[00:00:00 - 00:00:49]
Brandon Joyner:
Imagine if basketball, like the backboard was like constantly rotating and pushing and stuff like that and like bumping the ball and stuff like this. And if that was the case, using a bank shot would be so hard board. But it's not like that. The backboard is stable. The backboard isn't moving. But with passing, we're obviously it's not locked in. So we have to figure out a way to align that backboard, allow that ball to see us. And then if we need to manipulate the ball a little bit as far as power or as far as giving it a little bit of height, then we can manipulate the ball then. But it's not going to be like a complete manipulation of just being like, okay, here comes the ball. All right. Now you got to go to setters location. It's all about establishing that stability. Once again, there's that word.
[00:00:52 - 00:02:48]
Mark Burik:
Welcome to the first edition of the Better At Beach Podcast.This is going to be streamed to YouTube. We're going to chop it up. We're going to put it on YouTube, and we're also going to put it on podcast outlets as well. So if you ever want to join us live at the live version, you are more than welcome to join us. You just need to either like our Facebook page better at beach volleyball or check out our YouTube channel and make sure you're subscribed to that.
What we're going to do on this podcast on this show is we're just going to coach, we're going to coach you, we're going to teach you ways to become better. We are going to get some cool guests who can hopefully challenge our ideas and discuss them at the same time. And I'm planning on bringing on players, bringing on coaches, bringing on sports psychologists, which I think we get a lot of requests in our email list and our Facebook group from people want to see and hear the mental side of sports and how to fix that. So that's what we are heading into.
So if you're following along, welcome to our first effort at a new skill club. And, you know, I guess life lesson from here that me and Brandon have learned about starting a company and about playing sports at a high level is, man, just try it. Just start. I mean, there's so many people who don't play their first tournament for years. You know, when they're starting in beach volleyball, they're nervous about playing a tournament because they don't know how to start, how to get there. And we do not know how to do what we're doing. But we bought our beach volleyball, we bought our headphones, and we're going to start by doing it. And then we'll get the critique from there.And we can only be better, but you can only get better if you start.And I think that's my first piece of advice for today. What do you say, Brand? Yeah, I like it.
[00:02:48 - 00:03:13]
Brandon Joyner:
And I think kind of anytime you get a chance to open your Horizons of learning a new skill, whether it's volleyball or talking and speaking to people, the communication and the kind of relationships that will develop from that are amazing. I think that's why we're here, to open that Avenue up a little bit more.
[00:03:17 - 00:04:28]
Mark Burik:
We have this YouTube channel, right? We've got a great Facebook group, people who are constantly asking questions and great volleyball minds who are always answering them in the group. And what I realized is through a podcast, I listen to maybe three podcasts per day. I'm not always fully engaged, but some of the skills that I've learned on podcasts from beach volleyball and then a lot about building a business. Podcasters at this point on their podcast episodes when they were a guest with somebody like the Side Hustle Show podcast, the online course creators podcast, all these that I'm listening to, and I'm learning from. And I said, wait a second. I personally am learning from all of this, and I'm not even putting that out there. So now that our YouTube channel is really strong and we've got great engagement on it, we said we got to meet people where they are. So if you're able to listen to us while driving in your car or while cooking dinner or whatever, then it's another Avenue to get better at our really cool sport.
[00:04:30 - 00:05:10]
Brandon Joyner:
Yeah. And I think talking your way through some things I've known recently, like, I've been having a lot of conversations with coaches about certain ideas. And I think being able to just communicate it and try to figure out a way to voice what you're trying to do. I know with my background being a teacher, I learned something very well when I'm studying it, but then being able to talk about it and teach it to somebody else or just have that conversation, it's just a really good way to shore up your understanding of something.
And I think it helps along the way as well.
[00:05:10 - 00:05:55]
Mark Burik:
Couldn't agree more. Before we get started, we'll probably have a jingle at some point and maybe some cool graphics and somebody with a deeper, cooler voice saying, this is a podcast. We'll get Hudson Bates on here doing it, but few announcements this coming week. If you guys are in New York or Long Island, I'm coming home. For those of you who don't know, I'm from Queens, and I hang out a lot in Long Island with my buddies there. And there is an indoor beach volleyball facility. It's got two courts. It's called Endless Summer in Long Island. And I'm going to be running a two court clinic. There's going to be three sessions. That's this Saturday. What is the date for this Saturday? 19th. 18th?
[00:05:55 - 00:06:01]
Brandon Joyner:
Yeah, right around there. 19th.
[00:06:01 - 00:07:57]
Mark Burik:
And you can find out. You can sign up for that at betterbeach. Comclinics. So if you're in the New York area and you want some information, go ahead and you can DM me on Instagram. I will bring up my little Instagram account onto the live screen right here. And if you want to DM me there, you can if you just want to sign up, go to better Beach.com Clinics Next announcement is that our April camp booking goes live. Now, we've been having a lot of fun in Florida, like a lot of fun in Florida. And we've got a great hotel partnership and the Postcard Inn, and we have sold out the December camp. We sold out the January camp. We actually still have spots for the open men's level. So if you're an open male player, we have a great highly competitive court already set up. We're just looking to add more bodies to that. So if you're an open men's player and you want to get in on the account that's the January 2 to January 9 dates, get in touch with us quick because you can't book it anywhere else unless you come through us. So make sure that you're sending us a message. December 26 is, of course, sold out. And like I said, April 3, our camp on April 3 is going live today at 05:00 P.m.. Anybody who's on our email list will get first notice. Well, first our Beach Volleyball Mastery members from our coaching group, then after that half hour, then we send it to our email list and then we pump it out into our social media. So if you are interested in being one of the first to sign up, we only have 40 spots per camp. We like to keep it small so that our coaching quality stays high and just be ready if you want to book it, because I get the feeling that this one will sell out the fastest that we've ever sold out.
[00:07:57 - 00:09:00]
Brandon Joyner:
And if you don't know anything about our camps, if this is the first time you're hearing about it, we run these adult vacation volleyball camps where people are meeting us in St. Pete Beach, Florida. It's a week long and we pretty much have a focus every single day of what we're trying to make you better at. We give you a lot of really good coaching. All of our coaches are beyond phenomenal. Every single time we run a camp, I think Mark and I are ecstatic of how good those coaches are. And then we have just a lot of fun too. So not only are you getting back, but a lot of opportunities to play in little fun tournaments. We go out every single night and have like theme nights and dress up and party, and it's just like adult summer camp, just a blast. So if you have any questions, support or anything,
[00:09:00 - 00:11:26]
Mark Burik:
awesome. So April camp is going live. If you guys ever want to join us for a clinic as well on that camps page, betterbeach. Comcamps, you can fill out the form that says, hey, I might want you guys to come to me and run a clinic in my hometown. We would love to do that. We have a lot of open dates, and we are going to San Francisco on January 28. We are going to Grand Sands in Ohio on March 11. We are going to the Ozark facility, which is ten indoor courts in Missouri, on March 25. We're going to the Dino on April 22. And hopefully we can set up a little clinic there. Hopefully we're setting up a clinic with Buds on April 29. And for Westchester Volleyball in New York, we will be there May 6. If you want us to come to your hometown, let us know if you got a facility or you have a club and you want us to run a clinic with you, let us know that's it. Are you ready? Are you ready for the lesson? I'm ready. Let's teach some volley. Let's teach some volley. All right. So today's topic, today's lesson, what we're going to be talking about is nine ways to fix your passing. So we're going to talk about servicie if we're going to talk about passing and we're going to talk about everything. The most common things that we saw now we're able to build a list of nine things, and we just did it 20 minutes before the show and we said, okay, we'll talk about that. We'll talk about that, talk about that. And a lot of these are really common, but not all of these apply to every player. So you don't have to think about all of these, but one at a time, you need to add one of these to your repertoire. You cannot try to do all of these at the same time because then they'll all get away. So if you guys want to write them down or if you ever want to refer back to this video or this recording, you guys let us know what sticks out as far as the most helpful. And anytime we get those little things in our private messages and we get those people who reach out to the email and say, man, this fixed everything for me. That's a good feeling for us. So stay in touch. Number one. Brandon, you want to take it down because you said that this was advice from me that got you.
[00:11:26 - 00:14:09]
Brandon Joyner:
Yeah. So the first thing is we called a rib tuck. And my background when my volleyball history is I was a setter in College. So setting is a very touchy kind of play, whereas passing is very structured. So it took me a long time to kind of figure that out. And one of the first things that Mark told me when I first moved out to California, I don't remember how long ago this was, but I was having a day where my passes weren't as consistent as Mark or myself would want them to be. And he told me about this rib tuck and what a rib tuck is. If you want to try it with me when you're at home, even if you're sitting down, it's almost like just act like you're doing a crunch. And if you do a crunch and you can kind of feel like you're tucking that bottom rib, then it allows your back to kind of round at the top. And when you're doing that, that structure of your back, wherever that is, is really important because whenever you're talking about keeping that structure, whenever we do a crunch or we do that rib tuck, it allows our core to stay strong. And I think when you can keep your core strong throughout a pass and you can really focus on keeping that shape, that rounded back or that rib tuck, if you can keep that shape throughout your pass, then the consistency of your pass, you're going to be able to find that. I think a lot of times when people start passing, especially if they start making errors, then they try to manipulate the ball a little bit more, whether it's by swinging their arms or trying to bend their elbows and kind of push a ball towards the target. But this rip tuck allows you to find something that you can concentrate on doing every single time. And I think when you're able to do that, one of the big things that I try to focus on when I'm passing is really trying to think about what my distance is from my hips to my platform. Like my wrist. I like that. And if that distance starts to get smaller, then I notice that my passing is a lot harder to control. But if I can maintain that distance and I can keep I don't need it to be at absolute largest distance. But if I can keep that distance away from me, then it allows me to set up my platform a little bit better, allows me to hold my path a little bit stronger. It allows me to track better and longer. And yeah. So I think the ribtuck is one of the biggest takeaways that I've personally felt on the beach when I'm talking about passing.
[00:14:09 - 00:16:10]
Mark Burik:
I love that. One thing that I don't think you touched on is that it also gives you that space. Once your hands start as far away, then you can always pull back. You can always make those late adjustments with your platform and get yourself a little bit extra time or a little bit of extra space before you contact the ball. But if your norm is like if you put your triceps on top of your chest, your chest is slaring. If that's your norm, you have no more room to go backwards. So that if that ball floats a little bit more or you don't quite want to pass it yet or your feet aren't quite in the right position yet, you're going to get trapped if you don't have that space. And I think that's what I love about it. And a lot of people make that one mistake of you say, like, roll that back, guys. We're not saying to roll your entire spine. It's the top of your spine, your bottom, your lumbar spine down. There still needs to be, like, straight and rock solid. That's a part of your core engagement. That's how you're going to stay fast. So don't go all slinky back and don't do what my wife does. When I say, like, hunch, because she's a gymnast. Right. And she likes to be up straight, and I'm like, hunch, and she makes fun of me, she goes like this. And I'm like, yes, but just with less sass. Right? So key number one, guys ribtuck to keep that space from your platform to your chest. That's going to pay absolute dividends because you'll have more space, you'll have an earlier platform, and you will have the tendency to push the ball to the net a lot less. Right? Because once your hands are stuck to your platform, then your platform gets down a lot. And even if they're kind of close, but then you pull back and then you expose this like you come up with your chest, then you're going to send that ball back to the back line so that space, that rip tuck is going to be a big thing. Anything else for key number one on riptuck, Brandon?
[00:16:10 - 00:17:05]
Brandon Joyner:
No, I think it's good. I think if you want to try to practice this, a really good drill is to just have somebody kind of serve you deep, short, whatever, and really try to focus on just maintaining that rip tuck to hold what your movements have to be to get to the ball. I think a lot of times when, especially when we get a really deep high serve, people have this tendency to rise up and watch it with their whole body. And whenever they rise up, then now they're having to refine that shape and refine that platform. And I think it just takes too long. And as you get leveling up into intermediate, advanced, double, AAA, whatever, if you start standing up and taking that time, then that's when your passing is just going to fall apart. So, yeah, I think just really focusing on that riptock, it's perfect. I like it.
[00:17:05 - 00:20:04]
Mark Burik:
All right. Key number two, track early. This was a big one for me. A lot of people have watched us play over a lot of years. So they all get this. We get a lot of unsolicited advice and commentary on our game. And when I was younger, I think a few people used to say, well, you just lost focus. You just lost focus. And I was just like, Screw you. I want no part of talking to you. Don't tell me that I'm the guy who lost focus. Like, when I'm sitting there on the court I paid attention at every second. And then as I got older, I kind of took a look back at that and I started understanding, wait a second, what are the keys that I'm looking at? What are the keys that I'm not looking at? And one of the things that I noticed is that I didn't have a visual sequence for looking at the serve and the server. Right. Like, when does my mind and where do my eyes cue in? I would look at the whole picture and I would kind of take that all in instead of trying to get precise details. Now, when that server gets it all the time, as soon as the ball is in the server's hands, he's like locked in, never not looking at that server. I've started doing that, trying to pick up exactly what side of the ball that person is going to contact if their hands slightly underneath it, if their hands just on the outside of it or on this side of it. And, well, you're getting information and yeah, you're eventually going to pick up the flight, but you're getting the information so much earlier. And once you have that information earlier, your feet can be there early. You can be more stable. You read the ball, you're in a better position, and you're fully engaged. So this is sequence or track early. What are you looking at and when do you look at it? You have to start doing that on every single play and just keep reminding yourself, just do it on every single play. What am I looking at and am I looking at it and picking it up as early as I possibly can? And I think that's going to go a long way and then also pay dividends for attacking when people are attacking. Once you start looking at that correct sequence and don't look at the shoulder, everybody says, look at the shoulder, look at the hitting shoulder. I'm so tired of that feedback. It makes no sense. You cannot determine direction from this. And I don't know why coaches told me so early on, look at the hitters shoulder. It doesn't make any sense to me. I'm looking at elbow, I'm looking at hand contact and that impact window of where that player is about to hit the ball. So track early, get your eyes on the ball and get your eyes on that hitting, the impact window where the hand is going to meet the ball. And I think that'll pay a long what about you? What do you like to look at when a service?
[00:20:04 - 00:22:24]
Brandon Joyner:
Yeah, I think something that I've really started picking up on. And this is kind of our coach in College, his name is Froze. In my opinion. He is probably the best technical coach that I've ever experienced in my life. His ability to show you and understand what people should look like while they're passing. And then one thing that he kind of experimented a lot when I was in College with our pastors. And I just got to watch it a lot because I was a setter was kind of being ready to move, but finding a way to use your body to kind of get in rhythm with the server as well. And I think if you can get in rhythm with the server and you can understand, like you're saying and picking up on your I sequence and what you're supposed to be looking at and what you're going to be moving towards, then I think it really helps because it's one thing to look at a hitter and be like, okay, they're serving here. I'm going to try to beat it. But if you can somehow one thing that he had our pastors do was kind of sway back and forth a little bit. And this allowed them to kind of get into their own rhythm with that server. And then as that ball was served, it almost feels like you're dancing with that ball as it's coming over the net and you understand where you're trying to get to and where you're trying to finish. And it doesn't become like this. You chasing something. I think that's kind of one of the hard parts of service, Eve, especially when we're thinking about tracking, is that it's like, oh, they served the ball. Now it's my turn to run and make sure that that ball doesn't touch the sand. But I think if you can really use your eye sequence, your ideas and really picking up on that rhythm and looking and seeing what their contact points are going to be, then not only are you tracking early, but you're moving early and you're moving relaxed. And I think if you can get that eye sequence correct, then it turns a ball that you're moving a lot on. It doesn't make it feel stressful. It just makes it feel a little soft and nice. So I think that if you can figure out that tracking, it's definitely something that can help.
[00:22:24 - 00:26:20]
Mark Burik:
Hell, yeah. All right, track early, get your eyes there and you will be a better passer. Key number three. All right, number three, how to fix your passing. Key number three. We're going to say stable torso. This actually kind of combines with rip tuck, right? And of course, tracking is going to help this. But a lot of people, when they move or when they're shuffling, they get into this kind of gallop because that's how your legs want to move, right? Like your hip wants to extend your knee, wants to extend your quad wants to flex. So when you're side shuffling, that high extension, when you get into that triple extension, that athletic move, it's going to naturally try to lift your body body is not necessarily meant to side shuffle. It doesn't operate very quickly or efficiently like that. So we all get this kind of waving gallop when we go for a side shuffle. And then same thing for high deep serves or short serves or anytime the server puts up a ball, your body just gets naturally attracted to it. And I call this the Yoyo effect or Labrador syndrome. Right. Where when you're messing with a dog and you just throw a ball and you see their whole body go after it and their whole body starts reacting instead of just their head and they move. Now if you can prevent that from happening, if you can keep this quiet instead of popping all the time, like making those ribs come out, making your body go up and down in the end, what everybody needs to realize. And throughout the course of this podcast, guys, this recording, you're going to hear me refer to this again, again and and again. But passing, serve, receive. It's an accuracy skill. So while I have next to no experience with firearms or with being a sniper, I have seen some Matt Damon movies, and I think that qualifies me as an expert in marksmanship. You are the born. So that's established. Now when we're talking about passing, you don't want to be moving. Of course. Let's just say you're shooting something or you got a bow and arrow. It's harder on a horse or harder when you're moving than it is when you're stable. So do you like to be stable? Yes. But if you're like coming in, you're a CIA and Special Forces. When you're coming into a building, you're keeping this super quiet and all of this super stable and out and prepared. It's not like running with your arms pumping. So you have to keep things stable in order to be accurate so that your eyes can track the ball better. So I like to give people along with that rib tuck advice is put a plastic shell like a cast on the entire upper body from your ribs, like from maybe your belly button all the way until your head. And if you can feel like you're locked into that cast for a little bit, that'll help with this big explosive moves that come from your torso and that last second jerk. Right? That's what's going to affect you in a really negative way when you're passing. So one of my favorite keys is 100%. Keep your torso stable and fight for that. And the more you see it moving, if you just record yourself from the side of the court, anytime you're in serve, receive, check out to see how much the level of your torso and the shape of it changes. And you can coach yourself just by recording yourself from the side. So that is my fourth key, the better it is. Fourth key. Sorry, that's a third key. Keep your torso stable. What do you got?
[00:26:20 - 00:28:40]
Brandon Joyner:
I think the fourth one is making sure that you're squeezing your hands and your platform. Okay. I think I came I did a video a little bit ago and one of the big things that I spoke about was just being able to hold your finish. And I think, like, especially if we're going from a stable torso, the next thing that you have to think about is your platform, right? And a lot of us, we have these holding positions that kind of have the ability to move. But something with me is like, I really want to hold my finish, right. So whenever I make a pass, I don't want my platform to break apart. And I think the key words that you're going to hear a lot throughout this podcast, throughout this kind of introduction, we're talking about passing is stability and strength. And if we're able to hold that platform and squeeze our hands, then that's going to make sure that your platform is as strong as possible. And if you can make that platform really strong, then that's when the ball is going to bounce off it very nicely. There's not going to be a different way that you're passing the ball every single time. I think people that hold their platform kind of weak, the ball might touch their platform a little different each time that they pass. And then they're like, why is the pass not going where it wants? And it's like, well, the ball is listening to you. The ball is the dumbest thing on the volleyball court. If you're wondering why the ball isn't going where you want it to, it's because you're telling it to go somewhere else. And I think if you can squeeze that platform, if you can squeeze those hands and you can have the same kind of platform that the ball should be bouncing off every single time, then that's going to allow you to think of something different. Maybe it's an angle, maybe it's where you're putting your feet. It's just something along those lines. So I think if you can hold your hands, squeeze those hands, hold that platform tight, it will allow you to focus on other things like your torso, like your platform, like that rip, tuck, maybe foot movement.
[00:28:40 - 00:32:14]
Mark Burik:
It was the biggest thing for me, that hand squeeze thing, because we're going to catch a lot of commentary on this. But I get into this discussion non stop about how early to hold your platform and how early to get it there. And again, I'm going to call back to accuracy training, right. You don't want to wait until the last second to aim at something and put it together. And then imagine you had to aim it, then cock it, then pull it. Right? Now you've got a lot to do late, and that's going to lead to errors. When you leave a lot to do late and volleyball in life, you're going to make more mistakes. So all of that early preparation, getting your hands together and locking them. What I used to do is I used to try to track float service. And I'm sure a lot of people do this as well. But when you track it, your arms, they do think and act separately. They do not act as one thing. They move in the same motion. But these guys are acting independently. And when you're trying to get that perfect spot on a float surf, both of your arms are going to choose a different spot at a very slightly microseconds different time. And that's when either you're not going to get your arms together and that ball will die. Like you said, it will just die right off your hands or one arm will be in the perfect spot and it will make the correct angle, but the other arm won't be there to back it up. And that's when you get a shank off to the side. So I get into the discussion a lot with people like, oh, well, if you have people put their hands together, they always shank off the side of their body. And I see no reason. The only reason that you would do that is because you just didn't dip a shoulder. It has nothing to do with this. And if you look at the elite passers in the world, you will see all of them get their hands together just as that ball is crossing the net and they're not waiting until the ball is 3ft from them. So if the ball is already like, if my hands are together when the balls cross in the net, how much difference is it going to make if I put my hands together basically on the serve? Not a lot. The only argument you have is that it's a little bit harder to counterbalance your body as you're moving. But we should be one to 1.5 steps from 90% of our surf receives. So I don't find any value in leaving my hands apart so that they come together at the very last second. And I don't think that that value overrides the speed drop that you have for that one and a half steps. If you were a wide receiver and I was throwing you a 40 yard pass, I would not have you run like this, right? Yeah. Then I'm going to run. And then, of course, for like the last two or three steps, your hands start preparing. And that's the same thing for volleyball. Your hands start preparing by those last two steps. And if you're in serve receive, you're really not taking a step. It's a step one way, a shuffle step one way, or shuffle step the other way. So squeezing those hands enforces that locking mechanism and make sure that one hand doesn't try to pull away at the moment of impact. And I think that for me, that was a monster difference. And I had to completely override everything that so many coaches have told me. And I was like, you know what? I'm not going to have any of these weak, low passes anymore. I'm locked, I'm squeezing it I'm making it firm and I'm bringing it together early. And I'm chalking like a baseball bat.
[00:32:14 - 00:33:07]
Brandon Joyner:
Yeah. I think especially when we start talking about, like when they do this, they start shanking. There are so many other variables when we're talking about passing. And I think the biggest thing it comes down to is being a simple machine. Like when you are passing, if you can eliminate a movement, you should. And a lot of people, especially beginners. What we see is we see them putting their hands together, releasing their hands, bending their elbows, sometimes praying, sometimes moving. But if you're watching an ABP finals somewhere, these people are getting the surf hit at them, and they're doing the most minimal movement they can to make their platform strong. And if that's you holding your platform early and then tracking while you're doing that, if that helps you get your platform together stronger and you're able to hold it longer, then obviously that's going to help.
[00:33:07 - 00:35:36]
Mark Burik:
Absolutely. We covered that key effectively. Yeah, that was good. Nice. Hopefully, you guys are getting a lot out of that. I think there's some busyness in our chat going on. So guys keep throwing in those questions, keep throwing in those comments, and after this, we're going to get in there and we're going to do some Q and A with you. So if something comes up that we're talking about and you're like, wait, that doesn't quite make sense. Throw it into the chat right now. We'll scroll through it and, of course, make sure that you stay to the end so that maybe you can throw that question in again if it's really important to you. So stay tuned for that live Q and A. And we're going to move on to our next key number five guide or push the ball, don't hit it. When we see people pass the ball who don't understand, like, what the angle does, that they're setting up a place for that ball to approach them, and then it just reflects off of them. I think people kind of treat it almost like it's a flyswatter, like they want to touch and then leave, touch and then leave. So bringing it back to some of the other keys that we talked about, get your hands out there early and let that allow that ball to bounce off of you. But if you hit and retreat, if you act like this is a hit or a high five, instead of carefully guiding the ball or like tossing an infant, apparently, people don't toss babies nowadays, but back in my day when we were chucking babies across the sand, it was a very soft and fluid movement. And if you're passing, it should be the same. You shouldn't feel this. And most people don't know that they're doing it, but their hands retreat immediately. They bring them out quick. They pull them away quick. Instead of some people, like, maybe you're about to jump into this, but hold that trophy post. Show the form of your path. Long after the touch, you've got time to get to your next position. So think about pushing the ball, guiding it with your forearms and not touching it or hitting it. That's a big key that we see mostly in beginners. But a lot of intermediate, advanced people still have that necessity to just pull away as soon as they've contacted the ball. And you should just massage it, enjoy the pass, stay in there.
[00:35:36 - 00:38:22]
Brandon Joyner:
Yeah, I think that word surprise is a really interesting thing to think about when you're playing volleyball. Like, when you're passing and setting the ball should not be surprised when it's getting touched. It should be a long touch. If the ball had eyes and when it was coming over the net, it should see that platform out there early. It should know, like, oh, I'm going to bounce off this platform and I'm going to go to this different location. I like that all had eyes, what would it see? But a lot of times, especially with beginners, when we see this really jolty pass or this really jolty set. But if the ball once again had those eyes and it's coming over the net, it's like, where am I about to bounce off of? And then all of a sudden at the last second, it's like, oh, crap. Now I'm 60ft in the air, and this person just passed the ball up there. So I think if the ball had eyes, if it's able to see that platform as early as possible, then that's when the control really comes in. Kind of the same thing. I always talk about basketball and Tim Duncan. I think a lot of us know who Tim Duncan is. If you don't, he's phenomenal basketball player, hall of Famer, and kind of known for, like, his bank shot. Whenever I think about somebody who perfected the craft of a bank shot, like, I think of Tim Duncan. Yeah. And he was able to figure out where does he need to hit the ball on the backboard and get that ball to bounce into the rim every single time. But basketball is definitely not an easy sport. There's a reason I don't play it anymore. But you're able to figure out where you can play, where you can shoot this ball and go in. It can still go in the hoop by hitting it off of a platform or the backboard. Imagine if basketball, like, the backboard was constantly rotating and pushing and stuff like that and bumping the ball and stuff like this. And if that was the case, using a bank shot would be so hard. But it's not like that. The backboard is stable. The backboard isn't moving. But with passing, obviously it's not locked in. So we have to figure out a way to align that backboard, allow that ball to see us, and then if we need to manipulate the ball, a little bit as far as power or as far as giving it a little bit of height, then we can manipulate the ball then. But it's not going to be like a complete manipulation of just being like, okay, here comes the ball. All right, now you got to go to setters location. It's all about establishing that stability. Once again, there's that word.
[00:38:22 - 00:45:14]
Mark Burik:
Okay? So guide or push it, don't hit it. Key number six. There's a long one. We could have easily done, like, five keys, save ourselves an episode. But we do have like, 100 episode list that we can go through and we can just riff on. And if you guys are listening, if you're ever out there, if there's something that we should be talking about, here's what we do. We take our Facebook group, Volley Chat get better at Beach Volleyball If you're not in that Facebook group and you love beach volleyball, you need to be in that Facebook group. Go ahead and join. Because we run a very tight ship. We make sure that everything there is to get you better at our sport. And if you're not engaging in conversations. So if you're just kind of posting and sending out stuff instead of helping others when they post and then you get to say your piece, right, then you get to post something. We're going to remove you or freeze you. And we have a number of people working on that who are doing that. So we keep it pretty spam free. And all of the questions that we see in that group that get a lot of conversation. We take a look at that, we throw it into our Excel sheet and we say, hey, it's obvious that people want to hear about this. They want to discuss it. So we need to make a video on it, or we need to record a podcast on it. So if you guys are not a part of Volley Chapped, get Better at Beach Volleyball on Facebook, go ahead and join that group so that you get to hear our announcements and you can ask questions and engage and then at some .1 of your good questions is going to be covered by us here on these recordings or on one of our YouTube videos. That being said, since that was kind of a commercial interruption to join our community, I just wanted to let everybody know, who doesn't know? For the people who take our classes in California and come to our camps, we run courses, and we have an online coaching group that meets two times per week where we meet just like this, except all of our members meet. They all submit their videos piece by piece and submit their questions. And those are the first people that we answer. So when we structure, like how we're going to order our day, we answer our emails first. Then we go into our private Facebook groups with our coaching members and then we go into volley chat and then we kind of go and disperse ourselves to our individual social medias. So that's our hierarchy of response. So if you want to be on our priority list or you want to get questions answered or you want to learn the game. But in a very in depth way. We have structured courses, so we have a fixer arm swing course, which Brandon wrote. We have an attacking course side out and win tournaments. We have a 30 day setting course, we have a Max vertical jump program and a few others as well. And what you can do once you get into those groups is you can choose to take your own course. So you take one of the courses or you can follow with the group. So Joe, who is running those practices, those meetings right now, she takes everybody through one course at a time. And then she says, here are your drills for the next two days. Go do them at home or try to find a wall or try to find a volleyball court and you'll be able to do them. You record them, you post them to our private Facebook group. And then we coach you wherever you are in the world. We are coaching you on your technique, on your strategy, on your in game decisions. So we really invite you to do that, go to bedropbeach.com, check that out, and become a beach volleyball Mastery member. And then you get to work with the coaches personally and you get all of those courses laid out piece by piece so that you have a structured set of tutorial introduction to the lesson and then how to fix it with the drills that you get to do at home. And no, you do not need a partner, you don't need a facility. We show you how to maximize every course, every skill, every concept, and be able to do it from home. So for anybody who's ever interested in that better Beach.com, it's our beach volleyball Mastery group and you can take those courses and we coach you through it. And if you don't want to do that, if you like the in person stuff, meet us for a camp. The six key is kind of easy and can go quick. And again, it also touches back on our first key, which is the ribtuck, the shoulder shrug. A lot of guys, people, I think, guys especially, they say, oh man, I can't get my elbows to touch. Is that a problem, first of all? No, it's not a problem. But over time, your body will become more flexible in the positions that you put it at. So if this is as close as you can get, your elbows well, if you put yourself for a long time in this position every day by passing and playing volleyball, this becomes a new normal for your body. And then now your extended range gets to here and then your extended range gets to hear. So it is partly mobility and your arms will come closer together the more that you kind of force them into that mobility position. So don't worry right now if your elbows aren't touching. Some people's elbows never, ever touch, but a lot end up doing that because they pass so much that their body starts reshaping for them. The more you put yourself into that position, much like if you're sitting at a computer, this will then shrink your range of motion. It will be harder for you to stand up straight the more you sit on your computer and roll yourself forward, right. However, here's the cool part. If you sit at your computer, you might be in a better passing position because your shoulders get shrugged and you're able to get into this position. So if you're at home and you're thinking like, how can I get myself into a good passing position? One of the keys I'd like to give is go ahead and try to rub your cheeks with your biceps, get them up nice and high and see if you can snuggle in between those biceps. And then once your shoulders are up and the thing about it is they come up and they protract, right? That's a big key, is that they don't just come up like this and backwards because that's a weird position to be in. And you're limiting hip to hand distance, which we already talked about. But if you go out so you protract and you shrug and you've got this little pocket for your head to be in this cart's cry, like looking through your thumbs style, you're going to have your hands away from your hips, which is going to help you right? Your arms are going to be able to get a little bit closer together. There'll be less separation because my shoulders can be closer together when I'm protracted and shrugged than they can from a good position here. So you're going to limit that space in between your elbows.
[00:45:14 - 00:45:47]
Brandon Joyner:
Once you shrug and roll forward, it's important to realize that you're doing that before you're touching. You're not doing that in the action of your pass. If you at the end of the day when you're done playing, if you're sore here, then more than likely when you're passing, you're doing this kind of jolted move. And we want to avoid that. We want to make sure that we're able to extend away and we're able to get that shape set up beforehand.
[00:45:47 - 00:48:25]
Mark Burik:
So key number seven. Know when to pass with your hands, like your actual hands. So we're not going to give you the key of how to build your hands. Put your fingers perpendicular, your thumbs parallel. Okay, maybe we just did, right? But we want your thumbs to be parallel however you do it. Now, if you do it like this, that's okay, we teach like this so that you have some grip and so that there's a little bit less of a Ridge when you flatten your hands out because thumbs can get a little bit flatter there and they're a little lumpy here. Is that going to make a humongous difference? No. There are tons of passers that pass both ways and still get to the top of the world. But we like this because it's easy to teach and because you have a grip, you have a nice solid grip. Now, sometimes you can't reach a ball. Sometimes, no matter how fast you are, how fast you're moving, you just can't reach it. And especially on short serves or diving plays, people still try to use their forearms when you're not going to be able to generate enough bounce velocity, the ball is not going to bounce hard enough off of your platform to get to the necessary height. So if you're just barely trying to reach the ball outside and you can't get it on your forearms, that's okay. That's why you have this built for yourself, because this is now a big, fat, wide, flat platform. I talked to Alex Volkenhorst from Germany, one of the top German blockers, one of the top players in the world, and he says that he tries to pass with this big, wide surface. He's like, look, my hands are actually wider than my forearms would be. So he says that he tries and now I disagree with that a little bit, trying to just pass with your hands. But if you can't reach the ball, you have to know, like when you're reaching short, you're extended or you're diving or your body is on its way down and you know that the ball has to come up. This forearm dig is not going to give you enough power. So it's okay to take that use your hands and wrists because that's going to be a hard, bony surface. It's going to make the ball bounce better. And if you're reaching outside, then you can manipulate this angle because it's still an angle, and then you're going to have a nice hard bounce and you're going to be able to use that. So for me, one of the passing keys that we don't talk a lot about is know when to pass with your hands. And I think a lot of people end up when they can't reach it. Then they open their hands like this and then they start trying to Chuck it, right, because they think I can't reach it, I can't get my forearms on it. So then they slap at it instead, just manipulate the angle using the end of your hands. We've never talked about that. Brandon, what do you think about that? Because we've really never discussed that, except
[00:48:25 - 00:51:56]
Brandon Joyner:
I like it a lot, and it's necessary to know what you can still do to make the pass perfect. I think it's just important to say that it's almost like an emergency touch. It's the same idea as if you're in a position where you can decide if you're going to pass or Tom Hawk, you should probably pass. If you're in a position when you're served receiving and you can choose to use your platform over your hands, then you should probably use your platform over your hands. But if you're in an emergency touch where you're not able to get all the way there, then that's where those hands come in handy. And it obviously increases your range just that much further. So if you're somebody like for me, I'm not hopefully nobody's watching that can take advantage of this. But probably everybody knows already I'm not great at passing short serves. So one of the things that I really had to do to kind of give me a heads up on that was to start learning how to pass with my hands because for some reason, that really, really short serve is just tough for me to get to sometimes. So it's just another tool that you can use to kind of help yourself out. All right. Number eight is balanced feet and no jumping. So something that I've been thinking a lot about with passing is that wanting to make sure that after you're done with your foot movement, you feel balanced. And what I mean by balance is that you feel both of your feet on the ground. In a perfect world, your weight can be evenly distributed in that position. Maybe it's a little bit more on 1ft versus the other, depending on what side you got served. But the one thing that I see a lot is that people are either in like they put themselves into a lunge position when it's not necessary. Obviously, if you get sort of really short and you want to run up to the net and you have to kick out your leg and go into that lunch position to get to the ball and be stable, then that's one thing. But if there's a ball that's kind of served 2ft in front of your serving receive location and you're putting yourself into that lunge. I think every single one of us hates lunges as a workout. If you like lunges, then you're just sick. Yeah, right. But whenever you're doing a lunge, you notice that you start to get a little wobbly. And if you start to get wobbly when you're passing, then your platform is going to be wobbly. So I think if we can figure out a way to keep our feet, like shoulder width apart, evenly balanced, that allows you to be strong with your legs, that allows you to be strong with your torso and your upper body, kind of like the other T's that we've talked about today. And then one of the bigger things that we see a lot, especially in beginners, is that if you're able to find this balance and the strength within your feet, then it eliminates this jump. And we kind of start to see especially in beginners. If you're worried about the height of your past, instead of thinking about just giving the ball a little bit more cushion and love and get that ball higher with your platform. People use their legs and they do this jump almost like they're doing like a hang clean or something like that. And I think if you can keep your feet strong, keep them balanced. No jumping. You're not in the air. 1ft is not in the air while you're passing. I think it just makes your platform a lot more stable.
[00:51:56 - 00:53:02]
Mark Burik:
Absolutely. Again, nothing really to add to that. It's so simple, but it's so difficult to do because, again, the way we talked about tracking early, don't move your body, don't have those late jumps, and you ended up not quite trusting. It comes from not trusting where you are and not having the confidence, not having the repetitions to be able to do that guy. If you can find a way to go against a wall, a brick wall, a wall in your house and put your feet on the floor right, make sure that they can't move. And once your feet can't move, then pass to all different sides of you. Pass high, pass low, see what it's like to leave your feet on the floor and then get in those other positions. But don't let your hips keep jumping. You make sure that you're learning to just pass with your arms so that you have the ability to control your hips on that contact. Are we last key? We are. Let's do it, baby.
[00:53:02 - 00:55:42]
Brandon Joyner:
And it is trusting your angle. I think a lot of people don't realize that kind of going back to that idea of the backboard is that if you can get that angle established and if we're just kind of going full circle on this one, that ball is coming over the net and it has those eyes and it's able to see your platform. And if your angle is good and the way that we find this angle is if you put your hands together and then you dip a shoulder, that's normally just about all you need to get this ball to go to the setter's location or the middle of the court. What do we say, 6ft off the net, 6ft above the top of the antenna. It's not your job to physically take this ball and move it to the middle of the court. It's your job to set up an angle where the ball can bounce off of your angle and go to that location. And once we figure out that angle, then we can start thinking about how much power we need. And often I'll talk about miles per hour. And I'll say the goal of you when you're playing, we're just going to use easy numbers to make it make sense. But maybe your goal is throughout the rally, you need to keep that ball at 15 mph. Okay, somebody. And it's 20 mph. My job is to take 5 hours off of that ball. The way that I do that is I would set up my angle just as normal. And then when that ball hits me, I'm going to cushion or I'm going to break away. That's another whole other conversation on how to do that and then vice versa. If the ball is served to you and it's only 10 mph, then it's your job to add 5 mph to that. And that's the way that we would do that is by giving it a little push or allowing that ball to bounce a little bit harder off of your platform. But a lot of people don't trust the angle of their platform. So they get their angle set up and then they try to also push this ball to the location. And I think when we start to do that, that's when you start passing off the net, that's when you start passing too far on your partner's side. And yeah. So I think if you can set up that angularly and then trust it, especially when you're practicing, see what happens. I think so many times people aren't willing to just experiment when the ball gets served at them. And don't worry about the height for a second. Think about setting up your angle and see if it just goes to the location. And then after that, once you find that angle, then you can start thinking about height a little bit. But I think if you can find your angle and trust it, it's a game changer.
[00:55:42 - 01:01:39]
Mark Burik:
All right, so that's it. This is our first show. I think it was really cool. I think it's cool to be able to hear it, force ourselves to say it in a way when we can't show it. I think it's going to make us better coaches. It's going to probably help some of you learn a lot better. So what we want from you here, whether you are with us live or you're listening or watching the recording, go ahead into the comments. First of all, please like and subscribe. We're putting in a lot of time into all of our free content. We have an incredible library behind the paywall on our memberships and our courses on Better Beach. And we run some really fun training vacations, but it helps us when you guys get engaged. So if you haven't liked and subscribe, please go ahead and do that. We have better at beach volleyball on Instagram, but we are way more active on our Facebook group volley Chat. Get better at beach volleyball. That's where we have a lot of discussions. My Instagram is at Mark Burrak Not bureauc and then Brandon Joy Beachv. And if you guys want a free drillbook, we have 36 essential drills for beach volleyball that is at Better Beach.com. It will pop up for you and you'll be able to see a couple of different options as well. Remember, if you head over to the camps. Our registration for April 3 training camp in Florida and St. Pete beach consistently voted the top beach in the world, as well as the USA, of course, USA as well as the world, whichever comes first. It's a great beach. It's beautiful. There's a bar and a restaurant right next to the courts, big giant pool. And we go out and hang out with each other every night. Last two weeks got sold out. And that booking goes live today at 05:00 p.m.. Pst. If you are on if you're a part of our membership, then you will get first notice. If you are on our email list, you will be the second people to know. And finally, we will release it to the rest of our social media and everything as that registration goes live today. And if you want to dive into we talked about a lot about serve receipts today. We have a 30 day course. Now, does it take you 30 days to go through it? Now we really only have twelve to 13 videos, but then we have all of our meetings with previous coaching groups recorded where we go into detail, just like we did here. And those details, we think, is where people get the most benefit from that live training. So you're going to get that course, along with a setting course, a fixture arm swing course, an attacking course, a serving strategy course, a defender course, and appealing and blocking course. Plus, behind that wall, which we also sell separately if you want it. We have 20 fully recorded practice plans for beach volleyball. And that's also going to come with 38 more written practice plans. So if you're a coach or if you're just somebody who organizes all of your training with your friends and you want to jump into that, the practice plan. You can find all of this on our home page. And we would love to have you in our personal training groups, whether it's online or in California. We're at a camp. So come join us. Come hang out with us. And if you are in New York, I will see you in Long Island this Saturday, December probably 18th, I think Saturday the 18th. Going to run a little clinic, endless summer in Long Island. So DM me if you're interested. But if you know that you're ready to go, just go to bedterbeach. Comclinics. And if you want us to come to your facility, reach out, email us. We are trying to fill up all of these weekends. This is our very official scoring sheet. We run a tight ship and a special announcement for me personally, I'm starting a new podcast. I'm basically creating a school, of course, of learning for myself so that I can talk to other entrepreneurially mindseted people. I need to go back to English class. But other entrepreneurs who have developed businesses and are trying to create income from their sport. So if you are athletically minded and you have created a business, I want to talk to you. I want to interview. I want to learn how you did it so that we can share it and teach it to others. And if you're thinking about starting it and you are just worried about how much goes into it and a lot goes into it, but we can simplify that and we can give you some paths. That's going to be the entrepreneur podcast, and we'll be doing it similar to this and just hopefully interviewing people in a really cool way. So if you're interested in building a business or you're starting lessons or private training or you want to start a League, this is going to be a place where you can really learn a lot. So entrepreneur podcast is going to start. I've already done two interviews and learned a ton, and we just got to get them all edited. So that is all we have for the very first episode of The Better at Beach, Brandon. All right. So if you're listening to the recorded version, we will see you next time. And if you're on our email list, we will tell you so that you can be here live with us and get into the Q and A, which we are about to go through. Now,
[01:01:39 - 01:01:55]
Brandon Joyner:
I just want to start at the most recent ones. Mark. Goodkin. I'm going to go ahead and say that's how you say it. Yeah. Email us. Moonlight beach. I don't know where that is, but sounds great. I love playing volleyball under moonlight down in San Diego. San Diego.
[01:01:55 - 01:02:40]
Mark Burik:
Nice. I think it's just San Diego. Yeah. That'd be really easy. Mark, do you have a club there? Is that what we're talking about? Do you have a club or do you have just a group of adults and so need us because we need a certain number to make it worth it for us to travel. And we would love to work with clubs or groups. I know a lot of adult groups end up inviting us out, and it starts with like eight people, and then by the time we show up, they're up to like 30. So if you want to start doing that, we can get you in the books for a weekend. But reach out and just email me at Support at [email protected] Mark. And that would be fantastic if you could do that.
[01:02:40 - 01:02:57]
Brandon Joyner:
All right, next one. John Suite, S-U-Y-T-E-I don't know, but any tips on tracking and passing a Skyball? I got some really good info. So the first Skyball I ever passed in. Kerry Bulls,
[01:02:57 - 01:03:16]
Mark Burik:
do you have to give away the keys to passing a Skyball on this? I don't think too many people we play against are here, but. All right. You get to give one key to passing it.
[01:03:16 - 01:03:26]
Brandon Joyner:
Okay. Think about passing with your shoulders. Is that too much?
[01:03:26 - 01:03:27]
Mark Burik:
No, that's great.
[01:03:27 - 01:04:11]
Brandon Joyner:
Okay. So don't think about passing with your platform. Think about when you're tracking it, track it with your shoulders. That's all I'm going to say. Yeah. We got to win too many points at Fudge with Mark Skyball, so we can't give away too many secrets. I'm just going to keep going down. Do it. Mark Zen question on the shoulder shrug, can you confirm it is a shrug up and forward? Yes. That's kind of the biggest point that we want to make sure that you understand that it is not just up, it is up and away. So you should feel like you're shrugging towards the net, almost towards the ball.
[01:04:11 - 01:04:18]
Mark Burik:
Brandon's, looking through that flame blaster, do you all ever play in the Pots town Rumble? I feel like I've seen one of you guys before. I've only won it five times and
[01:04:18 - 01:04:26]
Brandon Joyner:
it ended my summer this year.
[01:04:26 - 01:04:32]
Mark Burik:
Oh, man. Yeah, it did after that. Yeah.
[01:04:32 - 01:04:44]
Brandon Joyner:
But little brag. I got third this year and Mark got fifth. So whatever. Just had to let the people know. Do you use the ribtuck when doing a bump set?
[01:04:44 - 01:06:01]
Mark Burik:
Yeah, but you flare up a little bit more. So like, you kind of still rise with it because that's a different path because your angle has to be up right. So your angle is going to be almost completely horizontal versus when a ball is coming at you. So you have to stay forward and crunch when you're in receive or receive a free ball or playing defense. But it's okay to stay up a little bit. However, you just got to be careful to still keep your hands away from your ribs, because if you bump set like this, where again, your platform is attached to your chest or your torso, you're going to be in trouble. So I always like to say make sure that people could tickle your armpits to open them up, don't close them down. And then once they're out and forward, then you can lift. So you're still going to start with a ribtuck. You're still going to like make sure that your air pits are armed, aired out. But you will come up and you might flare a little bit, especially if you're back setting. But that's just because of a different trajectory of the ball. It's coming straight down. So your platform should be straight out versus a ball that's coming at you and your platform is a little bit lower.
[01:06:01 - 01:06:07]
Brandon Joyner:
There's a question about the balls, the new optics design.
[01:06:07 - 01:06:11]
Mark Burik:
Can we be honest for a second? That pisses me off.
[01:06:11 - 01:06:52]
Brandon Joyner:
Yeah, it seems a little early, a little unnecessary, because everybody there hasn't even been like, I mean, this year, I guess we had somewhat of a full tournament season, but that was the first time that was the first time that because this ball didn't come out until the year before Covid. And so this was the first year that wasn't the tournament series that everybody got to play in the tournament. So now we already are supposed to buy new balls. It seems very interesting.
[01:06:52 - 01:07:14]
Mark Burik:
They're going to create enemies out of their own customers, the people who are loyal to them, loyal to the sport. People are already waiting for these balls to be they're backlogged constantly. So people are still dying to get this ball. And now they're going to switch it. Now they're going to take all that money and say, like, we've created a new ball and all the money that you've invested in us.
[01:07:14 - 01:07:47]
Brandon Joyner:
Now people are investing so much money. I know there are people buying 80 balls at a time and selling, getting tens for their friends. The amount of balls that those sold in those three years is probably way more than they normally sell. And now all those people, if they want to stay in and a lot of people like to have the new thing, then they just have to go around and do it again, which is kind of weird.
[01:07:47 - 01:09:17]
Mark Burik:
Yeah, it's a little annoying. And it's also like if anybody's been paying attention for four years, then you know how much they talked about, how much incredible research went into the optics and seeing the ball better. And this is the best scene volleyball in the entire world. We couldn't see the other one, the old one. You couldn't see it. I don't know how we played so blind. And then now by creating a new ball with a new color system, you say that your last research wasn't good enough, so all of your marketing was a little dishonest. I want to hear the conversations on it. I know that Wilson is doing a fantastic job of becoming a money monster. They've increased the price of their balls. They're now at the same price as the Macasses. They have this big storefront in Chicago, and they're trying to take over every beach volleyball League in the world, which, like whoever their CEO is right now, I forget his name. He's a monster. He's crushing it. But this change in ball right now, to me, it's just completely the wrong timing. And it makes me just feel like icky about it, the way that everything was working.
[01:09:17 - 01:09:22]
Brandon Joyner:
Aren't they now using the old design for College? I think I heard that somewhere. So maybe it has a to do with that. Like they're not allowed to make the NCA ball the same as the pro tour ball. I have no idea.
[01:09:32 - 01:09:34]
Mark Burik:
If anybody knows the answer to that, let us know.
[01:09:34 - 01:10:06]
Brandon Joyner:
But I'm hoping that it's something like legal and not just a money scheme. I really hope it's not. I am trying to tell my high school players how a good path feels in terms of their legs, core and platform. Should they feel a flexing of each that make a solid body form?
[01:10:06 - 01:11:15]
Mark Burik:
I wouldn't say flex Markson. If you're trying to flex the muscles, that's a little bit different. Sometimes when you flex one muscle, it makes the other one rigid, which is something that you could say. So instead of saying, like, flex a muscle, like when we say those keys to be able to squeeze your hands, right? When I squeeze my hands, it makes my forearms a little bit more rigid, right. Sometimes, like, even goes as far as locking the elbows. If I say flex your tricep, you don't have to flex any other muscle, but that locks your arm out, and that keeps you stable. So you don't necessarily need to flex, but you need to experiment with which muscles will engage. And two of those one of them is like, you don't want to flex your ABS, you can just tuck it and then they will be engaged. You don't have to flex your arms. You can just make sure that your tricep is active. Look at this. It's nice getting there. Bulking season, baby. Or flex, squeeze your hands. But I would stay away from flexing, especially stay away from flexing when we talk about arm swing and hitting, but we'll talk about that another one.
[01:11:15 - 01:12:27]
Brandon Joyner:
Yeah. And I think it's also just about feeling strong. I think when you're passing, you need to feel like you're in control. So whatever that means to you, for me. And I think it's also okay to say that your shape might look a little different. Like my shape versus Mark shape, they're not exactly the same. We have the same ideas of what we're trying to accomplish with the ribtuck, with the spacing, with our stability of our feet. But I think it's about trying to find that happy place where a pastor can live and feel comfortable moving while also feeling strong. And it takes a lot of experimenting to just find what that is, because I think a lot of people have really strong legs, so they're able to dip a lot lower when they're passing. A lot of people don't have really flexible hips, so they might have to stand up a little bit more on passing, and they might have to be really good with their feet. But I think it's just a matter of really trying to find what that stability and strength feels like for you as a passer. It's not a uniform thing that all volleyball players will feel at the same time.
[01:12:27 - 01:16:52]
Mark Burik:
I agree with that. So we have Ted. Ted, who's also Sunny sunny asks when receiving a hard spike or serve, Are you ever afraid of getting hit in the face? I find my fear of getting hit in the face hinders me sometimes, you know, or you accept that you might get hit in the face for the dig. I played Le Barrow in College, and I was willing to wear it just like right on that cheek. And yeah, it will happen. And if you're overly concerned with it, if fear is coming into like, it's going to hurt, then you're going to flinch. But the more you see those types of spikes, the more you can react, it happens. But it happens rarely that people get hit in the head and the way that the ball moves. Like, yes, there are concussions when people get hit with a hard spike, but they are pretty rare and the humans that are able to hit those balls are also rare. And if you find yourself on courts with people that hit that hard and that down, then you're playing high level volleyball and your defense should match that. But I've been hitting ahead a bunch and I've never like really been rattled and anecdotal evidence is not really evidence. But if you're staying in there more, I would just say make sure that your forearms are built so that the ball would come up if you didn't move right. Focus the ball on coming into your forearms and have your hands out so that your angle is already built when they're hitting that and it's not going to hurt that much. If you get hit in the head, it's still up to winning that point. Yeah, if you can get a second touch on it, the person that hit you in the face can scream and OOH and all as much as they want, but you still got the ball up. So I think that's good. I like math question. I met a great indoor player, the D one indoor on the sand who didn't have sand legs yet. What is the first thing you tell an indoor player to focus on to get comfortable on the sand? 100% is just spend a lot of time on the sand. There's no quick way to get your nervous system adapting to a completely different surface other than putting your feet on the sand, moving in. It learning how each one pushes and how you slide more or less. You just have to be on the sand constantly and there's no like fast way to get yourself used to it. You will have to jump a little bit more powerfully. You're definitely going to have to really engage your hamstrings and quads a lot more instead of using the spring from your Achilles. But a lot of the jump sequence is similar, but a lot is very different. And one thing that indoor players have to get out of when they come onto the beach is that left foot turn. So if you're right, usually when you step close, boom, that left foot, that block step turns in and it stops you sideways and that projects you up immediately. But we don't have that on the sand and people always teach that like open your hips to your setter and they have you do that foot turn on the sand and that does not work for the sand because you don't have the opportunity to hockey stop, you will lose too much energy. So instead you just kind of roll your right foot much like you do an indoor same as you do an indoor, but you don't need that hard football, that hard foot turn in the sand. You can keep that toe forward and rock forward because you'll spray too much sand. So less horizontal speed in the sand and more just pounding onto the last two steps. All right, we have time for, let's say two more questions, and then we're going to head out. But thank you, guys for staying with us. Still got quite an audience here, so I appreciate you.
[01:16:52 - 01:16:53]
Brandon Joyner:
That might have been it.
[01:16:53 - 01:17:07]
Mark Burik:
We got volleyball highlights. I've always heard some people say, always keep hips facing the net. And some people say rotate them away from the net to provide sharper passing angles. We just talked about this the other day.
[01:17:07 - 01:20:18]
Brandon Joyner:
We did. Yeah. I think this is probably one of the more debated concepts in passing. And I think that they're kind of the same when we are talking. For me personally, I 100% know that an angle is important. I think when we start dropping our hips, when we don't necessarily need to, I think it can cause a little bit of issues, allow you to establish your angle a little bit better. But if you're good with your feet and you can keep your shoulders facing the net a little bit longer and then find a way to angle your platform there, then I think it's a little bit easier to track from what I've experienced, especially I coached middle school girls when I was in Virginia, and this was after I had done some gold medal camps. And gold medal is very angle driven. It's like set up your angle, drop that back foot outside your body. And I just noticed when that was happening that it was making people shank balls a lot more. I think when you are an adult and you have a lot of the strength to get to a ball and do all these things, then that opening up your hip can definitely work. And a lot of people use it. Like, I was having this conversation with JM in Florida and we were in complete disagreement. He was like, no way. I'm never telling somebody to pass out of their midline. They're always going to take it outside their body. And I was just like, no way. If they can get behind it, they have to. So I think it really is one of those things that you kind of have to do. So for me personally, I pass the ball a lot better when I think about getting my midline behind it. And then if I can't get my midline behind it, then that's when I open up and I drop angles, drop feet, drop angles, and I'm able to do that. But I found for me personally, when I think about opening up and not getting the ball in my mid line, then my feet tend to get a little lazy. That's what I was going to say. What's the root of what helps you pass better. Now that you're saying that, are you making your feet move into a better position? And whether you even take the ball in your midline or outside it, just thinking about that maybe gets you moving to a better I think that might be the case because I think to be honest, I can probably pass very similar with passing them in my midline and rotating a hip away if I'm very conscious of it. But I've noticed when I'm in a gameplay and especially if I'm tired and if I'm not thinking about getting my body all the way behind the ball, then that's when I start messing up a little bit. So I don't know that's my standpoint on it.
[01:20:18 - 01:22:29]
Mark Burik:
Yeah. And there were two studies, right. So Goldbeddle Square, like the Olympic coaches, they did a study with indoor players and they measured the effectiveness and they said, okay, this was an in the midline pass, this is an in the midline pass. And there's something to be said about in your forearm passing, getting it in the midline, how many more serves in indoor volleyball, or maybe jump serves versus float surfs? The thing that I find the difference is you can take the ball with your hands in indoor. So when you do, if you keep it in your midline and you can't get your platform on it because it's at your neck now, you don't have an option. So you have a worst path in beach because then you're forced into a Tomahawk or something like that. But if you have that in the midline and it comes up high at your neck at the last second for indoor, you can just check your hands on it. The ball floats more drastically on the beach, so it definitely moves. One advantage of passing outside your body is that you do have this bigger window and that's what the Dutch study which was done, I think now like twelve years ago in Netherlands, they studied passing again for serve receive and they looked at float service and they did find that people were passing better on those float serves out just outside their mid line. And I'd have to look at those studies again. So if anybody's got links to those, I want to see them. And if you guys don't send me links, I'll look them up right away and see what the statistical sets were. If people were using beach volleyball versus indoor volleyball, because there's some arguments that you can have there and discussions that you can have there that I think are all really valid. And as usual, take some advice from somebody, apply it for a little bit and build your own art. This is your volleyball, it's your style. Do what works for you without completely disregarding your coach. Stay open to new pieces of advice. Try it, see if you like it, and you guys will find your way a lot better.
[01:22:29 - 01:23:45]
Brandon Joyner:
I see a lot of open hit passing in the D one tournament this season for serves coming from zone one to zone five especially yeah, I'm assuming you're talking about the final four for the women but the one thing about women's float serves on that net. Those balls get on them so fast that's probably one of my biggest nightmares of my life is being in front of a crowd and having on a female net, a female crushing that flows 15 year old girl. Just fearless. They're just fearless. And that ball gets on you so fast that especially the quicker the ball goes you're obviously not going to be able to get all the way behind it so that is definitely when you're going to see the open it passing especially if you're serving line to line. Getting all the way around that ball is always going to be tough especially if they can get it on them saying also lots of handcuffing. If they're serving that same ball and it's serving that at their neck then yeah, that's where you get handcuffed and it does not feel good.
[01:23:45 - 01:24:28]
Mark Burik:
All right, guys, thank you for staying the extra half hour with us. I can't believe how many of you are still here. Awesome. That shows us, me and Brandon that you guys are here. You guys are listening. You guys are watching. So it shows us that we've got some proof here that we need to continue this format and if you guys have any advice or questions go ahead and volley chat, converse with us and if you want us to again run a clinic in your home town we have a lot of Saturdays coming up that are open especially in February and we're looking to fill them in different cities so we'd love to meet you and hang out with you and bring some volleyball to your people. Brandon, any last words?
[01:24:28 - 01:24:43]
Brandon Joyner:
No, I appreciate it. Thanks for commenting and asking questions as we're going exactly how we're doing it so we can talk to you guys and answer some questions while also dropping our ideas. It's really fun.
[01:24:43 - 01:24:44]
Mark Burik:
Yeah. All right. Until next time signing off. Bye guys. See y'all.
