Mark Burik (00:02.29)
Hey everybody and welcome to the Better at Beach podcast. My name is Mark Burke and I am here with Brandon Joyner and our trusty producer, Huma in the background, being our little Joe Rogan Jamie type person. So we'll get her start Googling answers for us. But today we are talking about the setting change. The FIVB just changed the setting rules. This has happened in Beach.
Brandon Joyner (00:18.35)
You
Mark Burik (00:30.222)
It's happened in indoors as well. It's in the experimental phase. And so we're going to talk about old setting rules. We're going to talk about the new setting rules and then how we see these massive differences happening across all levels. And we might even give you some setting tips. So I hope you're looking forward to the episode. If you guys are listening to our podcast, if this is your first time here and you just want to hear everything about beach volleyball, go ahead and click that subscribe button.
like, comment, share, all the things, but the subscribers really help us. And if you're watching on YouTube, you can get some of our apparel, our new swag store is set up. So all you have to do is look under this video and you'll see a collection of t-shirts, cups, everything like that. So support our show and get some cool volleyball gear and designs. First things first, we're gonna go through our camp dates coming up.
May 16th in Santa Monica for intermediate players. May 23rd for intermediate men in St. Pete, Florida. May 30th in Long Island. All levels that is historically our biggest camp of the year and arguably the most fun. May 30th in June 6th in San Diego and Tacoma are sold out. June 20th, Virginia Beach. June 27th, Milwaukee.
Brandon Joyner (01:44.686)
Love that area.
Mark Burik (01:53.178)
July 18th, Des Moines, Iowa, July 25th, we're in Bend, Oregon, Santa Rosa on August 1st, that's in California. And of course our seven day all-inclusive event, November 29th in Punta Cana, the Dominican Republic. And we also have leagues, classes, and little mini clinics going on in Santa Monica, Hermosa, and Redondo. So this Monday, sign ups.
Signups are due this Monday for our Kings and Queens League and yeah, check out our website for all that good stuff. Let's get into the show. Hi, Brandon. We're back.
Brandon Joyner (02:36.866)
Hello, we're back. Yeah, this is gonna be a fun one. Yeah, setting change. These are things I wish, yeah, I wish had happened when I was playing. This would have catered to my level of skill a little bit better, aka not being able to set clean.
Mark Burik (02:43.428)
Again.
Mark Burik (02:53.757)
got.
Mark Burik (02:57.33)
I got a message from, Joe Lambert who a good friend he's in Salt Lake city. he goes, so with these new rule changes, is this going to change? Do you even coach setting anymore? And before we get into like what the rule changes anymore, said, listen, the technique of setting is still good sound, accurate technique. It's just, they're going to blow less whistles. So.
We're not going to change anything that we teach. and the contrast training that we use at camps and with our online players, that's, still need to go through those contrasts to develop control. So some people need a deeper catch position. Some people should release from higher. Some people need to speed their hands up. Some people need to slow their hands down. Okay. But today we're really going to talk specifically about the implications of this new.
FIBB change and I think it's still an experimental mode, but here it is. There are no more double contacts with setting. Double contacts is still a rule. can still blow the whistle, but it has to be two separate distinct contacts, like waving at a ball with one hand and then waving at another one, or perhaps fisting a ball with one hand and fisting it and
doing it in the other, but if it's miniscule, they are not going to call it. And the caveat to that is if it stays on your side, that leaves this little bit of question of, okay, if I old double it, but it goes over what happens there. And I think that the intent of that rule is to say like, it can't be sloppy if you attack.
So if you attack with a handset and we can see a double out of it, then they're going to call it. But yeah, no more doubles.
Brandon Joyner (05:04.226)
Yeah, which I mean, it was already heading that way as far as the international scene. mean, I think anyone that watched the Olympics, especially Americans, where we are obnoxiously strict with hands. I think it's just the history of our sport for better or for worse. Like I understand both arguments. But they were starting to get away with
just letting balls be high and quick and like if they can't tell if it's a double, they're not going to call it. And so I think they've kind of just taken the next step into taking the play out of the ref's hands, which I kind of like. I like that aspect. think too many times in the sport, I do not like it when refs take it upon themselves to decide winners and losers.
Mark Burik (05:40.359)
Mm.
Brandon Joyner (06:03.078)
And when we were talking about doubles, like handsetting is an extremely hard skill to judge. And so the positive is that now it's going to be on the players. The players are going to be the ones winning and losing games. We're not allowing a ref to blow a whistle more than they should or less than they should. So that is the positive, but yeah, it's definitely going to have some implications that we're going to see a lot different styles.
Mark Burik (06:33.766)
And the, the AVP hasn't announced that they're adopting this. So this is only for international ball. And it is in the experimental stage. You know, they run a couple of experiments every few years, just to see if it's going to add to the game, take away, if it create a real benefit. And I do really think that taking this out of the game where everybody goes, huh? Like even my own wife.
She'll watch a game, think something was perfect, and then look around confused going, what happened? And then sometimes the players are also like, what happened? Why did a whistle just blow after I said? And that's, it's frustrating as a player. And for fans who are just coming to the game, that's also like, yeah, it is frustrating. And the old heads, the Chris Browns and CBVAs, they're going to say that it's ruining the sport. There's no skill anymore.
Brandon Joyner (07:29.806)
I'm sure the sentins the the Dodds of all of that crowd and you know, honestly like even even guys like Phil Anders like these guys that are currently playing that just have beautiful hands like that that's the con of it is setting as a skill and It takes like the difference between somebody handsetting
Mark Burik (07:34.45)
Yeah. You know,
Mark Burik (07:48.2)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (07:59.252)
and somebody bump setting, there should, minus Christian Sorem, who's just a freak, that whole team is just full of freaks. like, other than that, like there's a lot of inconsistency that happens with bump setting versus hand setting. And so that used to be a way where it was like, you're a really good handsetter.
Mark Burik (08:07.59)
You
Brandon Joyner (08:25.344)
your team is going to be in system a lot more often than the team that pumps us. So I understand that argument a lot where it's like, no, why are, why are we taking the skill out of the sport? Like, why are we now bringing up this bottom half of people just because it was a tough call to make, or it's, it's something that we want to see how the game goes. So I can, I feel for those players as well.
I kind of, it's how I felt when I, when I, for indoor, when they've kind of gotten rid of doubles for indoor was I took a lot of pride in the fact that even though I was a setter and I wanted to get the ball to my spot, like rarely did I double. And when they got rid of that, I was like, huh, like now I spent so many years of my life.
training and figuring out how to not double this ball and now they're just letting everybody do it. So I understand that side too. I think that that is an extreme frustration with the current players. I think for the growth, right.
Mark Burik (09:35.464)
Right. That they went through a path of figuring out how to be accurate and not double. When now they're saying, we just want you to be accurate and let the play live less whistles, like more action, less confusion.
Brandon Joyner (09:43.682)
Yeah. And now, and now it's like.
Brandon Joyner (09:50.636)
Right. And so like, yeah, it's like, okay, for now those guys, like who knows how many hours Phil spent or Anders spent perfecting their handsets. And now it's like, okay, all of those hours that I spent, now you're telling me that that was kind of a waste of time. And I could have been using that to...
Mark Burik (10:05.32)
Everybody.
Brandon Joyner (10:13.944)
get a better serve. I could have been using that to become a better passer, a better hitter, something like that. I think that that argument's kind of crazy or it's, it's a, it's valid.
Mark Burik (10:24.007)
Mm.
Brandon Joyner (10:26.572)
But I also think that it offers a lot of leeway for the future. Cause one of the big, mean, we run into this at our camps is one of the biggest struggles that we have to get from the athletes that we work with is allowing them to be okay with doubling, allowing them to be okay with making a lift or something because we want to see a different error than they're used to.
Mark Burik (10:48.328)
Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (10:55.694)
So if you get rid of that error altogether, it's like, if this does come full circle and we see it implemented in everything, which it'll never get implemented in CBBA, so you guys don't have to worry about that. But like AVP, AVP America tournaments, whatever, we should not see a single person bump setting, which should make the plays a lot more fun, in my opinion.
Mark Burik (10:55.794)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (11:09.138)
Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (11:25.592)
You still have to be a good setter. that's, that's, that's like one of my things is like for you, do you think somebody actually gets a benefit by doubling the ball and getting to use their hands? Like if, they're just a bad setter.
Mark Burik (11:28.071)
Right.
Mark Burik (11:39.312)
No, like you still have to be accurate. So when we're teaching setting, like these skills are, yes, they're, they're meant to help prevent doubles, but they're helped to get you accurate, get your finger pads on the ball and feel where it should go and, and shoot that release. So I, you know, that that's always the mix. Like, well, now anybody can just do anything and there's no skill.
You know, the skill is accuracy. All we've done with this rule is taken out the, I'm trying not to double as opposed to I'm trying to set a good ball. Right. So I, I don't mind this at all. I don't think that it allows more players to play. I think it just.
or a different athlete to be more successful or less successful, you are still going to have to be pinpoint accurate with whatever setting technique you use. And if it changes the way people handshake, which I don't think it will, everybody's going to use the same handshakes, right? But like what's going to be the use in a two handed tomahawk slappy to try to set a ball? Are you going to be
really that much more accurate? What it will do is like, maybe that becomes more accurate than like where you were forced to tomahawk. Now you can just kind of finger the ball and throw it up. So I think it'll create a lot of better sets where people were too scared to use their hands now.
Brandon Joyner (13:13.07)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (13:20.471)
Yeah.
Right, that's what I was gonna say is like, I actually don't think, like if we take this rule out of it, I think one thing that we will see more of is option setting, where people are jumping to go over on two and then they're just flicking balls. Like, I think we're gonna see that change, people are gonna be way more willing to jump set. And if they don't, they're gonna lose.
Mark Burik (13:38.167)
god. I didn't even think about
Mark Burik (13:49.581)
Everybody's gonna be jump setting now.
Brandon Joyner (13:54.382)
Yeah, they have to, yeah.
Mark Burik (13:55.561)
I didn't even think about that implication because now like you don't have to be perfect on the jump. can just, huh.
Brandon Joyner (14:00.812)
Right. Yep. So now that's going to be interesting and it's going to be interesting to see like, what do they let get away? Like, are we going to start seeing people? Cause normally like even like miles partain who arguably one of the best hand jump setters that we've seen, are we going to see where he is really focusing on that nice kind of bowl shaped hands and then a solid release?
Mark Burik (14:19.89)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (14:30.868)
Or are we gonna start seeing people like almost directing hands a little bit more where maybe instead of their palms facing up, now they're facing their partner, like, and it's a little bit more redirection than it was before instead of like setting off of shoulders. I think that'll be interesting. That's gonna be huge. And then the second thing is, or like kind of going along with that.
Mark Burik (14:44.166)
Mm.
Brandon Joyner (15:00.782)
I actually don't think we're going to see a huge change in what setting looks like. Like, I don't think we're going to see more doubles just because doubles are allowed. If it's in the jump set, if it's in the jump setting situation, maybe, but all of these guys, especially on the international scene, they were so high and quick before that, like, I don't think they changed the way they're doing things.
Mark Burik (15:19.846)
Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (15:28.994)
They just, we're just not gonna have the whistles after the fact. Another question that I have is if I am the passer.
Mark Burik (15:32.776)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (15:40.956)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (15:42.334)
and I plan on setting my first contact to be a hittable ball, am I now allowed to double that ball? Because in server-receive, you're allowed to take the ball with your hands, not in CBVAs. And the way that it's stated in the rule book is it has to be a clean set.
Mark Burik (16:00.613)
According to that rule. Yeah, right
Brandon Joyner (16:10.936)
But now if we're getting rid of that double, now am I allowed to step up to half court and receive all these balls with my hands now and just kind of throw my hands at the ball to set my partner on two.
It's like, what's the distinguish there? Because, and then what happens? Like, does my partner have to hit it? Can they decide if they want to hit it? Like, is it my intention that counts? Because if you and I are partners and I step up and take a ball with my hands and it's a double, but now we're not calling doubles, and I say that I'm setting you, but then all of sudden you decide to set me, is that allowed?
Because that could make the game extremely messy.
Mark Burik (17:07.41)
So according to the FIVB website, double contact will be allowed during the setting option, provided the ball remains on the same side of the court.
Hmm.
Brandon Joyner (17:22.968)
Yeah, there's no clarification on what is the setting option. Like is it, is a setting option always the second ball?
Mark Burik (17:25.432)
received.
Mark Burik (17:33.382)
No, right? Cause you can set a free.
Brandon Joyner (17:35.886)
I mean, especially right now, we're seeing a lot of people going over on two, which means that that first contact is now a set. It's not a pass.
Mark Burik (17:44.536)
everybody's thinking about this from the setting standpoint. And then now like, you can theoretically step up and receive these float serves with your hands if you want.
Brandon Joyner (17:48.184)
Right.
Brandon Joyner (17:54.946)
Yeah, like one of my first memories of Chase Budinger, like he's the person that comes to mind for me is I was watching him in juniors. He's, I think he's a year ahead of me. but watching him at juniors, people were jump-serving and he was still standing. He was so big and strong, even at like 18 where he was like standing in the middle of the court or like up by maybe like 12 feet off the net.
people were just rocketing these jump serves at him and he just passed every single ball with his hands perfect. Like everybody else that age is sitting back three quarters like pass every jump serve you're passing with your platform, but he was just a different beast. And I mean, still is, but like I imagine someone like him who like, why wouldn't he just stand at 12 feet, set miles, and then if miles wants to hit it, hit it, if not, give him the ball back.
Mark Burik (18:52.455)
Right?
Brandon Joyner (18:54.838)
Yeah, I don't know. think that's something that they're going to have to be clear on.
Mark Burik (18:59.462)
Yeah, they're gonna probably step back a little bit.
Brandon Joyner (19:00.962)
But I don't know, but yeah, but I have no idea how they're gonna kind of justify it. Because it's like, that would be my argument. It's a set, it's a set. If they say like, if you take it with your hands and it's a double, then the ball has to go over the net. I mean, maybe that's something that we could get around, but.
Mark Burik (19:11.068)
Right? Cause now it wasn't resetting.
Mark Burik (19:26.706)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (19:27.852)
Yeah, it's just, I think that's one of the bigger questions that I have. And I also wonder if they are going to call lifts more. You know, like, right.
Mark Burik (19:40.742)
I hope not, for those of you guys who don't know, FIVB has gotten so strict on lifting or extended contact with the ball. So where you typically see people's hands like receive the ball, it's been for a while where your elbows cannot drop.
when you have contact with the ball where it should be up, but you can go up and your hands receive. it's imagine like you're holding a trampoline by, the metal bar outside of it. Like if you go up, you still see the ball enter and move downward in the trampoline. That's how we should set. So sometimes there's an optical illusion where people like they're taking it so low, but in actuality, it was just their hand, that shaped while their elbows and arms kept moving forward.
So the FIVB recently started getting really strict on lifts and there were a few tournaments that players were going nuts because they couldn't stand how strict they were being on the lifts. And now it's really fast. Like you, it's gotta be out. There's no extended contact and the AVP hasn't caught up with that. they're still allowing longer hands and then that filters down to
all of the amateur players in the U S and then if you look at college beach volleyball, I mean, those are deep, deep hands. Like there is a ton of contact in college beach volleyball.
Brandon Joyner (21:18.892)
Right. Which for the sake of the current rules, I think that we as a, actually we're working on setting in our morning intermediate class this week. So like, and I think it's very true is we are more likely to call doubles than we are lifts. Like especially tournaments that are self ref like
Mark Burik (21:42.62)
Mm.
Brandon Joyner (21:48.654)
players are reffing players. We're okay. If that ball for some reason, I hate that it had spin on it. If you use that as a ref, don't use it again. Even if you call a double, just say you saw a double contact. Don't say, it's fun. That's like, yeah, that's how you say it. Just say it every time. Don't like, there's no argument that can be made. Like, the only thing the player can say is,
Mark Burik (22:06.48)
Yeah, both hands touch it at different times. That's how you ref.
Brandon Joyner (22:17.164)
No, it didn't. And they're like, well, that's my discretion. Like I'm deciding this. Don't use the rule. It's fun. Like it's not a rule. It's not written anywhere. Stop. Stop it. Yeah. Right. like you can't tell me ref even back then refs weren't like, run one rotation, two rotations.
Mark Burik (22:24.85)
There's no number of spins before that was made up by somebody somewhere, but stop using that as an argument.
Brandon Joyner (22:43.906)
Like, no, get out of here. They're not watching the ball. Nobody has that good a vision. Yeah, no way. So like what I always tell and the common theme that we see, especially with like amateur players or intermediate players and beginners especially is that our contact is really high and they touch the ball quick. And so when we're at our camps, we encourage that low contact.
Mark Burik (22:47.26)
720 degrees my friend
Brandon Joyner (23:13.612)
because normally what it does is it actually isn't a low contact. It just brings you back down to normal because you're so used to touching the ball so high. But I always say like, right now, let's get called for lifts. Like let's get called for lifts. And I think that's what we're seeing on the women's NCAA a lot is they are over-exaggerating, but girls especially are extremely good listeners.
Mark Burik (23:37.736)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (23:41.676)
and they're really good about implementing things, whereas boys are just egotistical and rely on their athleticism a little too much. Yeah, we're something, we're something. But yeah, yeah, right. Yeah, no, I'll just do it better, the same way. Dang it, I'm out. And so when we're, I'm back in the interrogation room.
Mark Burik (23:41.745)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (23:49.042)
Thicker skulls. It's tough to get it in there. No, no, no, I got it. I'll fix it.
What?
Brandon Joyner (24:10.676)
Whenever we're thinking about being an amateur player and we're trying to get better at setting, I would say take the ball lower. But now that this rules come up, who knows how much that might shift.
Mark Burik (24:23.708)
Yeah. I mean, in, in coaching, wherever the problem is starting, we need them to explore the extreme contrast to go to the other side so that they can feel and sense what completely different feels like instead of thinking you're so close, just change a little thing. It's let's change the, the whole concept of, you know, we do this, in business, we do this in sports, like cut once cut deep.
Brandon Joyner (24:44.397)
Yes.
Mark Burik (24:54.566)
Like if you're going to change a pricing model or something, it's like, we're not going to slide into it. Like we're going to do it once, get rid of the pain and then move on from here.
So if we're doing that in coaching, it's let's make a giant slash in this skill, take you to the other side of it. And then you'd be like, my God, that was a lift. you go, you weren't close to a lift. So what you think feels like a carry or any other skill, like visually from the outside, it is now perfect. So stay where you feel that uncomfortable until it becomes your new comfort zone.
Brandon Joyner (25:35.82)
Yeah, it's not illegal. It feels different. that's a bit different and illegal or not the same word. I use to say, I think we probably have a lot of the same conversations, especially with how long we've been hanging out. But I always say like our programs that we work on within
Mark Burik (25:39.622)
Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (26:00.278)
in Hermosa, a lot of them are like six week programs, or especially when we go to these three day camps, seven day camps, whatever it is. I always say like, if you make a drastic change, even if it, like, if we have a timeline and you're on one end of the time, one end of the line, and we need to get you to the middle, it's always better to try to jump to the opposite side because as a coach, it's really easy for us to pull you back to that middle.
Mark Burik (26:29.638)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (26:29.89)
But if we like, if we keep inching along, then that takes years to get you to your goal. So like I always say within our six weeks things, it's like make a drastic change. Like if you make that drastic change, we might be able to find your perfect set within the day. Like within this hour and a half, we might be able to find your perfect set. But if you just.
Like kind of keep listening to that weird voice in your head that's saying, different is wrong. Different is wrong. Different is wrong. Then we probably not only will we definitely not get there within a three day or seven day camp, but we might not get there in a six week program. So it's like making those drastic changes is humongous, humongous.
Mark Burik (27:07.186)
Shoot.
Mark Burik (27:16.582)
Yeah. And you know, it demonstrates every athlete who can adapt or change something faster than the athlete next to them will get ahead faster. So.
Brandon Joyner (27:29.9)
Mm-hmm. You posted something on Instagram yesterday. What was it? What do you remember what that post was that you shared on Instagram yesterday? Something about business. I think it was like the difference between people succeeding in business or not is that the people that succeed are more comfortable being uncomfortable. Something along those lines.
Mark Burik (27:37.19)
Must have been my bot. I don't know.
Brandon Joyner (27:59.724)
And I think like that's not just a business thing. Like that's a, that's a like, yeah. it was a.
Mark Burik (28:06.618)
life parallel.
Brandon Joyner (28:12.088)
No, that's not it. Yeah, here we go. The most successful people I know don't have better ideas. They have a higher tolerance for discomfort. They're simply willing to sit in the mess longer than everyone else. Like.
Mark Burik (28:29.788)
Sounds like us.
Brandon Joyner (28:30.348)
That's, that's it. Yeah. We're, we're damn good at sitting in discomfort. But yeah, like that's a, that's such like a good, and eventually like joking aside, you know, for you and I, that is very true. We are, we are used to sitting in discomfort, but it hasn't messed with us. Like sure. We have tough days. We have tough weeks. We have tough months, but like,
overall mentally and as far as pushing, we see a pretty regular pace of what we're willing to do and what we can go through. And we know that like, we know that through that discomfort, we're gonna see a little peak, we're gonna see a new like a new plateau that we find. Yeah, it's almost become second nature at this point. But I think for us that started when we were in high school, when we were like kind of the
Mark Burik (29:05.192)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (29:30.316)
little chip on our shoulder athletes that it was like, hey dude, I don't really know what comfortable feels like. I don't know if I ever felt it. And so like being able to fight through that. And I think a lot of volleyball players specifically find themselves in that. Like we've talked before about how I think beach volleyball players do make good employees because they make ends meet. Like if they can, if they can make, if they can listen a little bit.
Mark Burik (29:55.27)
Yes.
Mark Burik (30:00.008)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (30:00.551)
and have the drive and figure out how to make life work. Beach volleyball players have sat in discomfort.
Mark Burik (30:09.158)
right. They should be the ultimate entrepreneurs because you're already dedicating half of your time to something that does not make money. And then you're surviving in the South Bay and you're seeing the world. Like, so there's some part of you that can figure out any
business you want to, if you just choose to go that route. And then if you grow an audience while you're playing, then you have a set of people that you can sell to. If they're already fans of you, people just want to buy stuff from people they trust and enjoy. Like I would much rather go to my friend's restaurant than somebody who's, you know, just another restaurant.
Brandon Joyner (30:54.796)
sure. So beach volleyball players, you're fucking crazy, but good on you.
Mark Burik (31:02.132)
Well, if they keep moving to Florida, it's a smarter financial.
Mark Burik (31:09.672)
Yeah, so it will be interesting. I didn't even think about jump setting. I didn't think about...
Brandon Joyner (31:17.804)
Yeah, they had they haven't? Do we know when their next tournament is?
Mark Burik (31:23.024)
international.
No, seems like they happen all the time.
Brandon Joyner (31:27.502)
I guess maybe it's China in like two weeks. I think Logan and Hagen are gone. So it'll be interesting. I'll get like some feedback on that one and see how it goes. But yeah.
Mark Burik (31:37.606)
Yeah, it changes how you practice, right? Well, does it because now the AVP teams who also play internationally, what do they do in those little TIFs during practice? Like, Hey, are we playing FIVB rules or are we playing AVP rules? Cause now that changes what's allowed or encouraged at practice too.
Brandon Joyner (31:58.114)
Yeah, hopefully none of them are calling doubles. They all need to get better at winning points rather than complaining. But that's just me. But yeah, and going back to what, what'd you say?
Mark Burik (32:04.104)
Yeah. and then how long. Like if that sticks, if FIBB sticks, how long will it take the AVP and then college volleyball and then amateur, mean, amateur leagues are like regular tournament directors. It would be brave for somebody to be like.
We're going by the new world tour rules. I would appreciate it. think, I think do it. And then if they change it, okay, change, change the rules back. like whatever the highest level of volleyball is doing, I think we should follow suit, prepare people and be friendlier for your B and your A players who are always quipping and, and.
Brandon Joyner (32:35.341)
Yeah.
Same.
Brandon Joyner (32:49.24)
Yeah, I mean, it's, yes, yes. Preach. Yeah, think tournament organizers, if this was happening, if I was a tournament organizer and I saw this change happening, I would experiment myself and I would say, hey, double A and lower, we're gonna experiment in this. Maybe if you don't want it like, avoid the,
Mark Burik (33:15.014)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (33:18.988)
the group that is a little high horse-ish, you know? Yeah, like if we want to still call doubles on them because it hasn't made it this way yet, cool, do it. But take this opportunity as an experiment. Yeah, get those B-level players, those A-level players, get them all handsetting. I guarantee you if you do that, if you do it for two summers, you will see the overall level of your area.
Mark Burik (33:23.43)
Poser to bro.
Brandon Joyner (33:46.974)
improved by probably a level each. Bs will become As, As will become double As, double As will become Opens, and even if you move, even after those two years, if you decide to move back to the doubles, I guarantee you the level still sticks. Those players will learn how to set clean. Yeah.
Mark Burik (33:50.152)
100 % agree.
Mark Burik (34:04.7)
Yeah. People spend five, 10, 20 years of their career saying, no, I don't, I don't handset. never have. haven't been able to, because they attempted it 10 times, got blown on a whistle and then they miss a third of the game. And it's like, if you just allow all of them, the opportunity to learn without losing points, at the lower levels, everybody in the community gets better because there's not this giant barrier.
Brandon Joyner (34:16.598)
Yeah. Right.
Mark Burik (34:34.354)
preventing you from learning a skill. know, practice ugly. That's what we do. Like every kid, every high school kid, college kid, yes, it's all ugly. When you start the advantage that people who play on teams and clubs have is that the coach says, keep going. Whereas if you learn and you just start playing with friends right away, they immediately call it. And so you don't get practice reps. only get play reps. And I think that hurts people's careers.
Brandon Joyner (34:39.288)
Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (35:04.718)
Yeah, it welcomes growth and it gets rid of one of the only negative things in beach volleyball, which is confrontation. Like when we have our beach, when we have our camps, like one of the funny things that a lot of people say, and a lot of the coaches say at the most is like, no doubles at Bab Camp. And it's true. We don't call doubles. We don't. And it's like two things. One, we see a huge improvement of handsetting throughout our camps from start to finish. And two,
Mark Burik (35:24.552)
No.
Brandon Joyner (35:35.18)
Our camps are the happiest environment that you'll ever experience. And a lot of it is because we don't have those little tiffs of you can call your own, call your own. And then I guarantee you, if you call your own, someone's gonna say, hey man, that wasn't that bad. You know, and so it gets rid of those little arguments. People can be happier all the time and winners are winners. So it's pretty cool.
Mark Burik (35:45.554)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (36:01.032)
Hey, if you guys are listening at this point in the podcast, I want you to check out both our Instagram, better at beach volleyball and our YouTube. And we have opened up a new swag store. I know I said at the beginning of this video, but check out some of our shop, tell us some designs. And if you think you want to see a design or create something for us, we would love that. So if you want to see your design, your better at beach theme design,
Brandon Joyner (36:24.077)
love it.
Mark Burik (36:28.562)
perforated throughout the world. Send it along to us. It's pretty easy for us to get those designs on shirts. We would love to make that live. And if you want to get some swag, you can just click underneath the video on your desktop, or you can expand it if you're watching on your mobile. But I do want to talk a second about our upcoming juniors program. So we are creating some weapons for juniors and for parents to help.
Brandon Joyner (36:31.18)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (36:57.964)
ease the whole college process. And so a lot of these are already running and some of them are in build. So a few services that we're adding. Number one is just creating a professional highlight video for you. So highlight and skills videos that will help you get recruited to colleges. So if you're worried about what skills you need to look at, what do college coaches need to see, we have a team.
full of all of that experience and editors. So we're going to start offering that soon, but you can click on the website. If you go to better at beach.com forward slash juniors, you can get more information on it. It's not a service we have yet, but it should be ready July 1st. We're also creating a full exclusive college recruitment course, which is going to come with every timeline that you need, where you should be physically, what stats.
exist at the next level and what's important, as far as approaching coaches, approaching schools, landing in the right school. So we're going to give you a step by step process and timeline for everything that you need. And we also have the phone number and email of every single coach in the country. and we're going to include that in the people who sign up for that course. So that is starting along with five Q and A's with.
NIL professionals with college coaches and recruiting specialists. So we're also going to have five live Q &As that the parents and the kids who are coming to those meetings, you guys can ask any questions of us that you want. Other than that, we have our regular analyze your game film. So if you're just looking to see where points are going wrong, your positioning, your technique, your strategy, we do a one-on-one film session.
And we have that available. We have that available for juniors and adults. We're just speaking more to juniors and their parents now, but we want to help you with those games. And a lot of times your coaches who have 10 or 20 athletes in a club program, they don't have the time to dig into the weeds with every individual player. So you can count on us as your associate head coach or assistant coach, what have you. And
Mark Burik (39:16.316)
Then we have, of course, our blueprint, comes with all of the courses for every skill, strategy, and drills that you can do at home and workout programs. And of course we invite all juniors, all levels, all ages to all of our training camps. So we've got a section on our website, better at beach.com forward slash juniors. want you guys to go and check that out and message us, email us, tell me what you need as a parent.
or as a parent of a junior, there's a lot of ways we can go. But in order to do that, we need to know exactly what you want. So please DM me, Mark Barak on Instagram or email supportupbetteratpeach.com. Let us collect as much information as we can and then we can create great things for you. But I'm really excited that we get to help out parents. I've done it for a few years now. A lot of my friends have been.
going through that process with their kids, with their daughters. And, you know, I've been doing it in my, in my side time of like helping them say, you do not want to use this video. Let's reshoot it. Let's reorganize it. and then what types of emails you should send, how many times you should send it, your level of involvement as a parent, or disinvolvement, like what you should and shouldn't be talking about with your kid.
around this time because there is an immense amount of pressure on young people and you just cannot, you can't ruin that. So we give some coaching to parents on a personal and a social basis as well. So head to betterbeach.com forward slash juniors, check it out, tell any juniors or parents going through that we've got a number of services that will help you improve fast, both from the skill standpoint and from the recruiting.
Brandon Joyner (40:44.332)
Here's your reminder. Alexa, stop.
Mark Burik (41:08.954)
standpoint and we would absolutely love to help you out. We also have it's soon to be released but we have got a club wide program and I'm just gonna let Brandon talk about that for a second before we wrap it up.
Brandon Joyner (41:25.484)
Yeah, so it's a little mentorship consultant type gig that we offer clubs. I've been working with a couple of clubs over the last couple of years and it's really special. It kind of starts from the bottom, works its way down. So I have a lot of meetings with directors on how they can create systems that their coaches and players can follow.
certain programs that they're currently running or tweaks that we can make to increase revenue. And then we also just provide a lot of support for coaches and players and directors. So the way it kind of works is we do an onboarding call. During that onboarding call, we see your current situation that you're in. We kind of touch on or kind of bring to light any any troubles or issues that you are currently experiencing.
Then we put our thinking hats on together and come up with ideas on how to fix them. Along with that, a lot of the times it's leading into a system. I actually have my first meeting with a club, Milwaukee Sting, happening on Monday where we've already done the onboarding with them. I've been working with this club for about three years now. And the growth that they've seen in their club is really cool for me to see from the outside looking in.
So once we do get signed on and we have that onboarding call, then we have five meetings with your entire organization, with the director and the coaches. And we just bring to light what is the system? What is the club kind of virtue? What do you stand behind? What are the systems? We introduce those, we talk to coaches on how to be effective coaches, how to run a specific practice, what drill development looks like.
how to communicate with players, how to communicate with parents. And then throughout the season, we have one meeting per week with you where it can either be just me or Mark and the director. It can be us including the coaches, or we can even invite all the players where it can kind of be a Q &A situation where they get to ask some guys that have done it for a while on how to be the best player or coach that they can be.
Brandon Joyner (43:49.07)
along with that, your entire organization gets access to our online curriculum. So your juniors would get access not only to our courses, but also our juniors recruiting, build out that we're currently working in. and pretty much we're just like, we're kind of wearing all the hats. We're helping you as a director. We're helping the coaches be better coaches. We're helping the players be better players.
and we're helping them achieve their goals. yeah, and we do it in a way where it's a payment that the club makes. So all of your kids are included in that, can be either depending on the club situation can be split up by the club and the kids. Yeah, so if you're interested in hearing more about that, if you feel like your club is stuck.
in a specific spot and you're trying to wonder if it can grow, but you're not sure how to do it. Or if you just really want to offer your athletes and coaches the best opportunities available to really meet their potential. It's an amazing program. So I think it speaks for itself within a year. And then obviously we wanna keep working with you guys and kind of help you achieve the goals that.
we'll set out for you guys on our individual calls.
Mark Burik (45:16.008)
Yeah, I think a lot of club coaches get stuck after they are the coach and they get 20 new signups the next year. And then they have to figure out a new coach. So they hire somebody who they think they, they know what they're doing. And then, then it just starts unraveling because this coach coaches his system. You're coaching the system that you want to coach as a director of the club.
Brandon Joyner (45:25.635)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (45:45.604)
And now you have so many kids that are just coming in and getting random advice from the volleyball minds that are not on the same page in your club. And so we like to tie that back in and get your coaches trained to be coaches in the way that you want them to be. We can provide a lot of the, the detail and the specific coaching points, which we give you a playbook.
Uh, for this is how you teach passing. This is how you teach setting. If you don't want to use that. Cool. But we will guide you through walking through your own playbook so that you can actually grow and your kids benefit without getting into the struggle of every young or amateur business builder. Because at that point you are a business builder and we go through this with better at beach.com. When I hired you, I was like, yeah, just go do this. And
Luckily you stuck around and we figured it out together, but probably only because we're best friends and Then when we hired a few of our other people they were just we didn't know how to tie them into what we did And so we had to go back to our athlete and coach mind and we said, you know, this is our team Not our company. How would we structure our team? We have a playbook. We have a culture. We have a language that we speak These are the tools that we use. These are how we teach other people how to do it
And so if you're getting into that mode as a director where you've got a lot of kids, your club is growing and you feel like too many things are just going off the rails in a direction that you don't want them to go, that's why we're here. Let us help you. Let us be your assistant director.
Mark Burik (47:35.217)
So cool stuff we keep growing to and we live in a constant state of mess and discomfort. But everything we do just helps out the volleyball world. So we hope you guys are following along, appreciate it. And at some point, if you want to use any of our services, we are here. And if you have any other ideas of things that we could or should build, you let us know. But that's it. I think we're good for today.
Brandon Joyner (48:00.686)
I love it. Beautiful. Good topic. Let us know what you guys think, whether you're on Instagram, YouTube, social media, whatever it is, wherever you're seeing this on. Let us know what you guys think about the new double rule. Is it good for us? Is it bad for us? Is it gonna make volleyball terrible? Is it gonna bring the sport up? Let us know. We wanna hear your opinions as well.
Mark Burik (48:24.785)
and
Mark Burik (48:29.052)
All right, from me, from Brandon, from everybody at Better at Beach, thank you guys for listening and we will see you on the sand.
