Mark Burik (00:03.352)
Hey everybody and welcome to the Better at Beach podcast. My name is Mark Burick and I'm here with Brandon Joiner. Today we are talking about sand and how it affects your play, sand depth, any considerations you want to take for different surfaces and how you might modify your game according to what type of sand.
Brandon Joyner (00:16.842)
you
Mark Burik (00:31.478)
you're playing on. So kind of a unique topic, but one that's like, it's really discussed within the volleyball world. And I don't know if there's ever been a real podcast on it. So we are going to attack that today. And just before we get started, if you ever want to visit us in Hermosa Beach, we've got classes, we've got private lessons. Me and Brandon are doing a lot of private training groups this coming year in Hermosa, we where there's the deepest sand, perhaps.
Brandon Joyner (00:56.414)
Deep sand.
you
Mark Burik (01:02.542)
And we are going to Punta Cana, all-inclusive resort for a week of training November 29th. That'll be November 29th to December 5th. So we still have spots open. Also September 12th, we're going to Oklahoma City, September 19th in Vegas, September 26th in Seattle, October 3rd in Youngsville, Louisiana, October 10th in Long Island.
October 17th in Orlando, Florida, October 31st in Fort Myers, November 7th. We just popped one up again in Virginia Beach. Brandon's going home. Nice. And December 12th, we will be in Houston, Tejas, going to Texas with our buddies out at Third Coast. So we do travel.
Brandon Joyner (01:39.402)
Going home, baby. Had it set up yesterday.
Mark Burik (01:57.282)
to a lot of different beaches and I've played on a lot and I know Brandon, you have too. And there are definitely surface differences and different ways that people should play defense based on it and things you might have to alter with your game. So Brandon, things first, where do you think the deepest sand? So when we say deep sand,
We usually mean that the hard surface or the moisture is so far below the sand, the sand is fluffy, your feet feel like they can push a lot, like six to 12 inches down, and it's a slower, less springy surface. So it's harder to jump out of typically. Brandon, where do you think the deepest sand you've ever played in?
Brandon Joyner (02:52.874)
I think I would have to go with Hermosa. You know, think it's when I've, cause you know, both of us growing up on the East coast, East coast beaches are, there's a couple out there that are a little bit deeper. But I know when I moved out here, it made me realize that one, I had to get in really good shape. I had to get really strong. And then two, it's just humbling out here.
Mark Burik (03:16.685)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (03:23.038)
The amount of shots that you see in Hermosa versus other beaches. Yeah, think it's... Yeah, I think it's one of the deepest places in the world. There's also a lot of like, I've also noticed that indoor facilities can also have a lot of deep sand. Obviously, if an indoor facility is going a little bit more budget, which...
Mark Burik (03:27.704)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (03:45.154)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (03:51.74)
Makes a lot of sense. It's a lot of sand and putting it in an area. But I've played in a couple of indoor facilities. I know Virginia Beach is, can be a little bit deeper, which we have a camp coming up in November. Happy to be going home. But yeah, I would say Hermosa beach is, takes a cake for me. And it's crazy because even like the difference between Redondo and Manhattan, kind of the same, it's kind of the same beach, but Redondo is.
Mark Burik (04:01.132)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (04:20.418)
Redondo-tan.
Brandon Joyner (04:21.7)
extremely shallow and then Manhattan is like Goldilocks like kind of just right you know.
Mark Burik (04:28.91)
You think Hermosa's a little bit deeper and tougher to play in than Manhattan?
Brandon Joyner (04:34.172)
Yeah, I think in a tournament setting for sure. If you're like practicing, especially if you're on like where they run the Manhattan Beach Open, that sand can get a little bit packed down, I think, especially for the Manhattan. I don't know if it has to do with six man being close to it. Yeah. But, but yeah.
Mark Burik (04:54.062)
Just a layer of beer cans four inches under the sand.
Brandon Joyner (05:02.867)
I would say Hermosa takes the cake for me. Have you played on any beaches that are deeper than Hermosa? I think you've traveled the world a little bit more than me, so I didn't just hear that.
Mark Burik (05:13.998)
I've actually got a surprise one. It's in the Chelsea Piers fitness center. So Chelsea Piers Sports Complex in Manhattan. There's one net, first of all, for this massive sports complex that's supposed to basically cover the entire city. And it's why, it's so typical New York because it's like why New Yorkers have to be aggro about everything. Like if you've played in Central Park,
There's two sand courts and that's in Central Park where everybody wants to go and hang out. So the Facebook group there is just nonstop arguing about court time, about when players, who an open player is, who's allowed during certain times. There's a whole lot of territory and it's completely understandable when you got a city of almost nine million fighting for.
There's more courts now because they're on the lower west side and they got some in Brooklyn as well. But really not enough sand courts for the city and QBK, which is the new facility as of three, four years ago, they finally popped. got four courts and so they're hosting a lot of the people from the city there. But that one court in Chelsea Piers, I mean, it feels like quicksand. It's not, and I don't know if
It's because they've got a lot of sand in there. They definitely have a lot of sand and they never, moisturize it. So it's no matter what, it's always dry. And we could talk about that too, like a little bit of facility advice for anybody who's listening, because if you get the wrong sand and the wrong systems for, your sand, you are going to ruin your investment. And I, I got a steel.
Brandon Joyner (06:55.25)
and you would eat it for a day.
Mark Burik (07:10.712)
paying about, I think it was $12,000 in sand for my single court in Florida. And the reason it was so cheap, and yes, that's cheap, like if you're building professional courts and you're trying to set up your own facility, you should budget, it's probably not gonna cost this much, but you should budget about 50,000 per court. You can do it way cheaper.
for sure, but that's like with lighting, that's with proper borders, that's with making sure that there's irrigation and that's really dependent on the weather in your place. But essentially you dig deep down enough, then you put a layer of gravel, but underneath the layer of gravel, you actually have to shape the sand so that when the water filters through, it slopes away from your court and away from whatever the city or your home tells you to. So you dig this like little minor trough and then you put
gravel on top of it. And then you put a layer of landscaping paper, which is just porous paper that still lets water through. And then you put your sand and your sand. If you're going to save money because it's by the ton, right? If you're going to save money, you should actually shape it so that you're putting more sand where people play, which is in the serve, receive spots and where people generally attack from. So it kind of has this like lowercase W
shape when you're digging out, when you're digging out the space for your courts, of that changes if you're an indoor and you've got just like a solid surface or anything, but of course get dug out in the playing area and they stay pretty high around the sidelines and outside the court. So that's actually where you need more sand. but yeah, surprisingly, it was Chelsea. Pierce feels like quicksand. Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (08:56.776)
Mm-hmm. It was all my fault.
Brandon Joyner (09:03.164)
Yeah, that's crazy. Yeah, I'm, especially when you're going down talking about the court maintenance and building out a court. I've never and we see it and it's on like when we used to run all of our classes on Second Street, those courts would just get extremely bowled out or like begging those sandrakers to come over and like even out the courts for us.
Mark Burik (09:22.691)
Hmm.
Brandon Joyner (09:32.222)
But it's cool to know that little trick of like, yeah, it's how you build out your court and kind of allow yourself to kind of avoid that error.
Mark Burik (09:41.558)
Yeah. And we had it pretty easy in Florida. cause we didn't have much of a choice at our Airbnb. The water, the water table is so high there. like once you dig, like 48 inches down, the water's already there. So we just kind of did what we had to, and we built a sandbox up instead of digging our court down. we only like scraped away the grass and then did a little bit of carving.
Brandon Joyner (09:47.338)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (09:57.79)
Interesting.
Mark Burik (10:09.922)
Big shout out to Joe Lambert who came and worked the skid steer for me after I gave it two days of effort. It's fun to use my own skid steer and like save money on it. But if I built a court again, it would take me 10 % of the time. Like after going through it once, I get it. That being said, in, in South Pasadena or St. Pete beach where our Airbnb is, it's sand. So as soon as you dig.
Brandon Joyner (10:23.785)
Hmm.
Mark Burik (10:38.446)
two inches under grass, it's already sand. Like the entire thing is built on a beach. This is tough for people who are in other cities who've got clay or rock under their ground, because then you need some real machinery if you want to dig down versus build a sandpit up. And then you might not care about drainage. Like in California, are you ever going to care about drainage?
No, so the one day it rains in December, like you're not gonna play. Fine, take the day off. And people really, facilities really mess up on sand. It's like the one thing that really needs to be right. If it's rocky, if it's scrapey, if it's not deep enough. So you should really be looking for mason sand. They have like sandbox sand, which is for kids.
but that's generally a little bit dirtier, rougher and dustier. And if you get the wrong sand or they don't bring it, which has happened, you order one type of sand and they just show up with these dump trucks trying to dump whatever they can. And then you need the receipts that shows the weight that you ordered because you will get scammed. That sand is, it's called Mason sand and it's actually cleaned.
Brandon Joyner (11:49.171)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (11:57.759)
to you.
Mark Burik (12:04.758)
So it's broken down in a very good way and it's bleached and it's cleaned. So they get rid of a lot of the dust and they get rid of a lot of the little particles in the rocks. And if you are to ever host an FIVB, they actually require that you send sand samples and it has to meet a certain standard in order just to host an FIVB tournament. like they're that serious and yeah, they get little
Brandon Joyner (12:32.628)
Wow.
Mark Burik (12:34.508)
baggies and they ship them and they, I don't know, like measure the particles or whatever. but there are really specific standards for that. And I know that our friends, over in Missouri, why am I, why am I blanking on the name of the facility?
Brandon Joyner (12:51.53)
Talking about Ozark.
Mark Burik (12:53.184)
Ozark. Yeah. Beach volleyball Ozark. they set up their indoor courts with spacing. now it's actually outdoor indoor, but they use the right sand. They set up the spacing because they said, we want to be able to host an FIVB tournament and college championships. So they came with that in mind. Like we wanted to bring this. And so I go, Hey, you could fit so many more courts here. Like, why don't you just add more courts? And they said, well,
for spacing and for pictures when we apply for an FIVB World Tour tournament, we want to be able to show them. Yeah. Pretty crazy, right? Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (13:28.284)
awesome. Yeah, yeah, now that you say that, it's like, it is crazy how different like, we, think we're gonna eventually get into depth and talk about like different playing styles and stuff like that. But it is crazy the different I've never really thought about the you experience it, but like the coarseness, you know, like, some beaches are kind of pebbly, rocky, almost like it's almost like rocks have just literally been broken down into sand.
And then you do have those like really nice beaches where it's like fluffy, almost like squeaky sand. that's just like, when you step on it, you're like, like, I'm going to be able to dive today and not worry about getting hurt. yeah, that's, I think I'm learning something from this podcast already. So that's pretty cool.
Mark Burik (14:16.046)
And then final advice on like the indoor facility front, because, you know, I went down, I've been studying facilities now for three years. Like if you have any questions about facilities, I know the answers. And then I also have like a group of friends who own facilities, manage them. And so I've gotten the inside look at all of the numbers, finances, everything. So when we do build ours,
It's going to be fantastic. And there's a lot of screw ups and pain points that people have had before me. And luckily I've got that Rolodex of people who are quite literally opening their financial books to me. Like they say, like, do not share this with anybody. Please don't tell anybody. But I know the facilities that worked and the facilities that doesn't. And I've been approached so far in the last two years, I've approached by five different investors for, for investing into a facility.
And I've only accepted one. So that was ATX Beach. He understood it from a business and a community standpoint. And when I looked at his programming, I said, yes, you're making the right moves. A lot of the other ones, when they look, I looked at their budget. I looked at what they weren't spending on marketing and thinking that you're just going to, you know, spend five to 10,000 a month on your commercial lease. And then you've got to drop.
50 to 200,000 for, you know, one to four courts and then just say, yeah, it's a place for people to play. Like, no, you're going to lose money real quick if you don't know business and you don't know how to operate for profit in beach volleyball. but so I'll just, uh, one more story about a sandbar in Salt Lake City. They, they skimped a little bit on their sand. Um, they bought like
the next level cheaper and what ended up happening was it created this immense amount of dust. And so when you walk in there, there's like kind of you're in the middle of this dust cloud. And once they realized that they're like, okay, this stinks. People are coughing and not really happy. And it's all over all of the other equipment and the desks and the bar and everything. So what they tried to do was water it.
Brandon Joyner (16:20.158)
people.
Brandon Joyner (16:31.53)
Right.
Brandon Joyner (16:39.902)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (16:40.204)
And so they built a sprinkler system so that they could hold that moisture. The moisture holds the dust down. And then one of the key figures in that Joe Lambert again, he's like, this is a steel building. You're spraying water every day. That's going to be hanging in the air. He's like, you're actually corroding your entire building over time. And this building and a lot of the stuff is going to have to be replaced like 20 to 30 years sooner than otherwise.
So if you're thinking about a sprinkler system for indoor, remember that that's going to rust everything. And so one company came with this solution and they've now got this oil that you can spray on sand and the oil holds that down. And it's like for the first two weeks, it's really slick and you're kind of grimy when you're playing. But then after that, it does a pretty good job of holding it down. So I don't know what kind of company.
Brandon Joyner (17:22.142)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (17:38.314)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (17:38.698)
invests in making an oil that will hold sand down and how many people they can actually sell to. But there are facilities that are using that. But that's like it's a bandaid for the initial problem, which was by the right sand. Even if it costs you way more in the beginning, it'll cost you way less over time.
Brandon Joyner (17:43.7)
Right.
Brandon Joyner (17:57.546)
And I remember when we, so I think our first camp that we did in Salt Lake, was like, it's dusty in here. But then the second time we went back, I think that was like, maybe just after, after they had gotten the oil and it did make a huge difference. yeah, I wish I, if there are indoor facilities out there that are dealing with a lot of dust, it's like that option has to be a thought because.
Mark Burik (18:14.766)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (18:25.994)
It was night and day, the difference at facility.
Mark Burik (18:28.556)
mean, breathing, you're thinking like lawsuits later on, or they're long-term lawsuits later on. And then also, it, if you have an HVAC, a heating air conditioning and airflow system, that's going to wreck that too. So boom, there's another $50,000 down the drain, like just because you need HVAC repairs all the time. So a lot to think about when you get those.
Brandon Joyner (18:32.338)
Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (18:43.784)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (18:53.93)
Yeah, lot of different lessons.
Mark Burik (18:58.624)
Yeah. So maybe we'll move into a little bit of, some gameplay based on different things, because I had one of those stories, Adam Roberts, long time AVP pro. And you could say that he, Adam is the path to becoming one of the best blockers in the world because the number of guys that played with him, he brought them from kind of non-existent.
through qualifiers, got some main jaws with them. And then the next year in two, then they moved up and they found, they got picked up by like higher level defenders, great guy to learn from, cause he knows how to practice. He knows how to take care of his body. He's just really excellent and his pass and set are just immaculate. So you get really, really good with him. And he's always down to play and train and Phil lived at his house.
forever. He played with Andy Benes. He played with Cody Caldwell. He's playing with Dentler right now. So statistically, Dentler is about to be like a top five AVP blogger. But I was playing in Hermosa, I think the first year, and he would just step up into the pocket and I would try to rock balls and he'd eat me alive with his hands. He just did me so easily with his hands. And I was like,
Brandon Joyner (19:58.57)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (20:04.202)
is gonna make the Olympics in 20 years. Yeah. Yeah, it is cool. We'll always do that.
Brandon Joyner (20:21.364)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (20:25.07)
How am I hitting that soft like how are you digging me and how are you getting so many hand gigs and he's like we're in her Moses
Okay. What does that mean? He goes, people can't jump as high and hit as hard or as steep. So I step up two to three feet and I play more hands defense because they don't have a vertical. And this is more often. It's not like a, everyday thing, but if you can't jump out of that deep sand as well, you can't hit balls steep. So you can come forward and pick your hands up on defense and cut off angles.
instead of having to stay back and maybe dig it with your platform. And I think once you get used to hand digging, think women really struggle with this because they're all across the board, all the way through double A and even advanced. Not a lot of women are hitting hard enough to require the fingers defense. Men can get there as an A player, like you'll get some kid who played football or baseball and he's just still rocking balls.
Brandon Joyner (21:31.87)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (21:31.99)
So men get to use their fingers legally a lot sooner in terms of level than women do. But if you're gonna advance your game 100%, you have to learn how to dig overhand, whether it's like ultra controlled tomahawk slaps, pokies, but get used to using your fingers and the more you do, the better handsetter you become and the more options you have defensively.
Brandon Joyner (21:56.968)
Would you say that, so like that idea with Hermosa and it being really deep sand and him stepping up into the pocket and digging more balls with his hands, what would the opposite be? Like if you're playing on a beach in Florida that feels like indoor, it's like a dusty indoor floor, what would the difference be for defending on that kind of beach?
Mark Burik (22:27.584)
Number one, you can't peel nearly as often. So when you go to Florida and sometimes people play in sneakers on some beaches, like especially after it rains and all the sand falls past the shells. And so like you're playing on shells. There are some tournaments in Florida, like Clearwater. always baffles me that Clearwater has this giant championship because they're playing on rocks. number one, you can't peel.
Brandon Joyner (22:36.586)
you
Right.
Mark Burik (22:56.402)
as easily because if I get a set at six feet, maybe seven feet off in Hermosa, you should peel, right? Like I'm not going to be able to broad jump to that and get a huge max springy jump. I don't get enough power return from the ground. So I can't hit as steep, which means you should peel.
because you're gonna, you're gonna be way more valuable on the ground. And if I can't jump high and hit hard or down, then you're gonna take up more space if you peel and you play double down defense, cause then you take away my shot ability. So in Hermosa or deep sand, you're gonna peel significantly more, even on like pretty good sets, you can still peel. If you go to one of those hard surface tournaments,
and somebody gets a set at half court. Like let's talk about Pottstown, for example, if you're playing on grass, right? You could get a set at 15, 16 feet and annihilate it. So it's still probably a good idea to peel, but even from like 10, 12 feet, you know, the way we play indoor, you're jumping from the 10 foot line. You might be getting your set at eight or nine feet. And that is a legitimate.
Brandon Joyner (23:56.479)
Right.
Mark Burik (24:20.024)
hard ball offense that you have to have one, two or three blockers trying to defend that swing. So the harder the surface, the more people can bang on worse sets because they can stay back longer. They can take a bigger broad jump into the ball. And again, they're operating from higher so they can hit steeper. So I think peeling is probably the biggest part of it. And then
for me, I would also say it's a little bit more, again, this is always player dependent. Like if somebody can't hit steep physically, they can't hit steep physically. but one of the options that you would have is, you know, backing up a little bit and leaving your platform out a little bit more than your hands high and trying to get that. But hopefully you've got a blocker that is really intimidating and making good moves so that they.
don't allow the offense to hit as steep as confidently. They'll hit a few steep ones, but at some point when you're trying to like bang the ball on the half court line, you have to come dangerously close to getting blocked. Whereas if you operate in the back quarter of the court and you stay high and you'd rip like a la Logan Webber, right? When he's playing really well, he's operating in the high deep part of the court. Sam Pedlow played like that too.
Or you just gave people buzz cuts like there is such low risk of getting blocked for a point Sure, you don't have the angles really outside of the defender But most often if you're rocking a ball and it's kind of crossing outside their body It's gonna be really tough to dig anyway, so it's not to say never hit steep, but You have to know how to make the ball cross two feet above the top of the net
And still have a ton of pace. And that's usually going to mean operating or making the ball land in the back quarter of the court. And all of these five foot six, five foot 10 guys, they see Phil and they see a highlight from Instagram and they're like bounce, bounce, bounce. And so they try to imitate the same thing when they're 15 inches under where that person hit from. So you don't have that angle. You need to learn to use.
Mark Burik (26:41.464)
flat balls and more shots rather than banging it down. And if you consistently hit into the net or you're hitting into the net two or three times per set, which is pretty typical of AA and below, it means you're trying to hit down and your physicality isn't really meriting that.
Brandon Joyner (27:01.716)
Right? Yeah. I can think about when I, especially in Virginia, like when I was traveling around like the Virginia, Northern Virginia, some Jersey down in North Carolina. and a lot of the conversations I would have with my defender when I was blocking full time was like, if they absolutely bounce a ball, that's on me. Like I got to take that away. put yourself in a position where if they hit a ball deep,
Mark Burik (27:23.747)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (27:29.896)
Like those are the plays that we can change. But if people are like, there's going to be highlight reels and stuff like that on shallow sand. That's what makes it fun. know? but yeah, think defenders sometimes we can get a little greedy and we're like, I'm to put my, like kind of going back to this libero mindset that you had in college of like, I want to get hit with this ball. Like you have to do that, but you also have to do it wisely. Like.
Make sure that you're in a position where when you do get hit with a ball, it's actually something you can somewhat control and try to turn it into offense.
Mark Burik (28:07.714)
Yeah. The type of player that can excel in a bigger way, you know, at least they've got more capability is that fresh indoor player that comes to the beach. They can make a bigger, stronger transition if they're playing on those harder, more shallow surfaces that you can spring. Number one, just from a training standpoint, guys, by the way,
Brandon Joyner (28:20.329)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (28:35.54)
If you want to increase your explosiveness, everyone's like, we'll play on the surface or train on the surface. You play on train on the surface you play on. And that's actually not true. So for deeper sand, you don't have as much elasticity or bounce. So you really do have to train your muscles because it is a little bit more of a strength move. Yes. There's definitely still plyometrics. Yes. There's definitely still a stretch and amortization phase, which means
basically bounce off of the ground and, but we have to get our body to be capable of reacting very quickly and changing direction very quickly. And the way to do that is actually by training on hard surfaces. I'm not recommending cement, something like, you know, track or a basketball gym or sport court. That'll be good enough, but you do want hard surface.
sprint and jump training, and then play your games on the sand. that will give you the absolute most benefit in terms of jump and speed. your body does have to accumulate, accumulate, some nervous system memory for how to move in the sand and how to push off, but it needs to develop the springiness from hard surface. So really recommend that everybody.
You do, you definitely do some jump training in the sand. definitely practice in the sand, but if you're specifically jump training or you need a plyometric session, like stay in the gym or stay on one of those hard ground surfaces, your body will get way more out of it.
Brandon Joyner (30:18.824)
Yeah. It's kind of funny because like, I can always remember, when I was playing Pots Town, like when I played in Pots Town, one, was still, I was like coming pretty fresh off the indoor. I still had that hard contact, a hard ground that I was jumping off of. My body was really used to it. So I was able to kind of find that jump really well. But then the cool thing too about that is every year when I would play Pots Town,
The next like two months of my beach games, I felt so clean. Like I felt like my vertical was there. My offensive mindset was a lot better because I was like a little bit more aggressive. Even if I was shooting, it was like, I was finding the base and like jumping hard. And it's kind of like whenever I see people go play Pottstown, for some reason beach players have this like,
No, I'm not playing grass. I think it's great. You know, I think it, it, it can rewire your brain a little bit to understand that like, this is how I am the most effective offensively, you know? And, and then like, throughout my career, I was able to play a little bit better in deep sand. But if you look at a majority of my like strong finishes, they came from shallow beaches, like
Mark Burik (31:26.318)
Hmm.
Brandon Joyner (31:46.524)
I just, that's just what I like. mean, playing indoor as long as we did. Yeah. And it's just, it's crazy how different it is when you're playing in deep sand versus shallow sand. But the mindset offensively doesn't need to change too much. Obviously there are going to be differences on how high you jump and what your approach feels like and all that stuff. But
Mark Burik (31:58.988)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (32:14.79)
Once you kind of figure out that perfect balance, think it allows you to find like your true game.
Mark Burik (32:20.76)
Yeah. Yeah. You shouldn't change. If you're a shooter, you know, in soft sand, you should still be a shooter and looking to shoot on the hard sand. just leaves some harder balls or maybe some steeper balls slightly more available. but to be like, it's hard sand. All I'm going to do is bang today. Are you doing something different than you've done in every practice and every training match in every other tournament?
Brandon Joyner (32:35.924)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (32:48.846)
That becomes a mistake. Like you should stay with the same strategies and the same style of play. Just now you can shoot from way higher. So now you can flatten out your shots by like an inch or two. Um, and again, uh, it, for the ones that you do hit. Cool. You're going to be an inch to two higher when you hit. So you've got more availability, but don't, don't let hard surface turn you all of a sudden into this steep.
banger because it'll feel good, but it's just like Vegas, you know, it'll feel good a few times and then you're going to get your money taken eventually because somebody's going to clamp you because you went too steep because you're trying to show off.
Brandon Joyner (33:27.946)
Yeah, it's kind of, I think that this topic came up at a, at a pretty good time because I'm thinking about Manhattan, um, the NBO that just happened. And I was coaching Logan and Hagan, um, and Marine and Chloe. And I think what, like they, would say as far as their seasons go, both of them had somewhat of let down tournaments. Um, I think that both of them were looking for a little bit of a higher finish.
yeah. And. Right. Yeah. But I think one of the reasons that that happened is because both of them have been surrounded by shallow game seasons. You know, like when we think about Logan and Hagen playing on the league, it's all indoor facilities, sands getting delivered.
Mark Burik (33:58.508)
Yeah, it sucks not to perform there, but they've had such immense years.
Brandon Joyner (34:24.148)
they're operating so high above the net, they're able to find those aggressive swings. Right.
Mark Burik (34:27.342)
And it's indoor, so sets are perfect. So you can always jump higher on more perfect sets.
Brandon Joyner (34:34.3)
Exactly. Yeah. And then Marine and Chloe, all the beaches that they played at and crushed like winning two out of the three contenders events, getting a third in the, in the other one winning seaside. Like all of those beaches are somewhat shallow as well. And I think they had a little bit of a tough time of looking at their past success and
Mark Burik (34:52.462)
Hmm.
Brandon Joyner (35:03.272)
trying to play that exact same game. And I think there's a couple little differences that kind of come to mind right away. I think when you're playing on shallow sand, you can have more of an indoor style approach. And what I mean by indoor style approach is a lot of times in indoor, we're covering a lot of ground. And so maybe you're approaching from three quarters off the net.
Mark Burik (35:07.128)
Mm.
Brandon Joyner (35:29.672)
Whereas when you're in deep sand, maybe you want to shorten that to be around like just behind half court or something like that. And I think the big reason for that is when you're in deep sand, you want to feel like your legs are underneath you more. So your steps are going to feel a little bit shorter. You're not going to have these huge strides where you're having to catch your balance each step. Because if you do that, then once fatigue starts to set in,
You lose your balance. Once you lose your balance, you lose your strength. And so that was a big, I think that that was kind of a big, a big thing for them. And then, the other thing is timing. You know, I think on shallow sand, you move so fast. Like your timing. So we, commonly say that like, if we're thinking about the first step of our approach and our timing stuff happening on the setters contact.
Mark Burik (36:18.35)
Mm.
Brandon Joyner (36:29.0)
That can be good, but you have to play around with that a little bit. Like when we're in Florida, I remember we did a session at one of our camps where you were kind of running us through a practice. think it was before some tournament. and you told me like, Hey, I want you to find balance on both feet. And I want your timing step to happen when the ball's like two to three feet out of the setters hands. And the reason for that is because I was.
Mark Burik (36:53.582)
Hmm.
Mark Burik (36:57.025)
that was a transition drill. remember that. Yeah, the transition hitting. Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (36:59.09)
Yeah. Yep. I was like, at first I was like, why? Like, why is this changing so much? But then I realized, and you kind of told me, you're like, yeah, but in this sand, when it's so shallow, you're able to cover so much ground that you still have to find those really aggressive last two steps and hit on your way up. And it was pretty eye-opening to me, like, wow. So when I'm playing on shallow sand,
Maybe I give that setter a little bit more time and know that I'm going to be able to get my feet to the ball every set because I can move a little bit quicker, I'm a little bit more dynamic, and I can make sure that I'm adjusting. Whereas when you're on deeper sand, you really need to concentrate on keeping those first two steps really slow because you have to make sure that those last two steps are perfect.
If those, you follow that same advice, whether it doesn't matter which way, you're kind of setting yourself up to, you're looking for the perfect set, right? Whereas on offense, we should always be allowing our setters to set. And then we hold a lot of accountability as attackers to get our feet to the ball and then finish the play.
Mark Burik (38:20.14)
Yeah, I'm not getting set. The set is going up. Then I'm going after wherever it's going. Like that mentality for everybody, like expecting the set to get somewhere and heading there instead of here I am. I wonder what like call for the set. Then your question should almost be, I wonder where they're going to set and then go attack that ball. And if people had a little bit more of that mentality than feet to ball.
Brandon Joyner (38:22.89)
Right.
Brandon Joyner (38:38.365)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (38:48.962)
just massively improves.
Brandon Joyner (38:51.848)
Yeah, so it's interesting to see, like, I think a lot of our listeners are obviously in the experimental phase of beach volleyball, which is the most fun of like, how do I improve, you know, and the fact that we saw two extremely successful teams go through that same kind of headache. It's cool because it's like, wow, they're working on the same thing as we are.
Mark Burik (39:13.326)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (39:19.796)
But yeah, it is cool to kind of think about those differences and then being able to react and change your game style is just as impressive as playing well. I think that that's a pretty cool little mindset.
Mark Burik (39:31.224)
Hmm.
Mark Burik (39:34.914)
I think all things being equal on the harder surfaces, you can get away with more. It's still going to leave you because the other teams can also get away with more. Right. So for example, just like in an offset or something that's not quite where you want it in super deep sand, the sand is going to push out from under you. So you're not going to jump high and to the ball.
Brandon Joyner (39:43.775)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (40:04.362)
on your, after your last two steps, right? So you don't have the opportunity late to fix the ball. still perfect is perfect. No matter what, right? If you can get your feet to the best position possible, like, and all of the other teams are going to go through that, but you might find hitters are more capable of, attacking worse sets in a more impressive way when the surface is a little bit harder or a little bit more shallow.
And it would be so interesting and they can't do it on the FIVB, right? Because the really the sand is supposed to be within this same quality, but it would be really interesting to see who plays well where historically and then also somehow get the stats of like, are they a 99 % setter or are they like a 92 % setter like kind of
ratings like a NFL, like a Madden game or something. Yeah, that would be sick because I think, you know, there are setters that are not perfect and their hitters feet to ball are pretty good and they do well. But now that same hitter would be able to adjust to having a mediocre setter better if they had a harder surface. So like if I were locked in, if I had.
Brandon Joyner (41:05.342)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (41:29.09)
to play with two different people for whatever reason. I made a social agreement with them, right? And I'm like, yeah, I'm gonna get one tournament with you this summer. I would save the worst setter for hopefully a more shallow tournament. That would be my goal.
Brandon Joyner (41:45.192)
Yeah. Yeah. I think that adds up.
Mark Burik (41:49.474)
Yeah. Interesting. Never thought about that.
Brandon Joyner (41:52.296)
Yeah. Yeah, it would be kind of, I mean, it is kind of crazy how uniform the world tour is, you know, like.
you see all these players and obviously they're ballers. They're so good. We watch these people play, but there's not a whole lot of difference in environment. I mean, there are some places that are windier than others. Maybe some are colder or maybe it rains or something like that. But it would be cool to see different sand depths because I think if you watch
Mark Burik (42:09.164)
Mm-hmm.
Mark Burik (42:21.55)
Yeah, he's a big one.
Brandon Joyner (42:33.545)
Like even the difference between the AVP that happened in Huntington versus AVP that happened in Manhattan two very different game styles and You're seeing a lot of the same teams are are finishing in the top low and the the semis and finals but the game itself looks different, you know, like Huntington is pretty shallow I'd say and
You're seeing a lot of bounces. You're seeing a whole lot of blocks. and then, but then you go to Manhattan and it's a little bit more. Strategery, you know, like the fact that one of the biggest highlights right now is chase. Bunger who is known as a physical, physical player. And he won the Manhattan AVP with high line. You know, it's like, and.
Mark Burik (43:21.806)
Hmm.
Mark Burik (43:29.55)
He wins a lot of tournaments with
Brandon Joyner (43:31.72)
He does, he does. He has amazing vision and everything like that. yeah, but it would be really cool to see like, we know what Anders and Christian and the Swedish guys and I mean, even Mel and Brandy on the women's side and Duda and the Brazilians, like we know what they can do on shallow sand. Like, let's see, like, let's put them in a Hermosa beach style sand and
Mark Burik (43:52.142)
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (44:00.274)
see who, like, it would be interesting to see if there were any like mid-tier or like low, like maybe teams that are finishing ninth, thirteenth. Like, could they make a little bit more of a run in deeper sand? And would we still see this like top cream of the crop always rising, you know? Wow.
Mark Burik (44:21.056)
It's still on my dream list to have a tournament where you've got to have eight players that, that are fully committed, to the team. And then you get like, change up the sixes, fours, twos, and then you also change up surfaces. Like look at Nadal in tennis. Like there's one tournament that everybody knows that he's going to win. And it's the clay tournament. It's a French open.
it's just the surface that he masters and we don't have that like variability in beach. but it would be really cool if they had some kind of, you know, one tournament for the AVP was played on grass. Like, would that be cool? I think it would.
Brandon Joyner (45:08.938)
Yeah, it would definitely be different. Yeah, that would be fun. A cool little grass, like a grass event. they have like that built in right now with like the AVP grass roots or whatever. But once again, all of these teams are kind of shying away from that, shying away from that, those kinds of tournaments, which I understand. I think there's a little bit more of a risk of injury.
Mark Burik (45:38.294)
yeah. If you look at Potsdow, I mean, Potsdow and their team of paramedics, just, you just see somebody getting carted off every like 15, 20 minutes. number one, okay. Because some people save that tournament for the one time they play every year. So their body's not actually in shape to be able to do it. But number two, yeah, it's unforgiving. So if you turn an ankle, the sand doesn't push out of your way. That ground is going to snap your ankle, or your knee or whatever.
Brandon Joyner (45:39.047)
and
Brandon Joyner (45:43.05)
yeah.
Mark Burik (46:06.668)
So there's definitely more injuries on the harder surface. But if the AVP put the same dollars, what dollars is they putting? Yeah, prize money, thank you, into a grass event and said like, no, this is one of our events guys. I think it would be cool, especially if you played on the same dimensions. Like don't open it up to the big one. Just play the same game, just on a different surface. I think it would be cool.
Brandon Joyner (46:32.81)
Yeah, that would
Huh. Might be something. Hopefully that's like, if your pots down. I don't know that that tournament does so well on its own. Yeah. I can't change that. yeah, but yeah, something like even WPACA I would say like get rid of the sand. It's a grass tournament, you know, like maybe that's a place that you change it up and you're like, Hey, we're the same, same prize money, but you're playing on grass.
Mark Burik (46:44.642)
Don't change. Stay you, be who you are. Yeah.
Mark Burik (47:05.496)
Uh-huh.
Brandon Joyner (47:05.738)
That would be cool because then you have the crowd too and that would be the only thing that I think would be interesting is like What are the downfalls to it like? Why wouldn't I think? With those grass style tournaments, you're probably getting a bigger crowd You can you can easily run renting a park versus bringing in tons of sand is already saving you money
Mark Burik (47:28.451)
Mm-mm.
Mark Burik (47:31.79)
Seeing some bounces could be fun. Yeah.
Brandon Joyner (47:34.256)
man, I can only imagine like Taylor Sander ripping a ball on grass. That ball would bounce over top of trees.
Mark Burik (47:40.162)
hot.
So guys, that's our chat on sand depth and sand quality. Let us know if you liked it, if you enjoyed listening. There's not too many other times that there are like a whole bunch of depth of topics that we can talk about sand, but this was a unique one and it's talked about, but it's not really openly talked about. So I hope you had fun listening. If you did, please subscribe and share this with somebody.
Brandon Joyner (48:01.194)
Right.
Mark Burik (48:13.395)
And if you're watching on YouTube or you're not subscribed to us on YouTube, please go ahead and subscribe.
Brandon Joyner (48:18.122)
I'm kind of interested in hearing from everybody that's listening. If you think that your beach has the deepest sand, drop that location in the comments. Or if you think that you have the best sand. You know, I think about our trip in Punta Cana, that sand is gorgeous. You can just lay in it for hours. You just like walking on it. It's soft.
Mark Burik (48:27.893)
Mmm.
Mark Burik (48:40.748)
Yep. Yep.
Mm-hmm.
Brandon Joyner (48:46.879)
but yeah, so yeah, not very.
Mark Burik (48:47.682)
And it's not dirty like Huntington or Long Beach. Like you don't have that layer of dust coming off in the shower that you have to scrub.
Brandon Joyner (48:55.79)
It looks like you're part of a murder scene, like when you're running off the legs. Yeah. Right. But yeah, if you think you have the deepest sand, if we didn't, we were pretty, we said Hermosa pretty much, then the corner Chelsea piers, but yeah, if you think that you have the deepest sand, drop it in the comments, or if you just think you have beautiful sand, let us know because we love running camps there.
Mark Burik (48:58.19)
Yes, yeah, does the brown leaking into your faucet.
Brandon Joyner (49:24.744)
That's always a nice little weekend trip or a week long trip.
Mark Burik (49:28.556)
Yeah, because we also need to pick some locations. So if you think that the sand is perfect in your city, we want to come and run a camp there. So please get us the location and obviously don't share phone numbers. But if you could email support it better at beach.com with the website or the person we need to contact to reserve those courts. That's what we want. That's how we book camps. So email support it better at beach.com after you comment your favorite city or location. And
Brandon Joyner (49:31.794)
Yeah.
Mark Burik (49:57.932)
I don't know if any of you guys know who listen, but underneath in the description here, we include a free drill book for anybody who joins our email list. So if you join our email list, you're to get updates on camps. we send multiple tips per week. send our, other lessons or most popular videos and a new, new episode releases, but you also get our 36 best drills for beach volleyball. It's a free PDF. So check out that link.
underneath, go ahead and subscribe and you'll get 36 of our favorite drills that we absolutely love. And if you love those, you would definitely love our online program. And if you're listening and you wish you could just ask us a question right now, you can. All you have to do is go to betterbeach.com and join the inner circle right after this, after we film our podcast.
We go into our players meeting and we review film. We review their practices. We take a look at their tournament, their tournament plays and any drills or questions they have, and we chat about it for an hour. So if you want to support our channel, support what we keep doing, as well as just have a weekly open Q and a plus your ability to post and DM us at any time, go ahead to better beach.com and join the inner circle. And, I would see you immediately after this podcast and we'd have a nice chat and I'd get to look at your film and see what you're doing.
Brandon Joyner (51:21.514)
Love it. That's a really fun community. Every time I sub in for you and hop on there, it's the questions you get and the conversations that you get to hold with those people are awesome. So tell them all I said hi.
Mark Burik (51:35.81)
I will, I will. All right, from me, from Brandon, that's all we got for you today. Hope you liked the episode. Like, subscribe, join our inner community, come to a camp or tell us where to run a camp and we will see you on the sand.
