IG @MarkBurik (00:01.582)
Hey everybody. Welcome to the better at beach podcast. My name is Mark Burrick and I am here with Brandon Joyner. And today we are going to share the complete beach volleyball training blueprint. Everything we have, everything we do and how you can improve from it, whether you are a player, a coach, or you just want to get into phenomenal shape and increase your vertical and increase your speed.
So we haven't done an episode like this, I don't think really ever. But for those of you who are listening, we wanted to just be really clear and open about how all of our programs work. We've done better at explaining it on the website so that there's a little less confusion. But we want to introduce you to what we do, how you can learn from us.
aside from all of our free content on YouTube, on podcast, Instagram, Facebook, et cetera. So you're to get a little inside look at what we do and how you can benefit from it.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (01:12.824)
Yeah, it's kind of funny. I, especially over the last couple of months with we're seeing a whole lot more people here in Hermosa with just everything that we're doing. and it's so funny because like, I think you and I have, we have big dreams. We want to like get in front of as many people as possible. And sometimes we come out with these programs and these ideas on how people can get better because like we work with people that
are here in Hermosa. work with people that come to our camps and like random cities around the, around the U S and a lot of people don't really know everything that we have. So I think it's kind of nice. Like every time I'm like at a class and I'm like, yeah, you know, we have, if you're really wanting to dive into your arm swing, we have this, how to fix your arm swing in 21 days. And they're like, wait, what's that? And I'm like, I need to educate these people on everything that we have because our resources are
IG @MarkBurik (01:50.988)
Hahaha
IG @MarkBurik (02:04.172)
Yup.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (02:08.438)
somewhat unlimited at this point, which is really cool.
IG @MarkBurik (02:12.076)
They're immense. one of the, we have some exit forms and, forms that our members fill out. And the number one compliment we get is how detailed and how much content lives inside of our library, how cohesive and actually complete it is. So, before we get into that.
We're going to talk about our in-person stuff. Now, if you're listening, you've heard us talk about our camps and our camp dates. We really found two models that worked for us. One of them that worked a lot better. We started with a long time ago doing seven day camps here in Hermosa. Hermosa has turned into pretty much everyday classes and now we have leagues and we also have private lessons.
the cool thing about this now that we have everything up in running is we used to just invite people out for a seven day camp. But if at any point you want to come to Hermosa to learn from us, to learn from our staff, you essentially have a seven day camp built in.
And it might be a little bit less expensive than some of our other seven day camps where we're paying for hotels. We're paying for coaches traveling. we're paying for a lot of gear and food, et cetera. But if you ever want to come out to Hermosa and you want to get our classes, you want to get private lessons, even if you come on a weekend, we have three hours of classes each day. You know, that's a full clinic.
A lot of last two, sometimes three hours, right? We're running that every single weekend, twice a weekend.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (04:11.394)
Yeah, and it's cool because the breakdown that we have on those is each class isn't just, come play volleyball. You know, they're broken down where we cover all the skills. I believe like our, like, just for example, our Saturday classes, the way that works is our eight to nine is like fundamental technique changes.
IG @MarkBurik (04:38.254)
Mm-hmm.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (04:38.716)
And I really like that class because it's inviting to everyone. It's usually a slower paced practice. Whether you're a beginner or an advanced level player, you find benefit because a lot of times when we get out there, even in our classes, at the higher levels, gameplay is so expected. But it's really hard to make those small changes in gameplay.
So I really liked that class because we go over usually it's pass, set, attack. We kind of rotate around and depending on what the people that show up, what they really want to focus on, we can focus on that. But it's really small technique changes. And then nine to 10, we usually go passing and setting and then 10 to 11, we go attacking. like we, all of our coaches understand
the format of what we try to do with the practice. So we try to use a pretty great, pretty good ratio of drills and they build up as they go. And then usually we end with game play, but it kind of depends on the group that's there, right? I think our coaches have done a really good job of understanding the levels that are at the classes. And so always a big benefit.
IG @MarkBurik (05:47.512)
Mm-hmm.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (06:00.06)
see a lot of technique changes. then when you go play with your friends, you can try to practice them all. and then Sunday, same thing broken down again. We added in a little bit of defensive work in that 10 to 11 time slot. But yeah, I think it's, kind of going back to what you said. If I was out of town and I had a free weekend and I was looking for a vacation one, like
especially right now, September, October, November in California, we call it like local summer. It's the best time of year to visit because you're not getting the crowded beaches or like troubled parking. It feels like you're kind of experiencing the reason that we all moved here. You it's like you get to see all like last night we had our league match or our league that King and Queens
IG @MarkBurik (06:31.726)
Local summer.
IG @MarkBurik (06:48.526)
Mm-hmm.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (06:56.696)
happening and then we went to junkie afterwards to have burgers and beers, which we do every week and like the Canadian national team was here and they like came up and talked to all of our players and it's like, it's just, it's such a cool environment because Hermosa is like the hotbed, the Mecca of beach volleyball and everybody comes here to train. if, yeah, if I had a free weekend, I would set it up and then you
Add on a couple like private lesson times. You can get a full week full week of training in a couple days.
IG @MarkBurik (07:32.194)
Yeah, that's a hundred percent what I would do if I were coming in. Like, number one, the classes are pretty easy to sign up for. just, you see the hours on our page, better beach.com under the Los Angeles tab. And then you can see the hours that we have, but also we have private lessons. And if you can't find an availability for that time, we have a, a Rolodex of great coaches, but often it's just because we haven't updated our schedule.
to say that we are available. So if you DM us, better at beach volleyball on Instagram or email support at better at beach.com, we're going to find somebody, one of us most likely to coach you, right? I just ran a private with an open player this morning and I had coached him about four years ago back, I think in Salt Lake City. And we're really working on his.
jump mechanics. He's like this big dude, he's super strong, super athletic. And he's just like, hit every ball my way down, I should be bigger than I am, I don't know what's going on. And there were like really micro fixes that we had to make. we used a slow motion camera. And I showed him the jump technique that he was missing. Essentially, he was miss sinking his arms and his legs. And he's one of those candidates for
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (08:49.934)
you
IG @MarkBurik (08:54.614)
that online program, the fix your arm swing program, plus the six AMX vertical, where we have a lot of those lessons and drills built into it. but we'll get to that later. But if you are coming out for a private and even if you're alone, what we do here and coaches, if you're listening, I really recommend you do this. I encourage anyone who comes to me for a private, a one-on-one to either bring a friend.
or allow me to bring what I call a compliment player. So this guy wanted to work on hitting all day. was just arm swing. And I was like, for me to feed you a ball, then set you and look at everything at the same time, we can do that on film. Or I can get one of our current class members who I know can set dimes. So we got Joe Garvey out there at 630 AM. And he was like, Yeah, I'd love to set for an hour. Like, who doesn't want reps for an hour and to listen in?
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (09:27.492)
.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (09:46.072)
So.
Yeah.
IG @MarkBurik (09:53.146)
on high level coaching and detail like that. And so he was thrilled. and then we had, you know, a tool player basically for somebody who wanted to fix their arm swing. So you can come one-on-one. we also do the semi privates and that price doesn't change. So all you would do is either split it with you and your friends. and then if we bring a compliment player, like if I spend a half hour texting and getting people to show up, then it's your lesson.
They're just listening in and they are there to help you. And that's something that I've been doing since the beginning, like 11 years. And it's so key to have a ball flying over the net and a true pass set. Like that is game style reps. So if you're just running privates and all you're doing is staying on the same side of the net, remember as a coach that having a real game flow is key. Like you need to see balls coming over the net.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (10:33.956)
Thank
IG @MarkBurik (10:50.444)
so that you can do what you would do in the game.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (10:54.402)
Yeah, it's, if I ever have somebody that does a private books, a private with me and they show up and it's just them. I, I always tell them, I'm like, you know, we can do this for this time, but we're going to see all the improvement we can in this session. You know, you need that extra person. It just like, we are able to, we have to be able to see.
IG @MarkBurik (11:05.742)
Mm-hmm.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (11:18.882)
You know, and it's like when we're tossing and catching, we're focusing so much on giving you a good toss, watching the flight of the toss to make sure that it's going into the right spot. And then we also have this secondary idea of like, I'm also in charge of making sure that their foot works right. And their arm swing drawback and everything. yeah, it's, it's, it really is important. So if you are a coach at home and you're doing private lessons,
IG @MarkBurik (11:25.198)
Mm-hmm.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (11:49.156)
Try to limit, like, I don't think you're doing your athlete justice if you just have them out there by themselves. If they're a true beginner and you're like really working on their platform hold and setting, stuff like that, sure. There's some ideas. Yeah.
IG @MarkBurik (12:01.326)
Mm-hmm.
I agree. I was just about to say that, right? Like if you're working just on passing and passing mechanics, cool. We can serve over the net. We can see that, you know, well enough. If you're working on just setting mechanics. Okay. That has to be a super detailed session if you're getting into it. But again, we would like to see you set off of a platform off of a ball that came over the net so that you get the actual in game experience that you need to.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (12:11.108)
Mm-hmm.
IG @MarkBurik (12:34.836)
improve. So there's very, very few things where it should be a true one on one. And like today was kind of one of those mixes, we had to fix his jump mechanics, and he actually came a really long way. But we still needed to weave his jump mechanics with his spike. And so if we can't do that live, he's not going to be able to get those focus reps. And how is he going to get a buddy?
to just go out there and set him balls and look at him for two hours to make sure he's doing it right. I wanna be able to fix that in the session that we're doing.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (13:11.862)
And you can, I mean, this is turning into coaching help, which is great, but like there are ways to manipulate drills to make that still happen too, right? Like if you have that compliment there, then maybe it looks like, okay, you're hitting six balls. The first two reps, you're just gonna do without a ball getting set. So you're just gonna do your approach, find the good jump, then the next four.
IG @MarkBurik (13:16.243)
Yeah.
IG @MarkBurik (13:22.828)
Mm-hmm.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (13:38.626)
you're actually gonna have to pass, get a set and hit. So like I worked with Logan and Alex Elkberg yesterday and it's crazy how effective that just this little idea and I think that a lot of times coaches, if you're going by yourself with a player, it might take you a full hour to fully diagnose what's wrong.
IG @MarkBurik (13:42.231)
Mm.
IG @MarkBurik (14:04.546)
especially at the high level.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (14:05.888)
Right. But like yesterday when I was with Logan and Alex, was, it, took me six minutes, you know, and then we had 54 minutes remaining for us to like dial it in and we were able to have really good conversations. But if it were like just me and Logan out there, just me and Alex out there, probably, I don't even know if we would have found it. And so yeah, do your, do your athletes some justice. Like if they're paying for that coaching,
IG @MarkBurik (14:14.136)
Mm-hmm.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (14:36.024)
give them the tools necessary to succeed. the showing up and just having you there. You're not a buddy, right? Like you're not, that's cool. Like it's fun. Yes, they get to hang out with a coach there. They get to knock out their workout outside. But yeah, if they're actually there to improve and you like, I take coaching really personally. So like,
IG @MarkBurik (14:44.098)
you
IG @MarkBurik (14:52.578)
Mm-hmm.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (15:01.878)
If I don't feel like I've given you improvement in that hour, I'm like, dang it, like what happened there? What could you have done different? What were you missing? But if you're able to focus on a lot of those small things, then that's when you're able to walk away from a session. Like yesterday when I walked away, I was like, that was sick. Like that was a good day. That's a cool feeling as a coach.
IG @MarkBurik (15:12.713)
Mm.
IG @MarkBurik (15:23.766)
Yeah.
Yeah, and there's some things like, okay, we'll get back in the program for a second. there's some things where like, okay, this guy told me he was just below competing for pro. So like just last round of the qualifiers trying to make some big moves. He's tall, he's athletic. And I'm like, okay, what do you want to work on? And he says, really, want to work on my arm swing and my jump. I just don't feel like it's going right. So for me, I
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (15:32.088)
Yeah.
IG @MarkBurik (15:54.542)
Okay, immediately high level, it's gonna be harder to get into that detail. And we're working on jump and arm swing mechanics, which takes a lot of recording because to see the arms sinking properly, if it's grossly off, you can see it easily. But at the higher levels, when they've got the mechanics, they just might not be happening at the exact right time. I need the slow motion camera. So we had the slow motion camera on him the entire time.
We'd get 10 minutes of reps, sometimes like a minute of reps, and then we'd come over and we'd watch it in slow motion. And he was pretty blown away with like, he came away with a deeper understanding that if he had gone through our arm swing program online, he would have known all of this already and already been doing the drills and doing that. So if you guys are coming out to California, remember we run the occasional three hour.
clinic in Santa Monica. Sometimes we have three day camps in Santa Monica, but if you want to quote unquote, build your own camp and just visit us in California, you can get into classes, you can get into private lessons, you can build your own kind of custom training camp out here. And we really invite you to it's such it's such an environment out here like to walk out and see at 8am on a Saturday, 100 courts filled with volleyball players all across like three cities.
is just, it's nuts. And I know we have a friend here from Miami and she just keeps coming back and she's just like, it's so hard to leave when the volleyball is so accessible and it's just everywhere and everybody's always playing almost all hours of the day. It's a good vibe.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (17:30.966)
Can't leave.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (17:40.29)
Yeah, I told her to be careful. I was like, that happened to me and I've been here for seven years now.
IG @MarkBurik (17:45.262)
And also now we have leagues. So we're running a Kings and Queens league that's happening on Sunday nights. And so that's tougher to find on the schedule. But if you just email us and ask us when things are happening, it's there. We're moving soon to having that on Sunday nights. So again, you've got the opportunity to just join us and go absolutely ham on your own volleyball training, even if it's not like
blast it onto the website. Hey, we've got a three or five day camp in Hermosa. It's so easy here to build your own plus if you DM me right now or email support at better at beach, we will put you into our local WhatsApp groups that are level specific. So we've got our fun group, we've got our B group and we've got our a double a group. And if you're an open player or a pro, of course, it's so easy for me to just set you up with all of our friends and competitors and everybody's always looking for players.
So don't be shy about coming out, visiting us. I know we haven't done the official volley camp, promosas style camp in a lot of years, but it's there for you.
So that being said, our camps, we've run five day camps, we've run seven day camps, we've run three day camps. I was having a conversation at one of our camps in Florida with somebody and he was like, man, I've been trying to come to this for two years. Great, so the business guy inside me went, this is important. Why didn't you come for the first two years? And he said,
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (19:21.678)
Yeah.
IG @MarkBurik (19:23.67)
You know, it's tough, like it's a full seven days or eight days really getting off from family work. and those two things just alone were what was prohibiting them. So I said, well, what if we designed a camp that were either four or three days, we ended up landing on three days. I said, if you could fly somewhere on Thursday night, so you don't have to take off work. You're playing all day, Friday playing all day Saturday and you're playing for up until the afternoon on Sunday. Then you fly home Sunday night.
Now you only need really three and a half days off from your family. And you need to take one single day off of work. That's relatively easy. No one works on Fridays anyway, let's be real. And then we get this big training camp. And that's what's become pretty much our flagship model right now is we go all day Friday, all day Saturday, and into the afternoon on Sunday.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (20:05.015)
you
IG @MarkBurik (20:19.916)
And so you could look at better beach.com forward slash camps to see that we love the seven day camps just because at the seven day camps, people actually become best friends in those seven days. I think you make friends at the three day camps, but when you're eating dinner together, breakfast and lunch every night, and you're playing together for six, seven days in a row, like there is just such a bond that you get in another country or another city that.
that for a lot of our campers, it's become unbreakable. And I know that people now from our camps, number one, are best friends in living together, some of them. But even if they're not like best friends and living together, they go and they travel together or they'll fly to Austin and just stay at somebody's house who they met at one of our camps. And I do share that a lot of camps that for me, the coolest about beach volleyball, and especially at the level that I've gotten to play at.
is you are welcomed anywhere and you have this set of built in friends in any city you go to that has beach volleyball because there is a shared experience. Even though you didn't do it together, we all went through the experience of how close to my elbows need to be when I'm passing like a hundred percent of volleyball players at some point ask them that that that one question. And we've all been through that.
the pain of passing, of setting and attacking. And so you have this little bond with them and it's cool for us now when we can walk into a city or a beach and we're just recognized. I mean, I got that in Barcelona, in Portugal, and then there's always like really cool people within the volleyball community. I got to eat at one of these high-end restaurants at the top of a hotel overlooking all of Barcelona, because one of the volleyball guys who was there was the manager of the hotel.
And so like he invited all the people I sat with 10, 10, 11 people from Barcelona and me and my wife had like these friends who actually knew me and Janelle because you know, like we talk about her a lot. And so we had this built in relationship. So we have those three day camps. But we can also do kind of one off days. So occasionally we're loose enough to say like, hey, we'll come to you for one or two days. Like I'm going to San Diego this month.
IG @MarkBurik (22:45.932)
because somebody reached out. said, we've got a pocket of players here. Can we get you for two days? And so he's got his own courts. He's got his own setup. I'm like, yep, let's rock and roll. And he's signing them up. The exciting part while we're talking about like Punta Cana and everything like Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, that's been my favorite trip so far. Everything is set up. It's all inclusive. It's so nice. So really guys sign up for that. It might be the best trip of your life.
And one of our campers from Florida a few years ago, and then we went up to Bend, Oregon. He was thinking about moving his family to Costa Rica full time. And we talked about it last year because I've always been trying to get to Central America somewhere like a surf and volley camp type deal. I really loved my time in Costa Rica. And he goes, Hey, we're all set up. My house is almost finished. I've been living down here for three months. We made the full time move. There is a beach volleyball bar here. Here's where we play on these courts.
And so he's got a bunch of expats that are living in Costa Rica and they all want to take part in this three day camp. So we're running a 20 person camp down in Costa Rica, with him and his community. And that's going to be our kind of our, our test to see if we can bring more people because he knows an area. He's not sure if we can reserve the other courts, but he knows an area where we can get four to six courts and then.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (23:58.199)
love it.
IG @MarkBurik (24:14.07)
Maybe bring a bigger group. So that's a private camp that we're running in Costa Rica, all because this guy just DM me and he said, Hey, can we talk for 30 minutes about, about doing this? So.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (24:25.708)
Yeah, we're, it's, it's really hard for Mark and I to say no, especially if it's somewhere that's like a bucket list place. Like Costa Rica is somewhere that even when you say it, you're like, you just smile, you know, you're like, okay, if I have to, I'll go run a camp in Costa Rica. yeah, no, it's cool. And, and it's like, it, and to be honest,
IG @MarkBurik (24:30.19)
Hahaha
IG @MarkBurik (24:37.537)
Mm-hmm.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (24:55.222)
It doesn't even have to be Costa Rica. We're going to Oklahoma City this weekend, you know, and it's packed. It's going to be fun. You know, I've heard nothing but great things about the facility. So I think you and I are both excited to check it out. yeah, if, if any of you have any, if you have a couple of courts and you have access to them or you know somebody who does let us know.
IG @MarkBurik (25:01.612)
And it's packed.
IG @MarkBurik (25:14.286)
any of you. Any of have a film.
IG @MarkBurik (25:22.498)
Mm-hmm.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (25:24.47)
We will say yes.
IG @MarkBurik (25:26.05)
Yeah, we'll make it work. And then we, you know, we've accumulated through our online programs, through our camps, we've accumulated this, coach development programming through our online programs and through our camps. And so we've seen people who came to us as like mid level players over the last 10 years, absolutely accelerated their skills. And because they've been to so many camps and been in the online programs and seeing all the coaching, and then we assign them some coaching, their knowledge base has just
boom, like absolutely jumped. And so we keep growing our coaches. So that's for the coaches. If you want to come and learn the game in depth, you can come as a player, but for any camp we run, if you want to come as a volunteer coach, for you, we will put you in the right place. You will be there learning how to coach. We can't really put you in the drills. You're there to make sure that you assist. Sometimes you're a super camper. We call it a super camper for players who are beginners.
to make volleyball feel a little bit more volleyball instead of one touch and it's gone, two touches and it's gone. We might use you like that, but we also might just use you as a live arm to run drills. And then we're gonna be showing you and you're gonna be hearing and through osmosis, getting really high quality information. And if we love your presence, if you're a people person, meaning like you're giving everybody high fives, your nonstop compliments, your energy is popping.
There is a good chance we're going to invite you to a second and third camp. And then you start becoming one of our camp coaches. if you go through again, the online programming, for, for the certification and we've seen you in person. So that's how a few of our coaches have developed. They started as campers or online members. And now, they get to go and travel the country. If not the world, hanging out with people who want to hang out with them and want their knowledge.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (27:21.092)
Yeah, and I think that that was one of the better ideas that has come up for us in the past was like thinking about like Alex and Bryant and Joel and all these guys that came to camps and like just had this really infectious energy. Just every time they're around you had a good time and then there was one camp where we were like, you know, they asked us like,
IG @MarkBurik (27:34.606)
Mm.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (27:49.614)
Hey, we're going to be in the area. Would you guys want us to show up? And we implemented that like super camper idea where we partnered them up with beginners, put them on their own court and, now they're playing really good volleyball and, they're also partnered with a person that knows our system. And so not only are you getting to play with somebody who's really good, like a lot of these guys are high level players playing and qualifier type events now.
IG @MarkBurik (27:53.88)
Mm-hmm.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (28:20.948)
Um, but you're also getting like consistent feedback all the time. And it's, think we, we used it as like a little trial run for the first camp. within the first day, both of you and I were like, this is brilliant. Like it's so fun. One, it's awesome having them back. And two, every single time that they are paired with a camper, that camper has the best coaching experience of their life. So, uh, it's a really cool little.
IG @MarkBurik (28:34.626)
Mm-hmm.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (28:48.32)
style that we've implemented and I think it's not going anywhere.
IG @MarkBurik (28:52.834)
And it works the same way for us taking on coaches as the type of athlete that I would want to coach in a program. As an athlete, give me the guy who doesn't know how to stop working, doesn't know how to stop repping, is constantly there and building the people around him. And I'll teach him the skills. Like he will figure out the skills if he's doing the rest of the stuff on his own and he's a good person versus
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (29:14.648)
Yes.
IG @MarkBurik (29:21.62)
The absolutely lights out athlete that no one wants to be around. He doesn't want to learn. He's got such a ceiling because he thinks everything, you know, he's learned everything and there's nothing that anyone could teach him or he can learn at in any environment. We want those constant learners, but for coaches, we can teach you how to coach for sure. Like that's easy. We can set your eyes in the right place. We can show you the skills and we can show you exactly how to fix them, which we do in our coaching academy online.
But if you come to us as an excellent coach, but you have no energy, you're not a people person, you're not connecting with anybody. You don't need to be rah rah rah like Ali Denny or Bryant, but you do need the intensity of your mind where you're studying people and you're also connecting with them. Like one of the things that I had to remind one of our Hermosa guys was, hey, they walked up to the court.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (30:02.852)
Right.
IG @MarkBurik (30:20.762)
and you didn't address them by name. I like, as soon as anybody steps foot on the sand, first name, high five, how you doing? Ask a forward question, family, occupation, relationships and dreams. Go ahead and get connected with that person. And if you do that naturally, if that's like your MO, we can teach how to coach and that's your 90 % of your way to being a better beach coach.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (30:45.218)
Right. Yeah, we've, we've said it a lot, but like two of my best coaches that I've had in my career, like Fred, Fred was an outlier. Fred was a baller. Like he would hop and practice with us and play. we need to get him on a podcast at some point too. But, like two of my top coaches that I've gotten to work with didn't play volleyball, you know, and like they couldn't get on the court and really show me anything, but they're.
IG @MarkBurik (31:01.165)
I'm down.
IG @MarkBurik (31:13.731)
Mm-hmm.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (31:14.244)
the way that they made me feel supported, the drive that they gave me, and then like their idea of what they've seen, you can still articulate that. So even if you're older or you haven't played a lot of volleyball, but you're interested in kind of growing the game around you and you're just a community person, we can give you all those tools. yeah, there's no, once again, we're bad at saying no.
IG @MarkBurik (31:44.918)
Okay, so moving on to our online. So now that we've told you everything about being there in person, what you could do, what you could book, how you could bring us to you, or if you're going on vacation with a bunch of buddies and you know that there's sand and you're bringing a park and sun net, hey, there's probably an AVP player or a better beach coach that wants to go with you. So just reach out.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (32:06.646)
You
IG @MarkBurik (32:10.378)
Our something we just put on our website a couple months ago, which I've done in the past. We just didn't have a place for it on the website is our film sessions. It's under the analyze your game film tab on our website, but essentially you just need to record some of your play, whether it's practices or play. And we've got a single session. We've got a three pack. We've got a 10 pack and
Then we have something that we had nine. had nine players this last year, sign up for the elite player program and the elite player program is where you get 12 of those one on one coaching calls and we'll customize everything for you. So I will look personally at every one of your numbers. Every one of them has my personal phone number. So we connect. They'll shoot me a quick question right before a tournament. I'll give them my best advice and
The really good part about that is that comes with unlimited camps for a year. So, I mean, the value that's packed to that being able to have unlimited hours in person and then 12 one on one hours. Plus you get the rest of the library and you get the group meetings. So you are packing in potentially hundreds, a hundred hours. Let's just call it a hundred hours in a year, working with.
one of us. So that one's 3497. It's one on one. And I will say that that is the program for people who want to get better and have the time and the energy to do it. The people that I want in that program are the ones who are just starving to get better. And we've had a few who reach plateaus. We've had a few who just couldn't find coaches in their area. And we have a few that were felt like they were aging out of the sport, you know, within the next decade. And they're like,
I wanna see how good I can really get with focus, with energy. Give me the full training program for physical fitness. Give me your eyes on my strategy and my technique and let me absolutely go after it. And we've got one guy who lost 65 pounds and he is now like really finishing at the top of his open. We've got another guy who's 50, maybe 55.
IG @MarkBurik (34:32.488)
and he's playing it at double A this historically like a B and now he's like really doing well and dominating a lot of matches at his double A. and then we've got another guy out from Hawaii who did kind of a hybrid, and he just keeps coming to camps, but he signed up for 20, one-on-one private sessions. And now, like for the first time he went from in, in a year ago, he was a B player just kind of struggling to get along.
He's getting all these invites to the open tournaments in Hawaii, in his island in Hawaii. I think it might be Maui. I'm not sure which island. But he's now competing with the big guys, right? And he's not beating them yet, but they're now inviting him. So he's on a higher level court because he knows what he's doing. And most importantly, we fix his pass and his set. So if you can pass and you can set dimes, open players have the ability to invite you to their.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (35:30.008)
Mm-hmm.
IG @MarkBurik (35:30.862)
to their practice. Like if you can't hit whatever, yeah, it does kind of suck at some point, but if you can pass and set, we can get you in a practice at minimum just because you won't break the play.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (35:42.702)
Yeah, and I think...
There's there's such a, you know, I think one of the biggest things that we provide is accountability and support. You know, like. There's such a I don't know why, I think, especially a lot of the players that we work with are older. We do work with a lot of kids that are trying to play in college and stuff like that, but like with older generations, I think we were grown up in a in a in a
IG @MarkBurik (35:54.958)
Mm-mm.
IG @MarkBurik (36:13.646)
We were in way.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (36:16.578)
way that you had to personally grind and it was do it yourself. You know, like I can even think about when I was in college and I'd go home for my breaks and I would look at myself in the mirror and I'd be like, Brandon, this is on you. Like you have to do this. But just the way that the world has changed and especially with technology and everything that we have, the days of fighting these battles alone is done.
IG @MarkBurik (36:39.566)
Thank you.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (36:46.914)
You know, one, there's so much going on. There's so many distractions that if you try to do it alone, you have to be. I wouldn't even say top 1%. I would say top 0.01 % of people. Yeah. It's like, yeah, it's extremely tough. And I say that because I'm, I was one of those people. I could.
IG @MarkBurik (37:03.15)
Yeah, you have to turn off all of your social media like so that there's no other distractions.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (37:17.12)
look at myself in the mirror and be like, Hey, this is on you, get it done. And I've become a guy that I need help. You know, like I, I reach out to you a lot. I I've recently gotten into Ironmans. hired a coach. I have Shiv here in Hermosa where I texted him a couple of weeks ago and I'm like, Hey, I need a workout buddy. You know, and it's like, I think we, we take so much responsibility on ourselves to like, to get better.
IG @MarkBurik (37:20.546)
you
IG @MarkBurik (37:36.824)
Mm-hmm.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (37:46.712)
But especially with everything that you're spending money on, if you have a goal in mind, no matter how big or small it is, having help is the way to go. know, conquering on your own, sure, it might make you feel a little bit better at the end of the day, but it's also gonna make you feel a lot worse if you fail. But being able to get a text from you and say, hey, how was last week?
IG @MarkBurik (38:08.61)
Mm-hmm.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (38:15.288)
You know, even if you dropped off for a week and you didn't get the practices and you had family stuff come up, but there's, there are great excuses that make sense. But having that person in your corner that kind of gives you that pat on the back and say, Hey, you're good. Those things happen, but let's get back on track. And I, and I think that that's, that's really big. And I think that's the biggest thing that we kind of provide is.
IG @MarkBurik (38:34.222)
Mm-hmm.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (38:44.58)
Not only do we have the knowledge and the tools to help you get better, but we also provide you that one of the cool things that we hear a lot is, you know, people watch us so much on YouTube or Instagram that when we meet them for the first time, they're like, man, I feel like I already know you. And that's because like we want to be your friend. Like we want to be your buddy in this. And like we want to show up and we want to help you. And I think that this online program that we've created
IG @MarkBurik (39:00.204)
Yeah, yeah.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (39:14.78)
is it's the future. It's what we all have to get used to. And so if you're looking for that accountability, if you want someone in your corner, one, you're gonna show up more often, and two, you're gonna see the advances or the improvements a lot quicker because you have somebody else's eye. Going back to what you said about video.
Watching video for some, for, for a lot of people is extremely scary because we don't like the way that we look on camera. We don't like the way that things look. We, it's a very humbling experience, but once you get past that idea, and I think both of us can probably articulate this well is like, man, I thought I was good. And then I watched myself play and I had a coach like watch the film with me. And I realized that man, this like,
IG @MarkBurik (39:49.292)
Yeah.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (40:10.564)
I thought I only had 1 % left to improve on. That 1 % is closer to 50. And they're actually attainable for me. And so like, even though it is a humbling and kind of scary experience, once you do it and you kind of get over that little fear of like showing somebody else your weaknesses, it's, it's really cool because then you realize that like, oh, wow, like somebody picked up on this and now because of it, I'm becoming better. And
IG @MarkBurik (40:28.674)
Mm-hmm.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (40:39.896)
Like I think that that's kind of a, it's, that's an all areas of life thing, not just volleyball, you know? So.
IG @MarkBurik (40:48.846)
Well, sometimes people believe me and sometimes they don't. But when I say that the three most influential hours that I've had in beach volleyball that got me the biggest, fastest with whoever teammate I was or with whatever I was doing at that time were couch sessions because I didn't want to just like go out and reps or tempt a coach to rep. go, I don't care about your arm and my reps. can get a billion reps on my own.
I need your brain and your eyes on my game. I go, I'm going to come to your couch or you come to my house and we're going to watch film. And I want to see it through your eyes. I just want you to think out loud. And even when I sat next to singen, at one of the tournaments at Hagen and Logan were playing with, I sat next to singen and I was like, Hey man, if you just want to think out loud for the next 45 minutes, you have somebody who will be intently listening and
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (41:29.38)
Mm-hmm.
IG @MarkBurik (41:44.524)
So I wanted to see how he thinks about the game. And if we watch our own film, just because we saw some video online, and then we, we try to see what that coach was talking about. Yes, you can, but there's always this like confirmation bias that you have where you're trying to prove that you did the right thing, or you're trying to prove that you're thinking about it right. and those three hours that I had, one was with Jeff Alzena, one was in Chang, one was with.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (42:08.132)
Mm-hmm.
IG @MarkBurik (42:14.398)
rich Lamber. And I was like, let me just see what you're seeing. And they were such massive changes. One of them got me back with Ian, cause we watched a game, from a couple of years ago and I was like, we weren't as bad as I thought we were. We just needed these little minor fixes. one was with rich Lamborne where we talked about block timing and, and how to kind of trick blockers, but also.
really block timing. And he was showing me how Jake blocks, how mole box and he's like, see how late everybody is. And I was blown away by how late blockers actually have to be with jumping. And then he's like, okay, now how do we use that offensively? And then how do we disrupt hitters as a, as a defender, but that gets too far into it, but either way you getting somebody else's eyes on your game.
to stop your own echo chamber, it might be one of the most influential hours of volleyball that you've ever had. And so that's what we provide. It's just tough to get people to understand that, because the only people who really watch film are the people who are so engaged and were introduced in maybe high school, but often college to say, look how valuable film is. You get to see what you're doing right or you're doing wrong. And most adults will never see themselves play.
on video and that's so sad because as soon as you do you would realize these quick adjustments. So with that we have those private one-on-one opportunities but if you join our inner circle, so right now it's four or nine dollars a month, if you join our inner circle you get to post into our community, ask a question, we'll go in there in the comment section just like it's Facebook feed and we will coach you just based on those micro videos but also once a week.
we're meeting and we're reviewing there. So then we dive even deeper into your video during the group meetings. And that's also where I issue challenges from our courses. So if you just want to do the standalone courses, have our, our pro and sorry, our complete and our fundamentals. Some places you'll see pro and basic. Okay. But
IG @MarkBurik (44:32.672)
Those have different collections of courses. If you want to just go for the fundamentals package, that's got like a three day, a three week workout program. It's got all of our practices that you can do and all of our drills and it's got your passing, your serving, your setting and your attacking course. Okay. So that's all the classes that you get in there. And I'm, these courses are not like one hour courses, like each course could and should take about a month to get through.
And then if you upgrade to the complete package, then we add the ultimate defender class, which is an eight week course. Then we add the complete coach Academy for coaches, the 60 day vertical jump program, our three kettlebell programs for volleyball performance nutrition guide, the fixer arm swing program, which is three to four weeks. We spent four weeks on it. The fixer jump mechanics protocol, mastering the volleyball mind, which is a mindset course and
Yeah, and so that's everything that's included in the complete package. So with those that access like your textbook, basically, like your video textbook and workbook, because you should be watching, filling things out, doing those drills. And then in the inner circle where we do the live meetings, what I'm doing is that accountability thing. And I'm saying, hey, this week, you're watching these videos from this course. And here are the drills or reps that you should get this week.
Right? So like last week, everybody had to do the Highline challenge. So I said, everybody has to hit 20 Highlines before whatever play session you do and tell me how many you got in a two step box. So they took a two step box in the Highline corner and we're just measuring our accuracy now to see if we can upgrade it over the next couple of weeks. All right. And so that's their challenge for the week. They watched three videos, they got this and they got to sit with me for an hour to review their video and ask any, any questions or things that went wrong.
Hey, so if you get the fundamentals, you get someone less courses, but it'll get you a long way. we think that that's a really good playbook for beginners and intermediate. And if you get the complete program or the pro program, basically the same thing, they are the same thing. Then you get, you know, the defensive course, the more intense workout programs. And this is all a playbook for exactly what a pro athlete would cover over a year.
IG @MarkBurik (47:02.178)
That's why we had to do the inner circle meetings because when you see all of these videos, when you're like, yeah, well, my defense sucked this weekend. So let me go into the ultimate defender course. my hitting really sucks. So you watch two videos from the hitting course. It's like, no, you need to complete your education and your training per skill. And when we walk them through it, this is where we get actual fixes that people see. They see their hitting percentage improve because we actually took stats on it. They see their.
digs per game improved because we took stats on it. They see their passing improved because we took stats on it, gave them the drills, and then they do the summary testing at the end. So that is how it works. And if you are a coach, all right, there's one place on our website where we have that coach programming, you're getting the same thing that people get in the pro or the complete package. But as a coach, what's the benefit? Like, isn't this for players?
Well, we're giving you the entire textbook of all the knowledge we have and you're getting to see the things that we teach and that we coach. And then also at the meetings, we tell you like, Hey, what do you think? My coaches, I want to hear from you first. Let me see if you're looking at the right things. Let me see if you're seeing the right things and then you can progress from there. But a lot of our coaches also ask us like,
sign up questions, business questions, how do I model a clinic? How do I model a tryout? And we really cover a lot of that and they ask some in-depth questions at our online meetings. And then Brandon has the full club consultation program. So why don't you talk a little bit about that.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (48:44.15)
Yeah. So kind of once again, we've just kind of built like, especially from the player side, we've built everything that we wish we had when we were starting to play. And then as we've kind of developed into these coaches and understanding what a, what a business is and how to run a business, how to make it successful. we've recently, I would say it's kind of been growing for the last
three years and kind of understanding what the outlay looks like and how beneficial it can be. But really it's working with clubs as a whole. So a couple different levels. I have one group right now that I'm working with in Las Vegas where I'm just working with the club directors. They're just getting a club off the ground. They're mainly an indoor club.
doesn't matter if it's indoor volleyball or beach volleyball. A lot of the same problems, a lot of the same ideas where I'm just working with them. And that looks very similar to the one-on-one calls that we have with the players where it's pretty much you're just paying for or booking. We do four week sessions where you're booking those four weeks. You get one hour calls per week. You also.
You get access to my phone number, any like basic questions that you have during those weeks, you can text me and I have those conversations with you. But the main goal is to work with the entire club as a whole. So we have these conversations from the top down. One, helping the club itself just create systems. You know, I think for us, that was one of the big...
IG @MarkBurik (50:22.978)
Mm-hmm.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (50:35.096)
Benchmarks that we hit as a company was okay. We understand what this looks like We understand how how the products that are the services that we can provide but how do we make them work seamlessly and So helping the club directors Create their systems of what what programs are they going to offer? What are their coaches looking at what what what is the pricing model that makes sense?
IG @MarkBurik (51:04.408)
Mm-hmm.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (51:04.548)
Any of these in-depth conversations of to make your your business because that's what it is make your business as successful as possible And then the club club consultation at the whole club level is really cool too because we work with the we work from the top down as well, so I One of the clubs that I've been working with for a while is Milwaukee sting They've been running now for three years. I've been working with them since they started
And the first year it was very much just me and the club director talking about how what their product should look like what what the Payment structure should be what the like how many weeks should these programs be should it be multiple signups should be single signups How to get more people in the door anything like that how to grow your clientele
IG @MarkBurik (51:56.898)
Mm.
How to find and train coaches. People forget that like a coach might not teach the things that you want to teach, but if you're not prepared with a playbook for them, that you can hand them your club is going to get real messy parents. get super pissed and you're going to have like your a coach teaching something totally different than your B coach. And then your players can't even have a, like a streamlined path to.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (52:02.924)
Yeah.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (52:09.463)
Mm-hmm.
IG @MarkBurik (52:30.232)
How am I improving? know, what do I go through this year? What do I go through that year? I think clubs and teams fail in that they don't build the pathway in terms of skills, in terms of numbers, because their coaches aren't even aware. And you know, you don't hand them anything. You don't show them what they're supposed to be learning at what stage. And so then like your second year coach covers.
stuff they've never heard before when they've been in your club for a year already. And that doesn't make sense either. That only hurts the athlete.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (53:01.764)
And so the progression for that has been year two, we brought the coaches on board and now I'm working directly with the coaches. When you book out for the season, what that looks like is I hold five hour long meetings with the coaches and the club director as a whole and just go through what does it look like to be the best coach? That goes from
IG @MarkBurik (53:07.874)
Mm.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (53:30.466)
like Mark mentioned earlier, introducing yourself to players, how to communicate effectively. There are a lot of different styles of learning. One of my background is in education. And so a lot of that came from all the teaching seminars and stuff that I had to do of some of us are auditory learners, some of us are visual, some of us have to experiment, right? And so being able to pick up on what type of athlete you're working with is huge.
IG @MarkBurik (53:54.039)
Yeah.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (53:59.268)
And then the simple idea of developing a practice plan. You know, if you've never done it before, it's extremely hard. And it can become really mundane. you like, some of us, show up and we're like, Ooh, that was a good practice. But then you show up and you're on that same practice. And people are like, we did these drills last week. Like, why are we doing the exact same stuff? Like, well, it was really good last week. So I wanted to do it again. No, that's not what a coach is. So we go through this idea of like,
IG @MarkBurik (54:20.014)
Mm-hmm.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (54:27.182)
how you should be building out your practice plan, how to time out drills, how to increase the difficulty if your players are succeeding at a really high rate, how to kind of dumb them down if your players are not meeting expectations or not able to handle the drill. And then once again, just creating a basic system of what these practices look like. I think what you said about clubs,
IG @MarkBurik (54:38.166)
Yes.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (54:56.374)
especially have to have a building protocol where whatever especially if you're working with juniors and you're going 12 and 13s they should have specific keys and ideas that they meet after those years 14 and 15 should have different ideas of what they're accomplishing in those years exactly
IG @MarkBurik (54:59.726)
Mm.
IG @MarkBurik (55:09.55)
Yes.
IG @MarkBurik (55:13.57)
martial arts, the belt system, how am I actually progressing and do I have the metrics to say this is what I need to be hitting by then? Not just wins and losses and showing up to practices, like are you able to hit this metric? And then that also stops like the whole argument with, my kid's not playing. Well, he didn't pass the level four test yet. So is he doing it at home?
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (55:38.212)
Yeah, and I think that makes the club itself successful, you know, and we're not saying that like one of the questions that we get asked sometimes with coaches that come and work for us is like, okay, we send them our coaching manual, which is extremely detailed. And we want them to follow that because that's our system. We have a brand that we're trying to represent.
IG @MarkBurik (55:56.622)
Mm-hmm.
IG @MarkBurik (56:04.396)
Yes.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (56:05.134)
We're not saying that you can't use different metaphors or try different birdage of like, if I say that when they're passing, I want their platforms to be straight and simple. Sure. If you want to call it a board and not straight and simple, I'm not saying that you can't be that. I want you to be your own coach, but I also want you to feel comfortable and understand that you have all the resources necessary in order to be that. I think that that's.
IG @MarkBurik (56:29.71)
And we also know it works. That's the other thing. Like when you've got, you know, 500 plus five star reviews, it's like, we've got something that works that people love. And so we've written it down because it's been successful and we've seen people just jump and jump and jump and return and return and return. So if you haven't written that down, even if you think what you're doing is successful, guess what? It's stuck at you. If you're sick.
Boom, your level goes down. If you need to take a sabbatical or you have a baby, boom, your club drops off the table, right? Because it's only existing in your head.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (57:11.714)
Yeah. then, so finally getting to the last piece of the puzzle with the club consulting is then we, then we bring the kids on board. So the kids get access to all of the resources that we have. They get to join that inner circle idea where they can post videos and get feedback. And, and then we also have the ability to come and run a camp for you in your area. but it's kind of just an all encompassing, you know, like we're not, we're not there to necessarily.
say to be your boss and be like, hey, this is how you have to run your program or else. No, we're just there to assist you. We're there to be like your assistant coaches and just help better your product. And so I've seen a lot. It's been really, really cool for me because I've seen club directors see success.
within the first three years of running a program, it's become profitable, which you've ever run a business. That's an extremely accomplishing task because that doesn't happen a whole lot. and then I've also seen coaches become really comfortable being out on the sand, being on the, in the indoor court, being able to run effective practices and just feel confident in their ability to do so. then
We've also seen kids that have begin, began to grow and have that final push of like, you know what? I want to play in college. I want to get it. I want to get a scholarship. And so. Yeah, we have, we have different price models for those where if, if you just want to work with me as a club director and start out and kind of get some ideas and avoid the bumps and bruises that Mark and I have avoided.
or that we've witnessed, we've those bumps and bruises where the guys that have ran into that door that's locked about 12 times, hoping that it'll be open one time. So we help you avoid those sticky situations. And then if you want to get your coaches on board, if you want to get your players on board, we do it based on seats. like, depending on how many coaches, how many players you have.
IG @MarkBurik (59:06.862)
ran head first into.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (59:31.342)
We built a pricing model for you. And then the coolest thing is like, especially if you're running a club, a lot of the time, the price doesn't fall on you as the club. lot of the clubs that I work with, they build it into their dues because it is a valuable thing that you're giving to the community. It's not just for you. It's for the kids as well. And there's never, I haven't heard of any kids or parents that are upset with having these extra resources. So.
IG @MarkBurik (59:40.621)
you
IG @MarkBurik (59:53.345)
and that's how it's done.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (59:59.564)
Really it's just a good way for you to experience growth within your club and if we do it right, there's not a whole lot of extra cost on your end.
IG @MarkBurik (01:00:14.168)
Okay, so that's our club consulting program. And then just some final notes. We do have to run and close this up, but we talked about the fundamentals and the complete, but if you just want to work out program, like a steady routine that you know is going to be effective for your athleticism and effective fast where you can take assessments. We also have our workout programs. We've got our full bundle, which includes the nutrition, the kettlebell, the jump program and the strength and mobility foundations program.
So that's on our website, bitterbeach.com forward slash workouts. If you just wanna buy some cool swag like I'm wearing, head to the merch store. And also, if you have a company and you wanna promote it, you wanna do giveaways, you wanna give coupons and you want access to a few hundred thousand beach volleyball players, get in touch with us. We'd love to have a partnership. We would love to run maybe an event for your company. We're running a corporate event for Skechers coming
which is really cool. So we've got a corporate event set up for them where we're sending them some pros to play with all their employees and maybe give a couple lessons. And if you want a career, not a job, if you want a career in beach volleyball, where you're around people who are athletic, fun, love the game, and your customers love you and want to be around you and you're giving something
to them that they thoroughly enjoy. Whatever your role, introduce yourself to me, send me an email. I will say that if your introduction is weak, I won't look at it. The people who I have looked at, we've got over 80 applications this year, and I think I've looked at maybe 12 of them, right? But if your introduction is weak, you're probably not our type of person anyway, because you're not detailed, you don't know how to present yourself, you don't know how to give before you get.
and that's what coaches absolutely have to do. You have to give before you get. So if you want a career in beach volleyball, we've got a number of positions. Just look at the careers section on our website and you can see what our company is going to look like at its full-fledged operating capacity. We're not always hiring, but if you show me what you can do immediately and you've got experience already doing it that you can show me, or you build something
IG @MarkBurik (01:02:37.87)
that you don't even know that we might want, but you took the time to do that, then we're into a conversation. If you sent me a paragraph telling me that you coached club and now you wanna be a coach, I'm probably not looking at your email. So work on your presentation. We've got a lot to do and a lot of players to serve. So I would love if we got some banger applications out there. Or like I said, if you just wanna promote your company and we can do a partnership like that.
this is finally, we're at the stage where we feel confident enough in our company and our services and our operations. We're like, now we have the strength. So now I know we can really help build another company, but we didn't take partnerships before that because I said, Hey, we need to fix our own house and clean our own house before we invite somebody else in. but now we're at that level where we feel that that confidence and we know how to put your product or your services in the hands of people.
So get in touch. I gotta run. I gotta go coach.
IG @Brandon.Joyner_ (01:03:40.6)
think people know what we offer now, so that was a good podcast. Yeah, I like it. That was great.
IG @MarkBurik (01:03:42.806)
That's what we offer guys. Yeah, this might be on the homepage. All right. From me, from Brandon. We'll see you on the sand.
