Tri Bourne (00:00:00):
With the high lines. Like if I was teaching a player nowadays, I would never say, shoot a high line anymore. Cuz in their head it's like this loopy. I used to do these loopy. As long as it hits the target. It's a perfect high line. Now. I'm like, no, that's not perfect. It has to be as wherever the block is or you know, you have to go higher, but I want that thing in the corner as fast as possible. That's the best high line. If the block's huge. Okay, it's gonna have to be higher. It might have to loop a little bit, but the best high line guys are they're hitting high lines. They're not shooting high lines. So hit your shots. And that also makes you not drop your elbow and not think about this, loopy anything
Mark Burik (00:00:40):
What's up everybody. And welcome to the better at beach podcast. My name is Mark Burik and we are here to get better at beach volleyball. And we have somebody who you guys are going to love if you're here live, and you're going to ask the questions, go ahead and pour them into the chat. But I just know that we're gonna run into a lot of conversation. So I hope we can get to some of those questions either way, write them in the chat or write them in the comments. When you do see this and we can respond with any questions. They, our guest today is a blocking specialist, but he's also an incredible defender. He's an all around player. He's a champion he's an Olympian and he just won the Manhattan beach open. And according to him, he's still riding on cloud nine needs a little more celebrating, but I want you guys to welcome really excited about this conversation. So don't wanna waste any time. Let's get right into it. Tri what's up, man. Mark.
Tri Bourne (00:01:41):
What is happening?
Mark Burik (00:01:43):
So
Tri Bourne (00:01:43):
Dude, thanks for having me on
Mark Burik (00:01:45):
Of course. Glad to have you. You guys have had us on sand cast now twice I think. And those are always fun. So it's nice to flip the script a little bit.
Tri Bourne (00:01:54):
Yeah. Perfect.
Mark Burik (00:01:56):
We talked a little bit off camera. This is it's Tuesday. We're in August. It's August 23rd and you just won another Manhattan beach open. Yeah. You got your name on the pier again. It'll go up there next year. You said you're still riding on cloud nine. It's still, that's a huge win. So are you still in celebration mode or do you kick right back into workhorse mode or what?
Tri Bourne (00:02:21):
Yeah, I'm in like, I don't know what to do with my self mode. Like I legit yesterday. I was like, all right, I'm not gonna think about anything. Just like relax for the day. And it was mostly just a family day and recovering from the party. And then today I was like, all right. I figure out what my week has to look like with, you know, cuz we had Chicago coming up soon. We gotta leaving, uh, next Wednesday. But yeah, I feel like in a week or two, I'm gonna wish I celebrated a little more. Maybe did like proper two days of celebrating so we're actually gonna do a recording tonight on the sand cast and we're bringing Trevor in and nice, you know, I think he wants to bust out the whiskey and who knows, who knows that his brother shows up and that crew, it gets dangerous if they show up. And
Mark Burik (00:03:02):
I still haven't seen the episode that you guys shot recently. I think it was this summer, but Brandon with the was watching it. Yeah. And he said it was the funniest hour of volleyball he's like ever been through. He loved it. Do you remember the, the number of that episode? Like is it just whiskey with the crabs on sand cast?
Tri Bourne (00:03:20):
Yeah, I would do. No, I don't remember the number. Okay. Yeah. I would just search for whiskey with the crabs. It was probably a year ago and honestly it was my favorite episode too. It was with, we had, we were talking about Olympics and like we all have such unique experiences of it cuz we had Nick Luna there as well. Even Taylor, Sandra was there. He was there for indoor Luna was at the Olympics with Jake when he made the calls to me and Trevor, Trevor was on the golf course and threw his back out like 10 minutes before Jake called him. And then Taylor's like in Tokyo prison, basically in the hotel room getting fed terrible food and we're all drinking and learning these stories for the first time live on the podcast and yeah, it was pretty great.
Mark Burik (00:04:05):
That's awesome. Now sometimes you get a big win, right. But you have to just kick it straight onto the next tournament. Yeah. For the people who are out there in their planning, their next tournament. What is the day? If you have a tournament the next weekend, what does the day after Sunday look like for you? Because a lot of the questions we get is how do I prepare? How do I rhythm my week? How do I work out for my week? So you won Saturday. Let's say that Chicago was this weekend. You know, you gotta celebrate that Sunday cuz it's a huge tournament. Right. But what, what are the next like 48 hours look like
Tri Bourne (00:04:39):
It. It's gonna change a little bit based on where we are at in season. You know, if you're earlier on in season, you're not quite as beat up usually. And then it depends on like what event it is. So like for NBO we kind of like tried to hit a peak for that one. So we put a lot more in, but I'd say, you know, you take the first day to it's full physical recovery. So the body's not doing any work. If anything, you're just recovering. I like to do like ice heat contrast. It just gets the blood flowing. Maybe some, you know, massage is great. I don't like to go too deep that first day cuz you're already so beat up and if they do really deep tissue, then it kind of makes you feel even more beat up. And you're like, I need another recovery day.
Yeah. So like just light, get the blood flowing, stay active. If you want like spin on the bike for a little bit. You just want the blood flowing cuz that's what'll help you recover fastest. And then, you know, if you're up for it, if you know knees, aren't hurting shoulders, not hurting too bad. Get back out on the sand maybe on Tuesday and just real light reps, easy fundamental reps make cuz you've played a lot of volleyball already. You don't need to go compete yet, you know? And uh, or at least for us. So just getting those fundamental reps, light touches, not burning the legs up too much cuz you're still in that recovery mode.
Mark Burik (00:05:51):
So that means you're like digging a lot, passing a lot, setting a lot, but no jump for your Tuesday practice or what?
Tri Bourne (00:05:57):
Yeah. Like me and Trevor decided to take Tuesday off this week. So we took Monday and Tuesday off just for pure recovery. I'm at USA volleyball right now gonna jump in the ice bath in sauna and we have massage as well. So we have two full recovery days and then, but we're also not playing Chicago this weekend. It's the following weekend. So we have some time. Yeah, just a lot of it's mental recovery too. You know, you played a lot that weekend. You're really intense. As you can see on the court, I'm just like so tense and stressed and
Mark Burik (00:06:27):
Just like yeah, you drank a handful of sand. You must have been focused yeah,
Tri Bourne (00:06:30):
Yeah, exactly. After
Mark Burik (00:06:35):
All that monster, I was unconscious what happened
Tri Bourne (00:06:39):
Oh, that's what that, that's what I keep pulling outta my teeth. You gotta decompress mentally. Cause you're gonna try to ramp back up and get that adrenaline going back up for another three days, the following weekend. So mentally you have to take off as well. And if you just start competing right again, then you're kind of ramping up a little too early. In my opinion. Some people like playing more. I'm more of a rep guy. I like getting my reps, my fundamentals get off the sand. I don't need to go compete a
Mark Burik (00:07:07):
Lot. Was that, were you always like that or was that like a kind of learned that slash transferred it to yourself from Hyden? Cause Hyden is very show up. Get the work done, get the hell off the beach.
Tri Bourne (00:07:19):
Yes, exactly. I definitely adopted some of it from Hyden. And I think that I learned a lot about myself and what I like while during that period where I'm like, I actually, I'm really fascinated and stimulated by the simple fundamental reps. I think I've felt how great they are for my game over the years. And so I get more obsessed with it, you know, as I get these small reps just like I could pass for hours and I only want you to do it one step to the right one step to the left, just so I can feel the balance and the contact on my platform kind of thing. Like I can get pretty fascinated by that stuff. Yeah. So it's I remember
Mark Burik (00:07:55):
For me seeing you with Evie, forget what tournament we were at, but you had Evie, your coach bring you out to just do literally 25 minutes of a step left pass, like a a half court float. Yeah. You know, just right. Step left, pass, step left pass. And at that time I was like that's attention to detail, you
Tri Bourne (00:08:16):
Know? Yeah. It's, it's like a feel thing for me, I think early on. I, well, first of all, growing up in Hawaii, we had the university of Hawaii coach. Dave showed you was our coach. And pretty much everyone in all the Hawaii coaches were very fundamental oriented. Like we never did hitting or blocking. Like they didn't teach that really. It was just pass and pass and pass and dig and set sometimes. But it was really about your fundamental passing and that kind of stuff. Uh, cuz they knew where kids hyper kids who wanted to go bounce balls and block and do all that. Like they're like, you're gonna get that. We're gonna make sure that when you pass your ball control, it's all ball control. They made sure that we had that down. And I learned that like the value of that, cuz when I go out and play, I want to be unconscious.
I don't wanna be thinking about any fundamentals. Mm. So the more I do those fundamentals in practice, the more I can really just step away and be like, I don't have to think about it. That work is done. My body already learned what it feels like. And that's when, when I do those reps, like 25 minutes of just stepping one way or the other, I'm literally just trying to get the feeling. I'm like, oh, that's what it feels like. Oh that's what it feels like. And you just teach my body over and over until I'm like, okay, if a ball goes there in the game, my body's gonna do that. So that's why
Mark Burik (00:09:30):
I, you remind yourself of that in the game. So like when you're playing a game and you miss kind of one pass or you know that a team is about to attack a certain way, do you give yourself a mental or physical cue that you learned during your ball touch sessions? Or are you just in competition mode blank mind, right?
Tri Bourne (00:09:50):
I think it varies. I do give cues sometimes it's more when I, if I notice, like I keep getting caught high, like, okay, I need a cue to fix that. If it happens once or twice, it's like, whatever, like I know how to pass. Let's not try to convince myself that. I forgot how to pass all of a sudden after 10 years, you know, that happens. Right. Which I think some, some of us do that. You're like, oh my God, I'm I can't pass this tournament. Yeah. You know, you're just like, no, no, no. That's what it feels like. But it'll come back. You still remember it
Mark Burik (00:10:18):
Ride that statistical wave. You're a nine outta 10 passer. Like if you missed two, that means that your next 18 should statistically be great. You know? So calm down and ride that wave.
Tri Bourne (00:10:29):
exactly. But I do use cues a lot and cues like real short little like stay down, you know, when is catching me high a lot. If I force myself to stay down on it, then I have to move. It makes my feet move or else I'm gonna get hit in the face. Right.
Mark Burik (00:10:43):
What do you mean when you say stay high?
Tri Bourne (00:10:44):
Whereas if I stay like when I'm passing and you're down and sort of receive, right. Sometimes the float serves coming a little high to your chest or hitting your elbows mm-hmm and then you start pulling it cuz you start standing up.
Mark Burik (00:10:56):
Okay.
Tri Bourne (00:10:56):
So more of a shoulders wanna down. Yeah. Shoulders down. Yeah, exactly. Not standing up like bringing your shoulders up. The cue for me is to, to keep the shoulders down, not to move my feet back, even though really what I want myself to do is move my feet back. Uh, but it's easier for me to just stay down and then my body will react. Like if I'm down, I'm gonna get hit in the face. If I don't move my feet. So it makes me move my feet. What point is, is just real short little nuggets that, that I think will help me or I'll like make the move once before the serve comes. And then that kind of like reminds my body what it feels like, or just step back beforehand. That works too.
Mark Burik (00:11:33):
But do you do anything consistently that it pisses you off that your body keeps trying to do that when you know, skillfully, you should be doing something else. Like my body has a tendency or whatever, where, when I play defense, I put my hands kind of like outside my hips or almost behind my knees. And then I have to make this big move to the ball, like a big macro move and I'm like, my hands should be comfortably in front of me. Just freaking do it body. But anytime I don't pay attention, it slides back to that. Do you have any of those where your body's just like, God, why do you always do this
Tri Bourne (00:12:08):
A hundred percent? I mean, I still feel like a total rookie on defense. So I've been playing with my hand positioning and all that too, but I don't even know what I do in the games cuz you know, I'm like forgetting about it at that point, but for sure, I know I watch film and right when the Kidder contacts, I put my hands together, like I'm gonna dig the hard driven and then if it comes outside of me when I really just wanna leave my hands, like, you know, out in front with some space. So if it comes to the right, my right arm's kind of already there and I fill in the gap with my left, but I still do it hands together. And then I swing, uh, not all the time. And I think I break the I've broken the habit here and there. But if you watch film, like they're coming together and blocking too is like I'd really have taken pride over the years and being able to block separately with my hands, not always working in unison, but here comes that other hand when I see something with, you know, and I start paying attention to one hand, the other hand wants to just float towards it. I'm like, no, stay there hand, but that's just the reps. It's a feel thing.
Mark Burik (00:13:07):
I've had this talk and study and discussion a lot about like hands coming together in front of the body on defense because people have always said that, you know, and they said like, Hey, you know, don't start inside. Like it's gonna cause shanks. And then when I watch all of the best defenders in the world and the best passers everybody's hands are right there underneath like together on contact. I have come to the conclusion that this is just a human thing. Your body's gonna move with that. It's okay if they come together and this whole like hands out to your side, bring your left to your right gold medal squared. Coaches told that you a while ago, they're like bodies just don't do that. Just try not to do that. And then when I started looking at like Billy Allen and then Nick and then Taylor and seeing when they're playing defense, their hands are here, you know, they are already connected and then they release out of that. So I've right. To me, I've settled on, I don't really care. Like if your hands are apart. Yeah. Okay. If they come together, you're still gonna make a move.
Tri Bourne (00:14:05):
Yeah. I think you're right. To be honest, like I, as much as I try to do it, there's a lot of stuff that we just need to listen to our bodies. Like our bodies kind of are smarter than our brains a lot of the times. Mm. And obviously you can train yourself to do certain stuff, but yeah, there's definitely when a ball comes at you with heat, you're glad that your hands were already together. You know, cuz you wouldn't have been able to get 'em together. But then when it's outside and you're like, damn, if my hand was already out there, then it would've scooped it with one arm. Probably. So yeah. I think you're right. There's not really any right or wrong way to go about it, but you just kind of keep tweaking and seeing what works for you. Really?
Mark Burik (00:14:41):
Yeah. I think that's probably the key is experiment, you know, like learn from somebody else, take their advice, try it after you've tried it for a significant enough time then is it working? But it's not like try it for 1, 2, 3 reps and be like, well that doesn't work. It's like, eh, you gotta apply this for a week or two and see,
Tri Bourne (00:14:57):
Oh for sure. What's actually going on. Yeah. Is my camera working by the way?
Mark Burik (00:15:01):
Yeah. You're all on. Okay,
Tri Bourne (00:15:02):
Cool.
Mark Burik (00:15:03):
So let's go back to that Tuesday practice. Right? You're coming back now or for this week it's gonna be Wednesday. Yeah. Cause I tell people a lot like on your Friday before a tournament. Yeah. This is when, okay. Get out there for 45 minutes, light touches. You might get 15 jumps, like right. That's it, you know, 20. Okay. But pass and set, pass and set. What does a drill look like if you're diagramming one of your many touch, fundamental drills? What exactly are you doing and for how long?
Tri Bourne (00:15:32):
Yeah. So, you know, I'm listening to the body, like I said, but like if we go out for an easy practice, we'll maybe go for an hour, uh, for one of those easy fundamental practices where we, we're not jumping and I'll start with passing, probably the stuff that you've seen me do. One step to the right one step to the left. Maybe a little back is that with a coach
Mark Burik (00:15:52):
Tossing under hand hitting at you,
Tri Bourne (00:15:54):
Ideally we have a coach in the ideal world. I like to start real, real easy. So I have a coach rolling it, bowling it under hand with some top spin. It's the easiest thing to pass, but I, it's just super easy for me to get my footwork down and just worry about the steps and not really the results of the past or anything. Cause if it's a float, then you know, it's gonna die six inches or rise up on you and then you end up having to improvise. And I just wanna focus on my feet there, but then we'll get into, you know, depending on the day we'll, we'll get into those float serves and start applying that footwork to float serves as well. But I start easy with just a bowl and then, you know, have someone catching or if they wanna set, if partner wants to get his setting reps there, he'll get his setting reps there. Okay. So
Mark Burik (00:16:38):
All with, with Trevor or he be the setter in that. So it's like a triangle, but a really easy, soft, slow triangle.
Tri Bourne (00:16:45):
Exactly. Slow, slow, easy triangle. Ideally you have some help catching and throwing to the coach and not all us do, but yeah, easy, simple triangle. And then the same thing when Trev's passing, I'm working on my setting, really just trying to get the legs first, cuz it's so easy in those drills to just hand it, you know, just all wrists or you know, meet, we could do anything. We could do it sideways backwards when it's that easy. But you just, I just try to go, okay, legs. I'm just setting with my legs in the beginning. And then from there I work on like, you know, make sure I'm following through all the way, cuz like I said, when it's that easy, like we could flick it from our chins or from our ear, whatever. Yeah. And still make easy
Mark Burik (00:17:24):
To get lazy with easy drills. It's exactly. That's such a thing that I think so many people are missing. Like just because you're doing a slow, fundamental drill doesn't mean that you move your body slow. It means like this is your opportunity to get the regular stuff flawless. Not mm-hmm, just feel your touch and kind of go through it. It's like, Hey, you have to figure out the last 1% right now. And if you're still mm-hmm, , you know, not squaring up or you're not getting your feet around or you're not doing your setting footwork, whatever it is, this is your opportunity to fix it. And I think people treat easy drills as easy and that messes them up bad.
Tri Bourne (00:18:05):
Yeah. And it, and it bores them too. Right. But if you're really thinking real intricate in it and you're like legs, legs, legs, and then you flick one and it's perfect. But you flicked it, you know, just from your wrists. Like for me, I'm like, damn it. I missed that rep even though it's a perfect set. Whereas other people are like, oh, that was easy. That was easy. This is boring. I wanna play. But for me it's like, no perfect with the legs. It's all about legs right now. And then I'm like, it's all about, you know, the follow through the finish and facing the right direction. And then I'm trying to put it all together at the end. And so it's like a long process. And by the time I get to like the actual nice setting of it's, you know, we're 15 minutes in. Would
Mark Burik (00:18:43):
You say that that's kind of like the Brazilian theory of training where it's constant repetition until feel, because a lot of the guys that I've talked to, they're like a lot of the Brazilian coaches, they don't teach really on technique until right. A technique has become a problem. You know? It's like, feel it, feel it, whatever you're doing, just touch it and make sure that it goes the right spot and it feels good for you.
Tri Bourne (00:19:07):
Totally. Yeah. We have the we've I've obviously had Jose for four years and now Lero so all Brazilian coaching me for a long time now. And it's a little different than me personally. We've had to kind of compromise a little bit, cuz like I think you nailed it spot on. It's all about the reps for them. Just like real good, get a hundred reps and dig it to the right spot. It's not as like precise and like, like for me I have to slow
Mark Burik (00:19:31):
Them down, drop your shoulder and then like stop your, stop your leg. It's just like get it to the spot. Yeah. Right.
Tri Bourne (00:19:35):
yeah. Right. No, for me, I love breaking it down. Like super precise where in the beginning they're like, you know, okay, let's warm up hitting balls at me. Like, no, no, no, no, no that's too hard. I want you to bowl it just to my right foot. They're like, wait, what? Like that's so easy. And I'm like, yes, just try. This is what I want. so I think I'm a little more, I like to slow it down. I like to start really, really easy. Like if I was playing basketball, I would be starting from two feet from the rim, you know, and working on a shot. Nice. And once I make that take a step back, which I did, I did just see, um, Steph Curry's masterclass and he does that too. Oh, so maybe I that a little bit. Yeah. Oh, it's sick.
Really? Um, yeah. You just try to like kind of see what he does and then transfer that to volleyball. It's really easy to transfer it over. You see what he's doing? Like, but he doesn't, he, he never walks out on the court and starts bombing threes. He starts inside. If he doesn't, he makes it step back, makes it step back. He has to like earn it to get all the way out to his range. Mm. But that's cuz by the time he gets out there, his fundamental, his foundation of his shooting where it's from the legs with the toes, follow through with the fingers, it's all just so solid that the power, like he doesn't have the whole body's working as one and it's easy. That's how I think. And that's what like fascinates me and makes me feel good about my game. But there's not always time for that either. That's the crazy
Mark Burik (00:21:02):
Part. Yeah. People don't, because let's say that you only had cuz you, you live on a, on a professional athlete's schedule. Right. And now you've got your family. So there's like a little bit of added time that you need to and want to take away from volleyball, but it's still yes. Get the opportunity for like five or six hours that can, should be dedicated to volleyball in some way in some version.
Tri Bourne (00:21:24):
Oh for sure.
Mark Burik (00:21:25):
For sure. But for people who have family full-time job kids and they're like scratching to get their two hour league night, what should that person do to feel right. A little bit more accomplished, you know, should it be those slow reps for just showing up 10 minutes early and getting those slow reps? Or should they be doing hitting lines? Like I saw yesterday, just guys doing hitting lines. I'm like, guys, you're not getting any better from just hitting lines. Stop this
Tri Bourne (00:21:54):
I love it when people are like, just like bouncing balls and hitting lines, like huh? Low hitting low seam. Huh? That's the thing you're gonna work on right now. Like especially if I'm playing that person like perfect. Like the one thing they have warmed up is hitting lotum the easiest ball to block or dig
Mark Burik (00:22:14):
right. It's gonna land right to three quarter step and you're just like, all right, man, I haven't seen hitting lines. I know this is a side note, but uh, yes. Say guy went out and got some reps with a couple guys that are like kind of open, double a there's one, one a player there. And under doing like my warm up and everything. It was like 25 minutes of them just tossed to the setter, set her hit back, pass, set, hit. And I was just like, I haven't seen this in a decade. You know, I, I remember that like when I was young, like I went out there and, and I, and I said, yeah, hang lines. This is how we warm up. But oh
Tri Bourne (00:22:49):
For
Mark Burik (00:22:49):
Sure. The guys that we play against, she's like what? Just straight hitting lines. Like you're not perfecting a pass or a set or anything.
Tri Bourne (00:22:57):
No. Yeah. It's I honestly, I feel like I've forgotten how to like bounce a ball. Like people see, you know, I, I hit the ball harder these days for sure than I used to, but like bouncing a ball. Like we used to do it as kids cuz we're just all ego to school and we wanna bounce it. Yeah. Not that we don't try to do it now, but I can't, I can't really do it as well anymore. Cause my footwork, my arm work isn't meant for her. So like I can never like bounce straight down, like Casey does, you know? Yeah. Like what, what is going on. But I feel like I'd have to retrain myself to actually approach in a way that would allow me to hit straight down
Mark Burik (00:23:31):
And what would be the value.
Tri Bourne (00:23:32):
And, and I don't, and I don't want that. There'd be no value in that for me. I just wanna hit high and like off speed corners. If I bounce something it's gonna be sharp, you know, not right in the pocket. Yeah. Or it'll be like, you know, full cross body where I show one thing go the other. And that's the only times I wanna bring the ball low. Other than that, I'm trying to cuff high or rip high hands corner or you know, or go off speed all. Oh the whole off speed game. Yeah. Um, but yeah, that's the side note for sure.
Mark Burik (00:24:02):
We have one guy in our class like bouncing and tape and I was just like, dude, just hammer the back line. I go, if any of your balls land in the front three quarters, I go, you failed for this hitting drill. And all of a sudden he just starts boom. He stopped netting, stop taping started like reaching higher naturally. And just nobody,
Tri Bourne (00:24:21):
Nobody,
Mark Burik (00:24:22):
This is a point score.
Tri Bourne (00:24:23):
No one defends the BA the corners, the corners is indoor or beach. The corners is just wide open all the time pretty much. And even when you know, they're hitting there as a defender, you feels way too far back. So it's like, even if they know it's going there, they it's really hard if someone's, if I hit a deep corner and someone's sitting right in that corner, I'm like, okay. They just gave me way too much cut. Like if they play this the whole game, I'm just gonna drop this thing until they inch closer to the cut. And then I'm going back at that corner. So yeah. That's a easy win plus if they block it, it's probably gonna be soft blocked or, you know, coverable for you. It's just way safer. Way. Better
Mark Burik (00:25:03):
Bet. It's so interesting to hear you say that. Cause you do that. Well, I got one more. I mean, when we've played against each other, you've diced me up by hitting that sharp 70, 80% angle. Yeah. Like right on the half court on that far sideline mm-hmm so you have the ability to keep it so steep, but you also don't your body doesn't slow down when you do it, your arm doesn't slow down. Right. You just get, I don't know, more on top. Yeah. Your risk gets on top and then you beat that up and then like, okay, I'll step out there. And then it's a flick high line or a high hard sea. And it's like, all right, now I'm dancing. Yeah.
Tri Bourne (00:25:35):
Yeah. Right. And you're still hitting angle. Right. So it's not like, oh, oh we know Triess hitting angle and I have to worry about it. Damn they know I'm coming angle like, well, but what kind of angle? And like, you guys will come as defenders, you'll come and creep on that, that off speed cut of mine. And if they get one, then I'm like, okay, I'm not worried about it. Cuz they had to go real far to get that thing. And now I'm stretching them. I'm stretching that defender. They opened up my whole line or still my deep angle. And I know they're not comfortable there. Yeah. I mean, I worked on that shot forever. That's kind of in terms of my checklist, I'd like that to be available, which is not available all the time. But with my approach and, and my set that I take, I want that to be available.
And then it's kind of like, I just go from there. If the blocker's too far in the line, then I just have options. You know, I just look at the defender and if they cut on, if they creep on that cuff, then I'll just blow 'em up. And if they don't, then I'll just slap it down real quick. but it it's hard. It's really hard. That, that one that shot is like you said, you can't drop your elbow, you can't show it. It's just a hit and you're hitting the side of, of the ball and you're trying to make no upward movement on it. So it's not a shot. It's like a slow hit. It's just a slap down.
Mark Burik (00:26:50):
Yeah. Like a, the it's like when you're warming up the to wanna hit down. Yeah. I don't know.
Tri Bourne (00:26:56):
Yeah. Get it to just, that's how I think about it is like get this ball to the sand as fast as possible without hitting it. Just like slap it down there. And, and then you're kind of just spreading your fan of where the defender has to play. Yeah. And once I kind of establish that and some people aren't comfortable going all the way to it, so then I'll just keep doing it and keep doing it. Like you're gonna have to step on it at some point or bring your defender or your blocker all the way over. And then that's just too much line you know, but the problem, it, like, it sounds really easy. Right. But good luck getting that, set that where you can contact you high and above the net enough to where you have that angle and not far enough inside, cuz if it's too far in, then you don't have the angle start, you start losing it. And that's when I make errors is when I force it when I'm already lost that angle.
Mark Burik (00:27:41):
Yeah. And when you try to like dice it too much, or you put like too much fancy spin on it instead of pat down, you know, but you have to have exactly. You definitely have to have a certain amount of vertical, certain amount of height to be able to accomplish that. Right. Yeah, exactly. That has to be there consistently so that because if, if you hit that shot, once you're not gonna pull a defense over there, it's that third time where the Diggs like, God, all right, I'm gonna jump on this this time, you know? Yes. And
Tri Bourne (00:28:07):
Exactly
Mark Burik (00:28:08):
Once doesn't count, like everybody can hit any shot once. Right. But establishing, it allows you to then create a much more versatile offense.
Tri Bourne (00:28:17):
Right? Yep. Cuz then they're having to react to you. They're not the defense. Isn't really dictating what happens. They're making moves based on what you've set up and now you get to choose where you go from there kind of thing. But yeah, like let's why do we practice the fundamentals? So we can get to the point where we're contacting the ball where it's possible to hit that shot. If everyone just goes out there and does that, but you can't pass. You're not even gonna have the opportunity to hit that.
Mark Burik (00:28:44):
When I see players like practicing swinging and they just bomb away, like we talked about like hitting lines, I go look at Steph Curry, look at Kobe Bryant who have told you that they've spent hundreds of hours shooting nothing but free throws. That's one shot. Right, right now, every other shot, they've also practiced that. And it's in a row. It's not just moving around, constantly chucking things at backboards. It's sitting there from one spot, dialing it. And if you have never spent enough time to say, I'm gonna hit the same ball 20 times today, if you've never done that with your game or your practice, you're simply not going to improve because you can't find what that feels like. Or, or maybe you won't have the confidence to do it because you don't know and understand every bit of the feeling. I
Tri Bourne (00:29:28):
Completely agree. I think that takes us back to like our original point here, which was like, how can you get those reps? Right? Like maybe some people who are doing it after who are going out, playing after work are just don't have, have the time to get those reps or whatnot. But even if it's small, like, what I would do is, and I do, I do do this because I like to get these rap. I call it calibration. Right? Jose Loyola loves that word. Now he just, he laughs at me. He's like, what try you gonna go calibrate today? and that's all it is. It's just like, I would come maybe 30 minutes early or even 10, 15, or even just five minutes where I step out on the court and I start hitting shots, just trying to hit target, trying to get a good contact on my hand every day I'm kind of working on something different.
It might be a serve. I'm not even standing on the back line. I'm not jumping. Let's say I'm working on a serve. I start halfway in the court, standing on the ground and I'm just tossing and trying to contact high follow through in the right direction. Not even really worried about the target yet. Okay. And then once I get that follow through in the contact, okay. Now I'm trying to get it at the target, just down the line. And then I do the same thing, but I change my contact point a little bit. Now I'm hitting straight down the middle, trying to hit the buckle and then I'm trying to go cross court. And then I'll do that from this, from the other serving position on the other side of the court. If I have time, you know, in the middle too, but that really takes, let's say you hit five in each side. That's 30 swings total. You can get that done in five to 10 minutes. Well, if you have the balls or if you got
Mark Burik (00:30:56):
The ball bag. Yeah.
Tri Bourne (00:30:58):
Yeah. That's the problem. If you don't have a coach like throwing 'em back to you or you have ball bagging, then you have to go shag it. But even if it's one cart and every time you go out, you get one cart in before you play, those reps are gonna be huge and they're gonna stack up over the years, right. Or, or over the season or whatever it is you, if you showed up five minutes before everyone starts, you're always out there. What I call calibrating for five minutes, by the end of the year, you're going to be better fundamentally. And you're going to be playing better volleyball
Mark Burik (00:31:28):
Or you have hours, more focused reps on certain things than somebody else. Exactly. People don't. I think April Ross was the first one who said something like that. She goes, think about massaging foam, rolling. She goes, I'm gonna do it. Even if I could do it too, three, five or 10 minutes. But even if I do it two or three, right minutes, add up. And by the end of the year with me foam rolling two to three minutes a day, I've got a few hours. That's hours of massage that I've given my body over the year. So she's like, it counts. If you can just get it in a little bit, then when you annualize things, it always like makes it look bigger. And you're like, oh, that's actually really impressive. But two minutes at a time, does it seem impressive? So then you don't give it any importance. So you don't do it when you think, if I just multiplied this times 365, what would that mean?
Tri Bourne (00:32:15):
Yeah, no, that's a great way to look at it. I really like that actually. And with foam rolling and stuff, it's like, okay, there's a hundred percent of this tension in two minutes, I got rid of, let's say 15% of it only, but now you're walking around with 15% less of that tension in your body. And when you have tension in one place, it gets, it moves up your entire chain of your body. And so think about that in 365 days of how much less time you're spending with tension, pulling you in different directions and like how much less injury you can be by the end of the year.
Mark Burik (00:32:45):
How much do you go through massage and, and, well, I mean, I remember when we're in the hotel in Brazil, I was just like, man, this guy doesn't stop hip flex or stretches. It was just like on your bed. It was just nonstop, hip flexer and hip openers. And I was just like, it's been like an hour and a half and he's still going. I was like, all right, I guess I'll do some .
Tri Bourne (00:33:04):
You're like, I'm getting a little uncomfortable here with these hips. He keeps
Mark Burik (00:33:08):
Thrusting over at his bit.
Tri Bourne (00:33:10):
No, I did that a lot and I still do it. That's like probably the one thing that I've took from college cuz when I was younger, I was didn't have as much muscle and I had a lot of back problems. Ah, um, I had, I had to get two epidurals because of herniated discs that I had in college. Two and epidurals. Yeah. If my second epidural didn't work, I was gonna have to get surgery on it and it ended up working. But one of the things that like I always notice worked right away was my hips. If, if my hips get tight, my lower back starts seizing up. Okay. So that like put in my head, like I don't want this lower back seven and just made it a habit. And it's similar to what we were just talking about. I'm just gonna do it every day. Not when my back hurts. This is just my nightly routine. This is my warm up routine. Even though it looks really funny. The ones that I do, I just committed to it years ago. Like I'm going to do my hip mobility exercises every day. It's part of my warm up and my, before I go to sleep and that's what you were seeing. It's just me. Wasn't even my back hurting. It was just, this is what I do before I go to sleep and I still do it. Like what, 10 years later,
Mark Burik (00:34:17):
Man, it's crazy. How much the hips, the hip flexors and being in the sitting position, how much damage it does to your vertical. And then over time, just like the back injuries. If, if people added little bit of glued activation and lots of just all hip openers, 10 minutes a day, like there go your back problems. They be gone. And, and I know for me when I'm doing that on a regular basis, I'm golden. And then all of a sudden I let it slide because you feel like, you know what, it hasn't bothered me. I haven't felt any tightness. And then you don't keep committing and then it comes back. You're like, shoot. And then the pain reminds you instead of it just never being there.
Tri Bourne (00:34:54):
Yeah, exactly. That's why I like doing creating routines and stuff. Like your warmups. When I have something big that I learn, like with the trainers, they're like, dude, you keep locking up here because there's this and that. I'm like, okay, boom added to my warmup. So now it becomes a daily thing. It's not like, okay, I'll go do that today. It's like, no, that's something that's gonna be added to the routine daily or my night routine. I do a stretching before I go to sleep. And then I, you know, I try to stretch after practice too, but warm up routine, which includes a lot of mobility stretch, just stretch after practice. And then before I go to sleep, I do a stretching routine.
Mark Burik (00:35:31):
How long that stretch routine before bed? Is it like a 10, 15 minute thing?
Tri Bourne (00:35:35):
Uh, I'd say, uh, I mean some days I just enjoy it a lot. Like it actually puts me to sleep like you guys should try like go and do like a real deep, nice stretch where you're like breathing and like present with your muscles. Right. Cause you're trying to feel it, that you're trying to feel where, where the tension is and really get in there. Mm-hmm , that's actually like a very mindful thing to do. You're kind of meditating cuz yeah. You're feeling something and you're trying to pay attention to that. You're not like daydreaming about something else you're like I'm trying to get right where it hurts here and put my hip here and my knee. It's very, it's kind of a meditative thing. And then when you lay down and you're all stretched out, you're like, oh, that feels pretty good. And then you just pass out. So I've made it part of my routine in that way for that reason as well. Yeah.
Mark Burik (00:36:20):
And it's not that far from your couch right to your floor. It's like just sit on the floor. Totally. And just, I,
Tri Bourne (00:36:27):
I do it at my, on my bed actually and I keep a stretching strap. Right. Uh, I keep the stretching strap right next to my bed as well. What
Mark Burik (00:36:35):
A good idea. That's such an easy fix.
Tri Bourne (00:36:37):
Like I leave it right on the nightstand.
Mark Burik (00:36:38):
Knock one nail in, in your wall, leave the stretch and strap there. And then exactly. At least it's easy to do these things setting
Tri Bourne (00:36:44):
Up your, yeah, you're already laying there. You're just like, I don't wanna stretch, but then it's like, I could just grab this strap and just pull my hams. Then you at least feel good about yourself a little bit. Some days I'm literally so tired. I'm like I make myself do it, but it'll be two minutes. And then other days it just feels good to just do it for 15. But I'd say average, uh, five to 10 minutes.
Mark Burik (00:37:05):
Nice. What do you think is one thing that you thought you were doing right early in your career? Mm-hmm that now? You know, or now you think, man, I shouldn't have done that. Like that was what people were telling me to do and that's what I was trying to do, but I was way off. Oh,
Tri Bourne (00:37:21):
That's a really good question. Well, first of all, defense, I blocked for so many years and I played a lot. Like I said, I grew up being passing and defensive oriented ball control oriented. So I was always like, I can defend, I can defend, but I never got the reps. And when I got out there, I was like, wow, this is really hard. Like I'm not that good at defending . So there was a ton of stuff that I, if I had gone out there alone, I would've done it a certain way. And then I got reteach by, you know, Jose or whoever. I actually, Mike DOD, I had helped me a bunch, uh, a bunch people over the years of some coaches back in Hawaii, whoever I could learn from. But defense is like everything. I, I kind of had to relearn and recalibrate, but other things like arm swing alone, I switched my arm swing up so I could get more velocity on it when I was around the time when you and I were starting out, I came out in like 20 12, 20 13.
We went to New Zealand. Oh yeah. I was just coming back from Puerto Rico, playing indoor. And I was like, I have to learn how to hit hard. Cause I don't hit hard enough. I'm supposed to be the foreigner that gets like 30 kills a match. And I'm more of a ball control outside two guy. Yep. I was trying to contact the ball way out in front of me more, which helped me get more gas on it. But it made my point of contact really low when I was like reach straight up 12 o'clock contact point kind of guy, but I couldn't get heat from there. So I kind of brought that out. And how did
Mark Burik (00:38:44):
You fix? So you were starting to get velocity and now your
Tri Bourne (00:38:49):
Time, but then I lost stay higher. I lost the height. Okay. That I had, my height was good. So I came out and then I was trying to work on just getting my arm further back as well so that I could create more space. And that seemed to work for me for a few years. And then I went with the Brazilians and they were like, don't worry about getting your arm back as much, just worry about snapping high, just that good high snappy contact. And I was like pretty against it for like the first six months. Like, no, like I want to create space so I can bring it in and, and bring gas. He's like your body's going to history was your body's gonna bring cock it back to where it needs to be when you decide,
Mark Burik (00:39:31):
Right. If you're snapping up, you have to have that space naturally to
Tri Bourne (00:39:35):
You need it. Right. But when I'm training, he just wants like that contact point and that being really high. And when I finally gave into it, I was like, damn my high line's way flatter. Now like guys can be running on it and I'll still beat him to the line, you know? Yep. And that's so valuable when I look at like the great shooters, you know, Kent STKs, John Hayden's Highline, which obviously it's gotten lower over the, these last few years. But he, he has one of the best highlines. Trevor actually has one of the best highlines. They're all really fast and quick. And the high contact point, people
Mark Burik (00:40:08):
Confused like fast and quick, right? Because when people say you, you need to speed up your arm, you need to speed up your arm. I think a lot of players like, then they start hitting hard. Instead of you just have to get maximal speed from where you're loaded until the face of the ball. It's just so like, imagine you're in a fight and you kind of slow motion punch somebody, right. As soon as you slow your punch down, somebody steps outta the way they block it. And then, and then you're done and that's what happens. And that's what makes people easy to read. So you're saying that like from that loaded position, as fast as you can to the ball, but you don't necessarily need to follow through. No, no. Cause my vision of you is like you pound a ball and your wrist is still hanging up in the air and I'm like, see, you don't need to follow through, you know
Tri Bourne (00:40:51):
Yeah, right. Yeah. It changes a lot. I also saw like a golf coach the other day being like, okay, here's how you hit two different flight patterns. And one of 'em was, they were the same similar shot, but one of 'em just didn't have a follow through. And it gave the ball a different flight pattern, like a bump and run versus chip under and get backspin on it or whatever. And I was like, that's weird. Like it's just about the follow through when you play pool, they say, if you don't want the ball to follow through. Right. And, and go in scratch mm-hmm to follow the ball into the hole, you just tap it and pull back. Right. And it actually makes the ball, hit it and stay and it works. And it's kind of similar with volleyball. Like you're just trying to hit it. Like it's almost like get your hand off the ball the time that you're on the ball, like don't make it long.
Mark Burik (00:41:37):
I like that. Oh, that's a good goal. Low key. Yeah.
Tri Bourne (00:41:40):
That, that's kind of how I think about it a little bit. And then with the high lines, like if I was teaching a player nowadays, let's say I'm teaching my kid how to play from scratch. I would never say shoot a high line anymore. Cuz in their head it's like this loopy. I used to do these loopy. As long as it hits the target. It's a perfect high line. Now. I'm like, no, that's not perfect. It has to be as wherever the block is or you know, you have to go higher, but I want that thing in the corner as fast as possible. That's the best high line. If the block's huge. Okay, it's gonna have to be higher. It might have to loop a little bit, but the best Highline guys are, they're hitting high lines. They're not shooting high lines. So hit your shots.
And that also makes you not drop your elbow and not think about this loopy anything it's really, you're trying to drop the ball. If you're going short, you're trying to drop it. Yes. You have to go over the block sometimes. Yes. Some people are shorter and that is gonna be a loopy. Right? Not everyone can reach whatever I'm reaching, but I would just say everything's, you're hitting hit a shot. Just don't hit it as hard. Hit a high line, hit a cut shot. Don't shoot it just cause I think the word shoot makes you go loopy.
Mark Burik (00:42:45):
Yep. Yeah. People think shots, shots, shots. You know, you see these indoor guys who can pound. I remember kind of, I'm not taking anything away from, but like Robbie page came out at, at seven foot one and I was seeing Theo and I was seeing Robbie and Theo goes Highline and he slaps down it's downward trajectory over you. Highline. And Robbie came out to the beach and was doing like cut shots that rolled twice. The height of the antenna. I go, why are you exactly hitting a cut? You should just go sharp angle. You're too big. Exactly. And then Taryn close. She to me is the first big girl that has used her height the right way. And obviously the right way. Like her Highline is a slapdown her cut shot is not a cut shot. It's a chop angle. Right. You know? And I'm like that. Oh yeah. How you play when you have that height
Tri Bourne (00:43:35):
And okay. If you don't have the height, then just calibrate that same thing though, to wherever you're at. So yeah, you're shorter. Okay. It's gonna have to be loopier maybe to go over, but everyone usually goes a little higher than they need to. So it's basically play it as fast and low and get that thing to the sand as quick as you can. Yeah. A nice high like cuff drop your elbow loopy cut shot. That feels really good. It doesn't get to the sand fast enough. That's literally the goal. Get the ball to the sand as fast as possible with what the defense is, giving you
Mark Burik (00:44:09):
Hand to fast.
Tri Bourne (00:44:10):
Yeah,
Exactly. Hand to sand fast. Exactly. That's the whole game. And like Theo I think is one of the smartest guys in terms of like, he completely knows. He's like I'm tall. I'm not gonna bring the ball down low with you guys. Mm-hmm like, it's very clear to me. Whereas there's so many guys that are touch as high as him that just are too stubborn or too dumb, I guess, to, to figure it out. And I love it cuz I'm, you know, six, five blockers, especially on the world tour is not very big. And I just love it when those big guys come down and play with me. Cuz if they don't, I'm like, this is just so frustrating. Sometimes
Mark Burik (00:44:47):
I think that that comes, maybe that comes from the fact that there's a bunch of 6, 1 6, 2, 6, 3 guys who are coaching some of the world's best and tallest and highest jumping athletes. And so they like kind of do what they did and they're like, look, you put that little bit of spin on it. We need four, the seven footers, we need more seven footers who have done it at that level saying like right, this, this is how you play a big band's game. You know? Exactly. Ideally have the coach who can actually see that without needing the experience.
Tri Bourne (00:45:17):
But the 6 1 6 2 guys has to think about it. If he was playing on a girl's name, like yeah. Would you still play that same game or would you just slap everything down to the sand as fast as possible? Probably do the second.
Mark Burik (00:45:30):
Do you think shorter players should set tighter and lower or should they set more off? Like is there, do you think that there is a prime height or distance from the net for shorter
Tri Bourne (00:45:43):
Players? No. No, I don't think so because I think it's gotta change, dude, set a short player tight with a big block. Good luck. That's gonna be tough with a good big block. Obviously some short players are great with the block. Like they can see it so well because it's so big and in front of them, but that's like those big dumb blocks too. There's some big dumb blocks where Hey, go put me up there. I'm down. I want to challenge 'em all day I'll tool. 'em I'll go under 'em I'll go through 'em but then there's the big smart blocks. And you're like, no, let's stay back and make them move their feet now, because as I come off the net, now the angles change for them and they can't just from one place. Yeah. Pull it off the net, maybe push it an extra foot outside, an extra foot inside. Now you're adding footwork in for them. And it's hard for blockers to move their feet. Not all of them do it
Mark Burik (00:46:31):
So it can work well against a certain level of blocker. But then once that, well,
Tri Bourne (00:46:37):
Yeah, figure
Mark Burik (00:46:37):
Out blocker increases, then it's like, it's not gonna work against this guy anymore. Yeah.
Tri Bourne (00:46:42):
But it also like, for example, I'm on the world tour. If I play Phil, he eats me up when I'm set too tight. And if I just come in barreling, cuz he can just take so many angles, right. With just one simple block so I can pull it off I've I've pulled it off at times and had a lot of success going around him under, over cuz now I just made so many more things for him to worry about. But then like, cause
Mark Burik (00:47:06):
People think that when they're set tight, they think that they have more angles, you know? Well
Tri Bourne (00:47:10):
You have more angles to the
Mark Burik (00:47:12):
Yeah.
Tri Bourne (00:47:13):
But when you're set off, the blocker has a wider fan from the ball. The blocker has a wider fan to deal with. If you really think about the angles from the net, from the ball to the sidelines, if you step off the net, that fan gets bigger for the blocker. Be able to touch both sides of that fan. Yeah. If you get tighter, he can touch the whole fan with two hands right there on top
Mark Burik (00:47:34):
Of the ball. Right. It's like if I had a flashlight behind my hand and are showing it to the screen exactly. You know, I'm this tight, so no light comes out, but the further away I go, the more you can see kinda light. Exactly. Yeah.
Tri Bourne (00:47:43):
You need, you need to see light when you have a football or else you're just gonna be playing in the dark all day and yeah. So, but you gotta switch it up cuz like, okay, I'm still in the world tour. But then I go against, uh, IV Andro, no offensive Andro, but just as big of a block, but not nearly as good like hand positioning skills. Joed, you know, ceiling, the low angles so that a small guy might want to go tee off against that, go through him, challenge him, Jow him, you know, a less skilled block. Maybe you might wanna do that. So there's not like a certain one thing fits all. And then it might be that particular day where the defense is setting up well on the tight ball, cuz that's gonna change what the defender does as well. So they're on you. They're on that beat of you setting tight. They both on that same timing now you're setting it off and it throws them off. Yeah. So you changed it up and if they have a beat on you, then that's a great change.
Mark Burik (00:48:39):
I remember Casey Jennings was like, I forget who he was playing with, but he was playing against Ryan Dardy and he wanted to challenge those angles. So he told his partner like set me at 10 feet, 11 feet. He goes, I'm gonna tempt him to peel. And if he doesn't peel, like I'm gonna sizzle him. You know? So he, he took a look at the big eye and he is like set me even further off the net because some big guys might be good blockers or take up a lot of space, but they might be terrible. I mean, I think most people are terrible at peeling. Yes.
Tri Bourne (00:49:09):
But
Mark Burik (00:49:10):
Terrible at peeling. So it's just like, Hey, if I get him to leave, then I don't even have to deal with it. All I have to do is hit a medium ball at his head. He's gonna gaff it.
Tri Bourne (00:49:16):
That's a perfect example. Mm exactly. Like authority that can seal a lot of space. But if he's dropping you like your odds, you know, mm-hmm or if he's even way off, he's not like his he's seeing you and making real fast hand movements at the net. So if you're far off, he's kind of just posting up there and you can tee off of him, go around him. He's not gonna be like diving, like stuff that I'm doing, being like shifty and tricky and getting really low and disappearing for a second. So yeah. Casey's great. So that's a perfect example.
Mark Burik (00:49:45):
All right. I know you got recovery. So just two last questions and I, and I wanna pick your brain. Yeah. You're for, for blockers and defenders, but from the adjustments that you've made coming up the ranks and things that you kind of thought you had to do, because you did say on defense, but I kinda wanna lock you into one specific movement or position or mindset or vision that you really had to adjust in the last five years of what fix specifically did you make on defense that you think would be really valuable to all of the upcoming juniors BS. Alas.
Tri Bourne (00:50:21):
Okay. Yeah. I've learned so much. I learned something like literally Manhattan here, the last, you know, two matches or so I, I feel like I, something clicked for me a little bit with something my coach has been working on with. So like the two last matches I've learned something now I'm always learning. There's always more to learn. And that was just starting deeper in the court being comfortable, starting closer to the sidelines and then moving my weight forward, cuz all these years when I was working with my other coach, it was more lateral movements and we'll kind of start here, go there. And as lateral, but I, I couldn't stay balanced enough to where I felt comfortable in all my toes where I could break out of it easily. My current coach moved me back and made me move a lot along the sidelines with my back to the sideline.
And I'm like, I feel so far back here. Like if a ball comes at me, it's out, like this feels weird. But then I started like creeping in forward and my vision was better. And then if my weight's forward and I see a high line now I'm my weight's already forward and I'm on my balls, my feet. So now I can break for that easily. Whereas if I'm doing a lateral movement and I'm just shuffling directly sideways, I'm kind of burned. And so that's been, that was huge. And even for the hard driven, I'm kind of
Mark Burik (00:51:30):
Moving into, oh, cause you're kind of, when you go sideways, you're also in a way kind of going backwards. And then that creates like big pivot or you're pushing off your heel or something. So when you chase that high line backwards, you're chasing backwards. You're not as fast, but if the high line is still kind of in front of you, then you're get that tow drive.
Tri Bourne (00:51:47):
Exactly. Exactly. And I even talked to Dodge yesterday. I saw him at breakfast and I told him that he's like, your defense looks way better. It's coming along. And I was like, yeah, like I've been working on staying back and finally figured out how to get my weight forward. And he's like, your weight being forward will make you go backwards faster. I'm like, wow, that's interesting. and, and I totally feel it. So that's something I'm working on right now. I've only really been applying, able to apply it well for the last two matches of
Mark Burik (00:52:14):
It's paranoid. Right. Toos, a good one. You feel like you're opening up that cut shot or you're too far away. Yeah. Or somebody's gonna bounce a couple balls in front of you. And then when they do that, you, you get that mindset like, man, should I have been tighter than that? Should I been a little bit tighter, but then yeah. But
Tri Bourne (00:52:29):
Why it's moving
Mark Burik (00:52:30):
Forward?
Tri Bourne (00:52:30):
Yeah. So like me standing two feet back is just as with two feet backwards with my weight forward is I can get to the same cut shot as me standing two feet forward, but my heels are neutral or, or my weight's back and I can still break for that Highline. And then if it comes high, hopefully I'm good with my hands where I can bring 'em up. But I'm far enough back where I don't really need to worry about like, you know, you get in that tweener zone where you don't know if your hands should be up or down. Yeah.
Mark Burik (00:52:57):
You're getting throated. Yeah.
Tri Bourne (00:52:58):
But when you're deep, you're just kind of committed to it being you're getting throated. Yeah. You're kind of committed to them just being down and it just helps me commit a lot.
Mark Burik (00:53:07):
I like that when I, you say that makes me think of like som I feel like he kinda starts really far back. And then Nick as well about Nick starts like his heels on the, on the back line and sir receive and in defense. And you're like, how are you still, he
Tri Bourne (00:53:20):
S you all these on defense, he's, he's charging at you while playing defense. And I was always like, like now I'm looking back, like, why am I only realizing that now? Like Nate's been doing it this whole time. Like, why didn't I try it? And it's still a work in progress. You
Mark Burik (00:53:33):
Know, the Jing is different too, because the defender is still moving so offensively. You're still not quite sure where they wanna be, but it's less of mm-hmm this like shoulder Bob side to side, and now they can walk into whatever position they wanna be in. And it still makes you sort of insecure as a, as an often surf player. Yeah.
Tri Bourne (00:53:52):
Think about like taking a diagonal step forward. Isn't really throwing you off balance and then changing like your center line too much. You're still there ready to dig. You took a step diagonally forward and then you replaced that foot. And now you're still kind of in the same spot forward. Whereas if you took a step sideways, you're fully like changing your center line, your balance, and now you have to rebalance.
Mark Burik (00:54:13):
Yeah. Or
Tri Bourne (00:54:14):
Follow your, I D know that's how it feels for me.
Mark Burik (00:54:17):
No, I'm feeling that exact same thing with mine. Cause for me, it's always, it came from like libero mentality, right. Like I belong on 12 feet just wearing it. So this is where I should be more driven balls. And then, like I said, it's just getting piled. And so I've, it hasn't really worked yet this year, but I keep like drawing a line at half court in the court and saying, stay behind this freaking line. Like stop trying to go in and get hit with the ball instead of digging it. Like I was getting hit with balls, but I wasn't digging them.
Tri Bourne (00:54:45):
Yeah, exactly. So it's a, it's a work in progress, but I kind of like that one a lot as of late. Yeah.
Mark Burik (00:54:51):
Nice. Okay. And then that's a great one chasing that as well, but I like starting that far back and then like almost approaching in or doing that little step hop forward as a defender, something like that. Yeah. Okay. As a base blocker, you know, we talk about ones and twos. I think everybody knows that you have to take your line with your right hand, you know, take the scene with your inside hand if you're blocking cross. But is there any sort of detail that you could give that you think most amateur C B V a AVP America players, or just all the Friday and Saturday guys that they're not doing in their basics of blocking that you've gone so far into the weeds with your head or your
Tri Bourne (00:55:28):
Training? Yeah. I'm so far into the weeds with it. It's so complicated or, you know, it can be, there's so many intricacies that you can get into, which I love. Well, first of all, like you said, the there's the line block, your right hand. Let's say you're on the right side and your right hand, your outside, hands on the ball, your left, your other hand, hopefully isn't too close. And it's,
Mark Burik (00:55:48):
If you could translate or say in a totally different way, hand on the ball, because I've heard that a lot. And I feel like to somebody new or even five years in they're like, what does that mean? Do you have a different way to say that, right? Yeah.
Tri Bourne (00:56:01):
Yeah. So
Mark Burik (00:56:02):
Like, are you cutting off a certain space behind you? Are you thinking what's behind you?
Tri Bourne (00:56:06):
Yeah, I think I'm thinking, I think I'm thinking of the space behind me. Like I feel where the line is and I'm drawing a line from the ball to that line, the sideline. And I'm making sure that my line hand is just in it and shaping back either down or towards the court, into the court, that would be me being on the ball or if they hit it at the line, let's say three-fourths of the way back. Like let's pick that point. Okay. Three-fourths of the way back to the back line to the corner. Like that would be my line hand. And then my other hand is gonna be around shoulder width. And this is with like a normal set and just taking some of that. So not letting them hit too much seam, but there's an opposite of that, which is now I'm setting up my seam hand where I'm really know that I want to take a lot of that seam, take a lot of the court from my partner. That's my first priority. And I'm pressing with that. And then I'm leaving my other hand dragging a little bit in that low line.
Mark Burik (00:56:59):
What scenario would you, so for me that if somebody's like burying cross a lot.
Tri Bourne (00:57:03):
Yeah. So hitters that love hitting angle. You're just creeping on 'em they're like this, guy's just not giving me too much space. Like, and then they're thinking, is he gonna dive on it or not? But the whole time I'm blocking one, but I'm just creeping in on your space angle and making sure that you don't slime one down the line, but it's opposite for me. It's both one block, but I'm just creeping into your space, making sure you don't hit any low seams and I'm pressing in the angle, but then leaving that line hand in the low line. So you don't get that easy slap back, cuz that's still a priority. But for me, those that's two different, the same line block, but two different ways to do it. One, the first one you're really just sealing a big line. Just meet if they hit it hard.
If they hit it high, you probably be able to touch it. And it'd be harder to go Highline on that one. And they could maybe hit a high seam on your seam hand, cuz that's gonna be a little lower. And then opposite is you're taking a lot of meat with your seam hand and taking a little more low on your line hand. They might hit a little quicker Highline, but they won't get that low line down on you. So for like, I think it's just mentality. Like don't get too it's you can get way too into the hand placement and all that, but just think like I'm gonna still block line, but I'm gonna put pressure on this guy's angle. I
Mark Burik (00:58:12):
Like that. Cause the automatic I'm gonna is just a two, right? People are like, uh, across. So the next version I have is a two and it's like the only choice you have left is a four. It's like there's a couple other different angles that you can do this without needing to sprint your defender to the line or knock them out there and get the little
Tri Bourne (00:58:28):
Shaky. Exactly. Dude, I, this Manhattan beach open, we just won uh, last four sets. I called ones the whole time and it probably didn't look like I was calling ones. Right. I blocked a few angles and did a, a bunch of different stuff in there. Mm-hmm well, we had some scenarios where we set up. If he goes there, here's our call. But if he does that, then you go angle. So a few times, I guess I, we had a different call, but my point is, my job was the one the whole time I was just giving him different looks within it. And that really messes with people and they think you're making changes, but really you're just like, I'm still taking my court so you don't have to get too crazy into that. But if you're, Digger's not digging the hard driven that, well then maybe creep in on that seam a little bit and make that hitter think twice.
Or if they MIS hit it, you're gonna block it. But you're still not blocking angle mm-hmm and then think about opposite with the two you can get outside, get really far into the right. You go really far. You set up that inside hand, let's say we're blocking the right sider and I'm stepping inside blocking two. So my inside hand is the left and I set that one up big and strong. And then I work my way back with my right hand into that seam to help my okay, to not let them hit that low seam or I do the opposite where I set up big on that seam with my right hand. And I'm just pressing big into the court and going low for that lower angle hit. Okay. It's the same thing we're talking about on the line where you're just not giving the same look, this one of 'em is like, they're not gonna hit angle cuz you're so far in it that you know that right.
When they see you like, okay, well I'm not hitting angle. Like how far he is into the angle. Yeah. So that allows you to re kind of work your way back and just like you, like, I know he is not gonna hit angle now cause I have it sealed right here so I can work my way back with my inside hand. And then vice versa is where you're like kind of in the seam and you're pressing big with that. So they question whether your other hand's gonna be in that sharper angle. I don't know. That's just to me like simple things that people can think about, like a one and a two can be, you can do a lot within that. And then of of course the delay, right? So delay. So wait,
Mark Burik (01:00:23):
This is something I really wanna talk about. Like, cause I think, I think most black, especially after working with rich Landour and he was like showing me some tape on Jake and tape on, on Andy. And he was just like, look how late they're jumping. Like if you show somebody that you're definitely in their line, they won't try to challenge you hard line. So it's almost like you're wasting space by penetrating there. Maybe now if you show them early and you know that they feel you in their line, maybe this is the time to, to do a delay and, and reach up and try to like just touch a high line as high as you can. Or how do you think about that? Yes.
Tri Bourne (01:00:57):
No, that's I think that's a great way to put it. There's certain times where, you know, the blocker sees you and feels you and they like, okay, I know that you're taking that. So which as a blocker now I'm like, well now I don't need to take that. Mm. So I can reach outside my bodyline or I can reach up and like give up that easy shot that they could be hitting. Cuz I know that they're not dumb enough to take it, you know? Yeah.
Mark Burik (01:01:18):
Or do that Ricardo step back and slap type thing. Yeah.
Tri Bourne (01:01:21):
That's when guys get you, they make you look dumb where, you know, you hit like a baby line and they dropped or, or they did a full delay and you're like, you're just literally just popped it right to them and they just spike it back in your face. Yeah. You're like, wait, what, how did that happen? Like why, why would I do that?
Mark Burik (01:01:36):
I
Tri Bourne (01:01:36):
Well so stupid, but it's because they're like, they know that you saw them and they just fully gave up on that call and we're completely okay with it. But I think you put
Mark Burik (01:01:44):
It, I think more blockers could like literally squat and not do anything and just like wait for a little drop shot over their shoulders. Don't
Tri Bourne (01:01:52):
Even jump, you know, does that, Travis does that. He does it at times where I'm like, he gets,
Mark Burik (01:01:56):
I got him on that twice. Today.
Tri Bourne (01:02:01):
It,
Mark Burik (01:02:01):
Yeah. He's gotten so much better at blocking the cut, like delay and blocking the cut. He used to just try to like stick on you. But now he's spreading himself really wide. Yeah. Delay a lot, a lot. So he's like taken that high cross ball way more efficiently and we practice against him today. Yeah. So they did it, it literally for the whole two sets. And I was just like, I know you guys are working on something, but I got the same solution. Right.
Tri Bourne (01:02:26):
Well, exactly. And then sometimes where I'm like, I feel like, uh, you're doing it too much. Cause if in a game and I see that or if you do it too much, I'm gonna absolutely blow you up. Yeah. But he's like willing to take that chance. Mm-hmm and it actually really works and makes me think like, wait, but it actually works. Like he's just willing to give up his call cuz he believes that he already established that he's there. Yeah. And he just fully can give it up and like step off or like do a full delay, stuff like that. Cause I, at practice, he got me like two or three times, like that was not a smart pull. like, you just gave me the whole cord and you're standing three feet away. If I see that I'm gonna destroy you. But,
Mark Burik (01:03:03):
But then you're thinking no way he would do this, you know? No way he would leave it that. Exactly. And so it's a double reversal. Exactly.
Tri Bourne (01:03:10):
yeah. So I can't, I can't blame it. And I actually really, I'm very hit oriented as a blocker. Like I don't want you to hit on me, but that's a certain timing. There's a hit timing for block and there's a shot timing for blocking me and Trevor are like opposite, right? Like he's much better shot block. He's a great shot. Blocking
Mark Burik (01:03:27):
Oriented. He's so annoying that he touches so much. You like exactly. You barely bend your knees. Yeah. You don't get low and you're still touching my high lines. Yeah.
Tri Bourne (01:03:35):
His read on the game is brain to his hands is amazing. Other than that, he looks like an old man but like yeah. He sees it so well, but that's another timing thing that people can think of. Right? Yeah. If, if someone's shooting on you all day, well you gotta think like, am I jumping for a block this whole time? Maybe I start jumping or sorry, what did I just say? Am I jumping for a shot this whole time? Or am I jumping for a hit? Cause if they're shooting and I'm jumping for hits, that means I'm up a little earlier. So it's just a timing thing where you can be like, okay, I'm gonna be on a shot timing right now until they start hitting again. Make them make the change. Is there rather than them
Mark Burik (01:04:12):
Is they, you wait for, do you like make sure that you're on the ground until hand contact? Or because I remember like looking at pictures of Jake right before that meeting what I had with rich. Yeah. And being like, I'm hitting the ball and Jake still hasn't left the ground. And I was like, what was he being lazy? Was he just hanging out? And rich was like, he, he took me through the film session. He's like, no, this is what we do.
Tri Bourne (01:04:35):
Right. Yep. Jake was amazing at it. He had all the tricks. There's not a, for me, I'm very instinctual. So there's not like I tell myself, cuz it's different with guys that have a 40 inch verse versus a 15 inch foot, you know? Yeah. If you're trying to time it off their jump. But I think if you're thinking shot, you're just gonna leave later. And I think you have to push the boundary of that. Cuz you might feel way too late, but then you get the block. You're like, oh that was right. So you have to like push the boundary a little bit and be willing to be late. And what you find is that you see a lot more when you're late too. Yeah. Rather than like up early. And you're just like, well now I'm floating. Like I can't do anything. All I can do is reach around. Yeah. But sometimes if you're late, you're like, oh I'm still on the ground. So I can kind of like jump that way or jump that way. Or maybe not jump, you know where you do that like half jump and you're still on the ground and you drop and you come and grab it.
Mark Burik (01:05:24):
Oh that's
Tri Bourne (01:05:25):
Great. It's just cuz you wait, it's not like, cuz you were trying to do that. You just instinctually like, oh I'm still on the ground. I don't have to fully jump and you make the play, but that's cuz you were willing to like push that boundary a little bit.
Mark Burik (01:05:35):
Yeah. I like USA Zeina and DOD. They had us do Highline pepper a lot back in like the elite development thing and yeah. Yeah. It was just a drill where all you had to do, it's a rotating drill. Both sides are hitting high lines. You know, defenders go and dig it. Then they return a high line. That defender goes and dig it. But we all had to stop. If anybody got touched on the block. And so people were learning how to just reach as high as they could because there was, it didn't matter if they got it killed. Like all you had to do is touch the high line. And so I think that drill alone teaches people like this is how you can try to stop a high line instead of pressing and then reaching. I don't think that's always the answer to the high line. I think it's just doing that high basketball jump and swatting in size. You can without a penetration.
Tri Bourne (01:06:20):
Yeah, exactly. So like if you jumped on the hit and then you saw them, so you're already penetrating and then you saw them shooting. Yeah. You're gonna do that. Like press to up. Yeah. But if you're willing to just play the shot or just playing the shot. Yeah. I think it's gonna be more back. Like you said, that kind of basketball, swatter, whatever you wanna call it.
Mark Burik (01:06:37):
Nice. Yeah. Cool man.
Tri Bourne (01:06:39):
It's fascinating. It
Mark Burik (01:06:40):
Is
Tri Bourne (01:06:45):
Got lots of comments
Mark Burik (01:06:46):
Here. You can stick around and answer 'em or you can or you can go get your massage, but I know you got work to do. Yeah.
Tri Bourne (01:06:52):
Yeah. And oh actually I gotta get down there, but I saw a few of these. I appreciate the congrats from you guys. Yeah. I'm sure we covered a decent amount of it. Appreciate the best. Congrats.
Mark Burik (01:07:04):
You had the best comment ever during Trevor and Sandra skirmish is you guys touch each other all the time.
Tri Bourne (01:07:11):
Someone was sitting court side, like why you mad? You guys touch each other all the time. I was like, actually like Taylor was so pissed. I was like, damn like this kid turned into a little something, but he actually, I think he kind of got himself out of his zone there usually he's great with that stuff. Yeah. But uh, he wasn't his best version known after that, which was great for us.
Mark Burik (01:07:32):
Yeah. Nice one.
Tri Bourne (01:07:33):
Yeah. Someone asked, what did we learn about Taylor that got us locked in on him? Honestly, Taylor, I don't think he played his best match. That's kind of what happened. We stayed steady, stayed in, in our game. He got a little stubborn hitting at me and I knew he would cuz I lipped him, dug him hard driven. And I was like, he doesn't like that. and I don't think he believes I could do it twice in a row. So I'm sitting right back in the pocket and then I did it again and I was like, he doesn't think I can do it three times in a row. And it sat in the pocket lifted again. Yes. He's making me look good. But no, it was more, Taylor's usually playing amazing as you saw, they beat us in Atlanta. So yeah, it wasn't like we found a secret about the guy that we can exploit like, oh we got him now. That's always fun. Definitely not the case.
Mark Burik (01:08:14):
So many people just want to understand the dynamics of the Trevor and Taylor relationship and be like, do they hate each other? How much do they hate each other? Like it's clear that they're brothers, but like would, would they throw down on court? Have they throw down at home? it's always fun. Imagining brothers first brothers. They
Tri Bourne (01:08:31):
Definitely, yeah. I grew up with 'em so they definitely fought growing up and they played together. Tr they just did not get along at all. You know, Trevor's being the older brother, like what the fuck you doing? You know, do things better kind of older brother Taylor obviously was like probably the more talented one at the time, plus more talented indoors and all that. So he is just eye rolling his brother plus wanting to do the party life and all that. Whereas Trevor was like, I can't do the party life, like and pull it off like you. So like I'm gonna do the serious way. And that just clashed. And that's why it was tension there. But they live together now. And Trevor really has adopted like as my brother, like I only get one of these or they have another brother, but you know, great two brothers and um, they're super good at leaving it on the court, like pictures after tr Taylor's there for the whole celebration. And they're really good at leaving on the court. They realize that it's entertaining, like speak your mind, go at each other on the court and be a man enough to leave it there. Yeah. They're they're pretty good at it now. Nice.
Mark Burik (01:09:25):
Yeah. Cool. That's all good dude. Try. Thanks so much for your time. Appreciate it. We'll see you on the sand man. Good luck in Chicago. I'll be over in Aspen. Do the mother load. Oh,
Tri Bourne (01:09:33):
I've heard good things. I wanna play that one
Mark Burik (01:09:35):
Day. It's been on my bucket list for a long time and unfortunately I have my first opportunity to play it.
Tri Bourne (01:09:41):
Good stuff right on. Thanks. You know, the show and all the stuff you're doing for the sport, bro.
Mark Burik (01:09:45):
Cool interview guys. Really happy to have try on. We sort of came into beach full time around the same level and obviously he has performed at a crazy world. Class level has gone through adversity. He is crazy focused and addicted to fundamentals, to strategy and it shows in his game and you dedicate yourself hardcore to doing all right things. It's really nice to see. And as you can tell cool guy. So that was an awesome interview and I get a lot, got a lot of those tips. You know, the things that you see that you need to be aware of, different hand placements for blocking coming forward on defense, right. Instead of getting in there and kind of on your heels when somebody has to hit hard, having that forward movement on defense. I like that. It's something I've been working on in my game, but instead of drawing a boundary, I think I'm gonna go with a little bit of tries advice or next little bit and see if I can start way back in the court and slowly make my way up through the point.
Really like that. Just before this video, this podcast was filming. I just got off of the group meeting with the players in our complete player program. We are currently working on defense we're in the third week of defense. And when you're a part of that complete player program, we take you through every one of our courses, passing, setting, arm, swing, attacking, blocking, and peeling defense serving. And of course our 68 max vertical jump program where we really help people get to the next level physically. So if you wanna check out any of that and you can see what it looks like better at beach.com/coaching. We also have a bunch of pages that tell you specifically about each course, but when you join the program as a member, the cool part is that we're working with you twice a week in video meetings. So in this meeting we had 16 people show up and did live Q and a.
And when we do that live Q and a it's, you're asking your specific questions and me and my coaches are answering them. But also during those Q and a, we take it a little bit through the course. And what we do a lot of is video analysis. Cuz as you heard from some of this interview, it's not always easy to know what you're doing, right, or what you're doing wrong without a coach or without a third eye. Sometimes you think you're doing it, but then somebody else looks at it and they say, ah, you're way off. Right? That's what we do with the, our complete player program members. You film your games, your practices, the drills that we give you from within whatever course we're talking about at that time or whatever offense or defense or blocking. So you film those drills. And then in our group, people take the links from the private Facebook group that they've posted it in.
And then we get to go over that, the video analysis. So we take a look at your game, your skills, your technique today, specifically we were going over movement on defense and there were a few players who were not quite stable before they moved. And there were a few players who really were rising out of their run when they're chasing on defense and they were doing the right footwork. So they thought they were doing it right. But then when we looked at their torso and the height that they ran at realized that they were missing a bunch of digs because of it. So we're able to fix that for them and then give them their next set of video homework, and then they can come back and post it again. So our members post their videos in our Facebook group within 24 hours. Me and my team of coaches, we all go into that private Facebook group.
We comment, we help them based on the videos. And then if they want that little extra push, we have our two video meetings per week that you can really vibe with us, converse with us, dig deeper into those answers and into your game. And today we also talked a lot about how to balance your physical training with your ball training. And we had some really good specific questions from the group. So I'm really thankful for my members. And thanks for joining me today. If you guys wanna check it out, head over bitter beach.com/coaching, I would love to work with you for the whole year. And we have a great staff of coaches and we're absolutely thrilled to help you get to the next level of your game. So if you want me and our coaches and Brandon and Chad and Kyle friend, uh, if you want us all looking at your videos and helping you figure out where you're going wrong or where you could really get some more points, go ahead to better at beach.com/coaching and sign up.
And I'll be seeing you live in meetings. Okay? Quick announcement about our camps. Every camp so far is more than halfway sold out. Some of them are sold out. Those are happening. The October camp is sold out. We have two in November, uh, one in December and January as well. Those are gonna sell out pretty quick. Once people start realizing that there's only a few spots left, those are gonna get sold out, especially the December 26th and January 1st camp. So we'd love to see you in Florida, hang out with you for seven days of training tournaments, some beach volleyball parties, but lots and lots of hanging out with pros, getting coached and training and tournaments. Those are happening in Florida. And we're also looking for some new places to set up and get a nice beach hotel where we can run those camps. So I would love to see you at a camp if you can't make it for a full week and you wanna bring us to your hometown to run a clinic for either a group of like 12, 15, 20 friends or your juniors club, your facility, get in touch, head on over to better beach.com/clinics.
We just need 12 people committed for one full day. That's three, two and a half hour sessions and it's two 50 a person. And that's it. As soon as you can commit to that, then we will fly. At least one of us out there to run a clinic for you, your coaches, your players, or your playing group, and would love to hang out with you for a couple days there as well. If you ever have any questions or you need something, shoot me an Instagram at mark Barrick, you can shoot our company in Instagram message better at beach volleyball on Instagram, or feel free to email support at better at beach. And we can tell you more about our programs. We can tell you more about how to set up a clinic, what our camps are like, any of that, we're more than happy to help you got a great, great staff set up and I'm so excited for this year.
And I just wanted to say finally, thank you guys so much for this season. It hasn't been over yet. It has not been a great competitive season before me or for Brandon, but what has made it special has been showing up to all the events and you guys coming out saying hi, saying, thank you saying I love your videos. It's so cool to be able to go to the volleyball events and feel like we've done something for the game and that people are appreciating all of the hard work. it's been a lot. And it's really cool to be, I don't know, in your living rooms, in your cars, uh, and become a part of your game. I don't take it lightly. We don't take it lightly. And I'm so appreciative of you and everybody reaching out saying hi, saying, thank you. So from the bottom of my heart, really appreciate you guys being here and listening and giving your attention to us. And we hope every day that we earn it. So that's all I have reach out until next time. See you on the sand.
