Mark Burik (00:00.876)
Hey, everybody, and welcome to the Better at Beach podcast. My name is Mark Burke and I am here with my buddy Brandon Joyner. And today we are going to be breaking down to underrated superpowers in beach volleyball, court vision and communication. How much is too much? How much is useless? How you can use your peripheral vision to really open up the court as well as pass and set better to your partner.
And of course, attacking. So we need to be able to feel the entire court around us. We need to feel the movement of the players. And then I'm also going to give you some cheat codes where there are situations that you don't have to see anything. You will just know that this swing or this play will work eight, nine out of 10 times if you hit the same shot, sort of like chess players. know that their opening moves are always going to be really similar.
there are some times where you can memorize the board and you know that one move will work eight or nine out of 10 times and you won't necessarily need vision. So we'll give you those cheat codes where you don't need vision but we'll also tell you how important it is and when to use it. Before we get started, I just wanna make a quick note. We share the same birthday and in 34 days, I'm turning 40.
Brandon Joyner (01:23.095)
You
Mark Burik (01:27.182)
And I didn't think that 40 would look like this when I was younger. So to all the guys and girls who are 30, 35, 40, 50. If you're trying to get in shape or you're trying to get better at this sport, it's completely accessible. I play with a group of mid 40 year olds and early 50 year olds, and we're banging like we're moving at full speed. We play at 615 because, know, we got big boy jobs and everything, but
These guys are still 44 have six packs, 51 have six packs. Is it hard? Yes. Do you have to get started and continue and be consistent? Yes. But if you play volleyball and you go hard two or three times a week and then you take care of your body and you get there in the gym and you just rock two or three times a week and you stay at that level of consistency, you don't need these.
banger workouts that last an hour and a half, two hours. You need to just be consistent. Put some type of weight, even if it's body weight, on your legs. Find a way to get 100 reps per day of anything with resistance or explosiveness. We just finished 100 squats a day and 100 pushups per day challenge, and your body just feels instantly better and then you have a new level. So it's not inaccessible. If you come to the South Bay,
It's a little bit of a different world here where everybody is just in shape, athletic and ready to rock. But guys, go for it. It's not hard. Start. Start simple. If you need a head start, we have a 21 day mobility and strength foundations program that will definitely fire your engines. But if you can just get 100 reps of anything total per day, you can get 10 reps of squats, five pull ups.
Brandon Joyner (03:05.097)
you
Mark Burik (03:20.686)
25 pushups and then finish the next 60 reps with whatever you want, you'll get in the shape and condition you want. And I feel great. I'm still playing.
Brandon Joyner (03:30.486)
Yeah, I've said it to a couple of people and I'm curious what you'll say now is I think you might be in the best shape of your life.
Mark Burik (03:39.768)
Thanks, man.
Brandon Joyner (03:41.058)
I, and well, you're welcome. You earned it. But I was actually kind of wondering, do you, cause you've been pretty straight and narrow for a while now. Like you, don't think you've drank in what 18 months, 19 months.
Mark Burik (03:58.942)
Yup. Yup.
Brandon Joyner (04:00.866)
I know you are at least thinking about your sugar intake and like you'll go like a month here and there where you'll like cut it out or you're like extremely shrink it. Do you think that, do you have any regret now that you've seen what your body can do and like the shape that you're currently in? Do you have any regrets looking back on your flying career and like wondering if you could have been in better shape? Do you think that would have changed anything?
Mark Burik (04:12.376)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (04:31.854)
No, I don't have any regrets. I think what I erred on was is where you want pretty much every athlete to err on is working too hard. If you find somebody who works too hard, you can cut that, you know that they will go through whatever it is without making excuses and sitting down and taking multiple days off. So for me, with starting volley camp and then better at beach, like I was coaching four to eight hours a day.
then trying to practice two, two and a half and then get a lift for an hour and a half and then like on the website in the middle of the night. So I, you know, I didn't treat recovery as well as I could have or should have, but now that I'm eased up on the individual throttles where I don't, I don't crush myself in the weight room all the time. I just go, I move, I pick some things up, swing them around and I'm like, all right, that was a solid 20 minutes. Maybe I'll get another 20 minutes later.
Brandon Joyner (05:14.338)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (05:27.01)
and I'm playing two to three times a week, I don't feel all of this crazy soreness, all these pains, and then not trying to convince myself, I need another practice, even though my body is falling apart. So I'm happy with where I'm at, but in order to get to the level that I was playing at, I needed to respect the reps on the court to be able to pass, set, and hit at the level that I was. And you know, now it's like,
I need a couple of weeks of consistency back into it. And I'm pretty close to that same level. I'm still like playing hard and well against current AVP teams when they give the invite. And so I feel good, but I've got a cheat code of a wife and a mother-in-law who we have vegetables, a ton of steak or chicken, and then a little bit of rice. Like that's pretty much every meal. And then we have fresh food all around. we eat, it's so easy.
Brandon Joyner (06:18.006)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (06:23.692)
Right.
Mark Burik (06:27.288)
to eat well, it's really not that hard. Pick a clean carb, don't add any desserts or nonsense. Don't drink, sorry everybody, but like the less you drink, the better your days are. You know, maybe the nights are a little bit more boring, but you wake up 4.30 a.m. and you're fresh. So yeah, feel good, body feels good. Thanks.
Brandon Joyner (06:42.562)
Right, right. That's cool. Yeah, it's been good to see. I'm happy to celebrate your 40s with you this year. Should be fun. And I always, secretly, I always like being three years behind you because I never feel old. When your best friend has the same birthday as you and he's always three years above you, you know, I'm just...
Mark Burik (06:56.342)
Yeah, gonna be fun. Okay.
Brandon Joyner (07:11.956)
I'm always a kid.
Mark Burik (07:14.295)
Yeah, yeah, my brother's turning 50 this year, so it's hitting him hard,
Brandon Joyner (07:20.596)
Still partying.
Mark Burik (07:22.222)
Still partying. No. Okay. Quick camp announcements before we get into it. We're going to Bend, Oregon, July 25th, Santa Rosa, August 1st, Chicago, Illinois, August 22nd, Oklahoma, September 12th, Seattle, September 26th, Youngsville, Louisiana, October 3rd, Long Island, New York, October 10th, Orlando, Florida, October 17th, and October 31st, we're gonna be in Fort.
Meyers, we also have a couple of three hour clinics coming up in Santa Monica. So visit our website, go to the Los Angeles section and you will see those clinics pop up. But we got three hour clinics as well as our classes and everything going here in the South Bay. And if you want to run a private camp for you and six to 10 of your buddies, please get in touch. We can do it in California or we can do it at our Airbnb in Florida.
We would love to spend three or five days with you getting that training in. So just DM me or you can email support it better at Beach.com. But we would love to, you know, run you and your squad through some hardcore training, whether you're juniors, just a group of buddies that wants to play or you think there are some people in your neighborhood or playing group that would be down to train hard for three to five days in the fall and winter in some nice warm weather.
Brandon Joyner (08:50.836)
And breaking news, I haven't even shared this with you yet, but it looks like we are going back to Miami for the last week of September 22nd to the 26th. Official details haven't been released yet, so I'm not gonna break it too much, but there's gonna be some loyalty involved with our camp.
Mark Burik (09:00.905)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (09:06.657)
Awesome.
Brandon Joyner (09:20.352)
It should be a fun one. So a lot of information should be coming out that in the next week or two. yeah, end of September in Miami. We'll be there.
Mark Burik (09:25.133)
Awesome.
Cool. That's awesome. Nice. We're, we're going heavy in Florida this year.
Brandon Joyner (09:30.102)
Yeah, yeah, we love it. We need to go back.
Mark Burik (09:34.06)
Yeah. All right. So peripheral vision. We talked about in previous podcasts, I dominance and you know what I need to look for. But for we can just let's talk about just attacking first. Right. Attacking there's when you take your approach, basically, if you're an elite player, you should be looking on the step close when your hands go back, your eyes go forward.
And then as you take off, your eyes are still on the defense and then they release to the ball. You can look before that. You can get a general sense of where everybody is right after your pass. So pass survey the court, then pick up your setter and the set. And then that final look comes on the last two. But DJ's been running into some problems with vision. He feels like sometimes he's hard hitting.
So right now DJ who just took a second in AVP Denver with Logan, he's working on a little bit less of a look where I'm just telling him to spread his peripherals, open up his vision instead of taking a super hard look and see if he can feel instead of staring, feel with his peripheral where people are by opening up his vision. I think we get laser focused early in our career and then, you know.
a lot of situations where the only thing you can look at is the ball and you hope that things are working out like they should. But I think spreading your peripheral or just opening up and your mind while it's approaching the ball should be saying, where should I hit this ball? Not hit the ball. And St. John Smith will disagree with me on this. But what do you think about peripheral and vision?
Brandon Joyner (11:22.806)
You know, I've had a lot of success with us at our camps. there's one, there's two things. So first I'm going to start with my, I call it my ingredients talk. And like when we're, when we're going through attacking, there are certain ingredients that you have to have. Like when we're baking a cake, you have, you need your flour, you need your eggs, you need your milk, you need the cake mix. Like you need
You need the vanilla, need whatever main ingredients you need, you need those. And those don't ever go away. like, those are the timing and spacing. Those are the set call. Those are making sure your first step of your approach is slow and calm, allowing you to like really find a really good step close and hit on your way up. Those ingredients can never go away.
A lot of times, we just heard it from you with DJ, is that when we start to focus so much on the vision aspect, sometimes we lose those main ingredients. And if that's what's happening to you, you're already setting yourself up for failure. The vision, or even like shot location, vision, whatever it is, those are like the icing on the cake, the fruit toppings, the chocolate chips, the sprinkles, whatever you need, like.
The cake is still there. It still tastes like cake, right? But then if you can start adding in the icing, the fruit toppings, everything, then that's when you're kind of getting to that next level. But so even when we're talking about vision, remember that there are certain things that have to come before it. If you're too early and you're underneath the ball, don't try to look. If you're, if you're spacing is off and you're not completely far enough off the net, then
you've lost that idea of vision a little bit. So make sure you're getting the main ingredients. The second thing is I really like the idea of peripherals, but the way that I've talked about it is actually using two forms of vision. So the first one is like after we pass, and I think this works extremely well for intermediate level players or even beginner, is after we pass the ball, take a picture of the other side of the net. So.
Brandon Joyner (13:45.236)
After you pass, look on the other side, take a picture. And then once we get to that step close that you were talking about, now as we're going up to find that ball, you're also going to peek to the other side of the net. But you're not necessarily trying to read t-shirts. You're not trying to see facial expressions. You're not trying to really see anything except shadows.
you're using a lot of that information from that initial picture that you took. So it's kind of like that bar game that I think a lot of us have played growing up is like, when there's two pictures and you have to see like which ones are different. That's the game that you're playing when you go up and look at your peripherals. It's like, you've already taken your picture, so there's a left side picture. And then as you're doing your step close and you're starting to look at the other side of that, you're just trying to decide, has that picture changed at all?
Mark Burik (14:26.901)
Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (14:42.114)
The reason I like that is because after that initial look You can start to generate in your mind like okay, I can Do this shot or this shot? I Think keeping it as simple as possible is always best. I like a hard driven idea And I like a shot idea Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I'm either No, I'm thinking okay
Mark Burik (14:54.946)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (15:03.502)
A single shot idea, right? So not like cut or high line.
Brandon Joyner (15:10.378)
Am I gonna battle the defender with like a hard cross swing? If I'm not, I'm going high line. So I'm like, I've kind of limited to that. I also just love staying aggressive. So I tend to lean a little bit more on that hard hit than I do the shot, but that's just me. But yeah, so once you've established those two options, then...
you can see if that's pit that picture has changed. And obviously if the picture hasn't changed, you can still go through your normal, your those first two options that you picked with. If you pick either of them and you go aggressively, then you're probably going to score. If that picture has changed, then you might have to go the opposite, but usually it's a little bit more reactionary, right? Like, so you talked about spreading your, spreading your peripherals, your vision.
and kind of just trusting your swing. Like that trust, takes a little bit of time, but like, if you're like, the picture's changed, I'm going with this. Then you just have to be okay with living with it. But yeah, I think the ingredients is huge. And then also just see if the picture's changed. Don't try to take another picture. Don't try to like, I think it's funny when people like stare at each other in the eyes, like it's completely ineffective as an attacker.
The only person I've seen do it at an extremely high level is Taylor. Taylor will literally be looking at the defender on the other side of the net as he's shooting. So don't try to be like Taylor. He's like one of those aliens that can do crazy stuff. But yeah, I think that's my peripheral talk. And it's worked a lot. I see a lot of improvement at camps.
Mark Burik (16:43.192)
Hmm.
Mark Burik (16:53.429)
I it.
Mark Burik (16:57.612)
Yeah. So when you come in and you survey the court, there should be, we talk about the ABC option a lot. Basically you've got your A like, what are you going to do if the blocker, if you see that the blockers lined up in the line and the defenders in the cross, your swing might be hard cross, might be cut, might be high line, right? Then your B swing would be, or what are you going to do if that picture changes? So you've got your
solution built into your approach right away, right from the start of what you're going to do. And people kind of mix this up where they say like, okay, I need to hit this shot right now. And then if that shot's not open, they can, they continue to commit and then they get caught because they don't have the second answer in their mind. Right. It's gotta be an off switch to that second answer. So I'm going hard cross. Like this is, this is what I'm good at. This is what I want to hit for this point.
then I need to have that be in mind. If they block cross or if that picture changes, all right, then I'm just gonna go over cut or over cross. And those solutions that you have built in your mind, that will be so much better. I mean, if you look at elite level shot charts, they do utilize a lot of the court, but shot charts are thick in one zone.
a little bit thinner in a second zone. And then that's it. Like most pros are using heavily two swings. And yes, we see a whole bunch of highlights where there are different types of swings. And then there's obvious situations where you're like, this is going to work here. But your kind of everyday shot chart should be really similar. And we did this years ago with my friend where I was like, Hey, what are you best at? And he's like, definitely cut. I was like, okay, cool.
Let's play a set. And then I just counted his shot chart and he had nine different locations in a set to 15. I'm like the thing that you're best at, you never established and went back to. So you're not even doing what you're good at. You're you're like Shaquille O'Neal. You get you get one dunk under the board and then like you're waving your hands at the three point line. And then sometimes you're like running out or driving the lane. Like if you're good at dunking, just dunk. If you're good at shooting three pointers.
Brandon Joyner (19:12.802)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (19:14.37)
Just shoot three pointers. And if you see the open lane, of course, yeah, go take a layup, but you should establish what you're good at. and then that solves a lot of the need to look issues. But if you're just making it up or you're chasing the ball, like we should always have the goal is to get the ball to a certain location on the other side of the court instead of just hit the ball. And when I said earlier that like St. John would disagree or have a small problem with that.
His most important is exactly what you said, the ingredients first. So he said, you have to get your feet to the ball. That's the most important thing. Can you put yourself in the best hitting location? Then you have all of your options. But if you don't have, you know, right, left, right, left, double arm lift with the ball.
Brandon Joyner (19:52.194)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (20:00.066)
That's a really big point.
Brandon Joyner (20:05.888)
Yeah, and just to kind of build off of that, this is kind of another like big, big thing. So like if you're watching this and you struggle attacking, especially if defenses pick up your shots a lot, it probably has something to with the fact that your approaches look different for every single attack you do. So like if you're going in to hit a high line, your body's probably facing that high line. You probably slowed down.
If you're going into hit hard cross, you're probably have a really aggressive approach the whole time and you never slow down. If you're going to hit a cut shot, you're probably missing a lot and you're probably still facing the high line. so like the easiest way to score before we even talk about vision is make sure that whether you're hitting a high line, a hard line, a hard cross, a cut shot, a jumbo, whatever it is, make sure that your approach.
Mark Burik (20:44.11)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (21:00.692)
your body angle is pretty consistent. if we took, like if I took you out to the beach today and I had you hit 10 balls and I wanted two of them to be high lines, two of them to be hard lines, two of them to be cut shots, two of them to be hard angle, two of them to be jumbos, if I only recorded you from like the first step of your approach until your attack, every single one of those should look the exact same.
Right. And the only thing that's going to change is most likely going to be the angle of your hand, what your arm swing looks like, like, you following through or are you finishing high? Um, but like making sure that you find that consistency is more, that's more important than looking at the other side of the net and just like having that elbow forward the whole time and like waiting for them to run and then just shooting it to another side. Like there are a lot of players that could win like that, but as you continue to get better,
Mark Burik (21:55.886)
Mm.
Brandon Joyner (21:59.904)
The second you start to show them what different swings look like and if they do look different, you're just handing points away. So yeah, look the same.
Mark Burik (22:14.178)
And for the majority of us out there who don't have setters who set absolute dimes or the sets are just kind of everywhere. This is tough. This is really difficult to have your feet to ball, get the approach. we would, you know, we're forgiving that there are not, 10 out of 10 setters out there that you can find. you find one, Ooh, buy them something nice, treat them well because yeah.
Brandon Joyner (22:21.57)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (22:35.906)
Hold on to them.
Mark Burik (22:40.302)
A good setter is worth his weight in gold. That's for sure. But if you are playing with an inconsistent center and you can't, know that your approach is going to look differently every time. You shouldn't be trying to imagine that they're setting to a location. You should ask them to set that location and then immediately your mind should go, hmm, I wonder where they're going to set and then go get that ball.
Brandon Joyner (22:40.694)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (23:10.828)
Like, so that creates that slow approach that you should have and that you'll develop even better and more so, as you progress your level. Because right now I'm playing a lot of mornings with Kurt Topple and his setting is actually way better than it was 10 years ago. I'll say that. but the idea, and when we did well, when we did well was when I stopped expecting a set to be exactly six feet from the net.
Brandon Joyner (23:28.514)
Hey, maturing.
Brandon Joyner (23:36.866)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (23:39.842)
I just held myself back and I'm like, I don't really know what's going to happen. Okay. Let me go chase that set. I think people start approaching at a zone and they continue them, their momentum there. And then when the set doesn't reach, they blame their setter for a bad set. And yes, it did end up like it looked like a bad set, but you can make mediocre setters look pretty good by staying really patient, staying behind half court before they're set, not having quick forward momentum, just like a rocking step, like you're walking into it.
because you can always accelerate off of the last three steps. And that's where we want the most acceleration. So you don't want to build that speed until you get to the level where you're playing with setters who can actually put it on point. And then in that case, you can jump before they set and they'll still find you. But until you get to that point, stay patient, keep everything in front of you, make sure that the ball.
And the setter are in front of you, not off to the side of you so that the defense is in the background and that set up. Where does set and the center are in front of you and the defense is in the background that allows for an increased level of vision so that you can make decisions. Okay. But everybody quit chasing balls and hitting just to, just to hit, like think about the location that you've got to get it to, or just think.
Brandon Joyner (24:54.562)
Preach.
Mark Burik (25:06.35)
The most important thing for me right now is is looking, you know, and I know that flies right in the face of what Brandon just said, like I get the ingredients, but players with ball control can win B tournaments without needing to jump just because they can see. that whole heat thing, if you're not six to if you're not with a 35 inch vertical like, all right, then vision needs to be your only.
and every weapon you combine vision and the ability to place a ball where you want it to with a little bit of disguise. And you'll, win those tournaments without needing to jump or needing to be big.
Brandon Joyner (25:44.65)
And I think even with that statement, because like I watched you last night in our Kings League. And, you know, we had a podcast, I don't even know how long ago it was, maybe a month and a half. But we were talking about the easiest way to win a B level tournament. And one of your hot takes, which I thought was crazy in the moment, was don't jump the whole tournament. And I was like, there's, I don't know about that. And then I've watched like,
these like Kings tournaments, which I would say is like, especially towards the upper echelon of like that group, it's pretty B, pretty B level. And watching you not jump and just look at the defense on the other side and then placing an easy ball in play, score so many points. And I would also argue, not just for the sake of pride, but
Mark Burik (26:22.818)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (26:41.556)
I think with that, you're still following the ingredients. Like you just decided that your jump isn't an important ingredient and instead you've replaced that with looking. So I think that those are, those can kind of go in hand in hand and it's a lot of time. Like if you're not a big jumper, then yeah, let's not focus on this jump. don't try to like the difference between you jumping four inches and seven inches.
is not gonna make you score points. But if you jump two inches and you're able to hit the same spot on the court multiple times or really see, that's why Dan Kavanaugh, who does our men's class in the mornings, he always surprises me because he's got good enough ball control pass set. And then he goes up, he uses this little two handed tomhawk, but he has great vision and he puts the ball into the right spot.
It's really cool. So I'm you've won me over on the on the no jumping to win a B tournament after after I've conducted a thorough investigation. It's been cool.
Mark Burik (27:41.229)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (27:48.482)
haha
Mark Burik (27:51.982)
Yeah. And if, you know, and if I'm playing with the unrated players, B players where the sets are going everywhere, my mentality needs to be, get to the ball first instead of, all right, I'm going to jump and load on this. Cause as soon as you think jump and load, then you're chasing the set and your mind stays on jump and load instead of like chill, get a good spot over on the other side.
Brandon Joyner (28:06.06)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (28:19.394)
Yeah, I really like that idea of like when we call for a set like it's a suggestion like the better the setter is the suggestion is usually taken but if the setter like the zone is like alright if like we use a number system with better beach like one through five and If I call for a two really what I'm expecting is like alright
Mark Burik (28:33.591)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (28:47.774)
If they said anything between a one and a three, I can still get my feet there and put this ball away. For some people, it might be one and four, you know, but trying to understand that it's just a suggestion. But then once that ball leaves their hands, it's up to you as an attacker to be efficient, to take priority in finding your feet to ball and get there and then finish the play.
Brandon Joyner (34:56.906)
I we might've lost him for a second, but one of the things that I've really, especially when we're talking about communication and we're talking about vision using that as well is volleyball is already such a stressful sport that whenever we're communicating, have to make sure, hey bud, we have to make sure, I'm talking about communication again.
Mark Burik (35:25.528)
Mm.
Brandon Joyner (35:26.394)
And one of the things, and I picked this up from Hudson after I was playing an open gym with them at one point, but making sure that your communication is stress free. You know, I think sometimes when we play with people, like we see it, we see it in our Monday night leagues. and a lot of our camps is that people are so amped up that they like set a ball and then they'll look at the other side of the net and then they will scream at the top of their lungs.
Highline, highline, highline, highline, highline. And that is such a stressful thing. Like one of the things that Hudson kind of, cause I was one of those people, I didn't realize I was doing it. But I like set him a ball and I started screaming and he was like, how do you expect me to have a slow approach and go up and make a, like an actual decision when you are scaring me?
Mark Burik (36:22.687)
Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (36:24.034)
And I was like, huh, that's like, that's something that's pretty real. And so like, again, whenever you're calling your shot, it's a suggestion. Your attackers don't have to take it. But I will say like, I've been talking a lot about stress over the last like six months and how it's our job when we're, when we're on offense, it's our job to try to alleviate the stress of the play. And so like we can do that by having a long contact with our pass, a long contact with our set and a whole, a really good finish.
Mark Burik (36:40.216)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (36:54.522)
but it also goes into our communication. so like when you're communicating to the person that you're expecting to score, make it calm. Highline, cut shot, nobody. Like, and then they're going to hear it the same way they were. And rather you're screaming it or not, but it will also make everybody relax. So I think that that is huge. And make sure you actually see the other side of the court too.
Don't just like say something. If you don't see something, don't say it. And so, yeah, that was my next communication thing. It's become a pet peeve of mine now that I knew I did it. And I just want, I want to say to everybody that embarrassment. So stop screaming at your partners.
Mark Burik (37:23.352)
Mm.
Mark Burik (37:28.556)
It's, yeah.
Mark Burik (37:41.464)
You know, I'm at the point now, maybe it's because I'm a little more chill when I'm playing and the guys that I'm playing with. But I sit and I don't say anything. You know, like I know that these guys should and do see their own court. So. The fact that they would listen to me, maybe 30 percent of the time, or maybe they're not listening to me, maybe it just matches up with my call. I guess I've told I've talked about this a number of times, but they did the study.
Brandon Joyner (37:51.137)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (38:09.898)
at the FIVB and the Olympics, and they said, did the swing match the call? So they checked out if players are listening to their setters. And did that have any correlation into the result of the play? In other words, if they listened, did they win or lose more than if they didn't? And there was no statistical correlation between any of this. And so it's.
It just tells you that at the highest level, they're still calling because we had enough stats to say like we have all these calls, but it also means they're not listening. So if you're said or if your hitter needs a call to feel comfortable, fine, but they have to progress at some point to not needing the call.
Brandon Joyner (38:47.542)
Right.
Mark Burik (38:58.368)
to it being a suggestion and at least it's there if they did everything wrong, if they came in early, if they're totally blind, if the set's coming from the back of the court, that's like the only time that I'll make a call is when I'm setting from the back line because I know my hitter's blind. So we gotta wrap this pretty quick.
Brandon Joyner (39:17.3)
And I've.
Yeah, I've talked about this a little bit before and that can also, if you only listen to your attacker or if you only listen to your call, it's like one of the easiest answers that a defender can figure out quickly. And if they figure out that you're just listening to calls, they're gonna start walking to these shots. So yeah, stay aggressive.
Mark Burik (39:32.504)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (39:38.274)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (39:42.2)
All right, so here's a sound bite for social media. Okay.
Brandon Joyner (39:46.15)
Hahaha
Mark Burik (39:48.628)
Here are some things that I think everybody is doing wrong with communication. Hot take. Number one, the whole your call, your middle, my middle. Cool. Great. We all have responsibilities, but both of you, no matter what, should be hoping for and aggressively moving to every ball. That should be your first instinct is to take the middle.
not to move away from the ball. there's any ball on the court that you think shouldn't be yours, you are not playing with a ball hungry mindset. And so you're going to miss a lot. Number two, yeah. Number two, I don't call sets anymore. If my hitter can't see at the level that we're playing at, it is definitely not my fault. I get that's a suggestion. Of course you can do that.
Brandon Joyner (40:25.58)
Be selfish.
Mark Burik (40:43.422)
And then same thing for blocker, right? For the whole like, well, that's his ball because it was an overpass. So he should play the short court. You need to be absolutely hungry for every ball because if your partner doesn't get it, you can either sit there and whine that you lost the point and it's their fault, or you could just be hungry for the ball and go for it. And then you've saved that, have the discussion afterwards. But.
Those are some things that I do differently. I don't say your middle my middle anymore. I still don't understand the whole your call my call. If you're saying that I don't get it like waiting for somebody to make an announcement before somebody needs to move to a ball. That's silly. Just both double communicate if you want to communicate and both be aggressive for the middle. We started that at Potsdam me and Hudson where it's big court just said both of our middle like
Brandon Joyner (41:19.586)
Me neither.
Mark Burik (41:37.388)
That's it. We're never getting a step middle. If we collide into each other, I'm happier about that than two people parting ways. OK, and then some quick hitters, some things that will always work. Number one, deep middle. If you are in trouble, hit deep middle. If you're hitting from the middle of the court at a really high level, hit straight down the middle of the court.
Brandon Joyner (41:44.63)
Yep. Yeah.
Mark Burik (42:02.434)
Big blockers will try to go eagle to pretend both or they'll have this instinct to protect heavily on one side or the other. And if you just go straight beeline straight through the middle of the court, a lot of times it works without you having to make a decision. So I definitely exploit that a lot and people dive out of my way or spread my hand or spread their hands. And then I get a kill through their head. Number two, if you want to hit an option, just continue.
fast and high to the deep cross. Wherever you are, just accelerate that ball to the deep cross. Don't do a short poke. Don't do a short rollover. Just get up quick and tap that ball like a little dart. Just make sure that it stays kind of high, like six, eight inches above the net is fine, but don't put any arc on it. And number three, if you are blind, if you're struggling with location and vision, just accelerate balls confidently.
Brandon Joyner (43:01.346)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (43:01.529)
Shots, good shots are still good shots. So put a little bit of zip on it. Try to get rid of any arc, move your hand quick to the ball and just go with it confidently. You know that you hear this in all sports and all business and every mentorship. A mistake made at 100 % velocity is often not a mistake. But when you slow down and you hesitate and you soften up, that's when you get scooped. You're too slow in a sport. You're too slow because there's a defense in business and life.
Brandon Joyner (43:20.674)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (43:29.708)
you're too slow because somebody else just started doing while you were thinking.
Brandon Joyner (43:34.124)
Something that I've used that with Logan and Hagen so much this year where I say a lot, let's end points the way we want to end points. So like that idea of just trusting where you're at, keeping your shots clean, like, and just going with what you have. I'd rather see you get blocked than like this 10 foot high, high line that a defender can walk to because you were too scared about trusting your judgment.
Trust it, go with it, end the point the way you want to. And it's huge.
Mark Burik (44:09.868)
and we'll end the podcast the way we want to. Guys, thank you for listening. It's been a pleasure. We're go work with our online players right now. We are doing jump mechanics this month, jump mechanics and arm swing mechanics where players can submit their videos, do the weekly challenges, and then we coach them on that. If you wanna check that out and have us check out your video and go through all of our courses and training programs, just head to betterbeach.com. That's it. We'll see.
Brandon Joyner (44:35.754)
Yeah, and we're in LA this weekend. So I'm coaching Logan and Hagen. If you guys are in the area and you want to come support LA launch at the Inuit Dome, I'd love to see there.
Mark Burik (44:46.388)
Awesome. So instead of being on the sand, we will see at the Intuit Dome.
Brandon Joyner (44:51.01)
We'll see you at the end of it. End to it, Dom. End to it? There you go.
Mark Burik (44:54.2)
I don't think it's, yeah, I don't think it's a Alaskan drive. I think it's the company. Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (44:58.484)
It's not an Alaskan. I like to try an accent whenever I can.
Mark Burik (45:05.898)
All right, everybody have a good day. We'll see you on the stand.
Brandon Joyner (45:10.562)
Peace.
