give our setting course a try!

When you have great footwork, and you religiously create a great distance relationship between yourself, your hitter, and the volleyball net, it becomes more likely that you will score points.

I want you to take special notice, that none of what I...