Thurs April 29, 2010 Women's National Team

Today I practiced with the Women's National Team. We had 13 in attendance, missing several key players do to other commitments, or inability to make it to practice.

We practiced from 5:30p-8pm.

Nanan let me run the entire practice. Based on my observations from their scrimmage on Tuesday, ball control is the primary area of concern. Isn't that true with nearly every team!

We focused today on serve reception and free ball passing technique. I stressed Sumo passing (tanden) and keeping the feet balanced and square. Too often our passers were right foot or left foot forward and off balance. We focused on 'popping the ball up.' keeping it on our side to always enable an attack. We began with practice with a warmup session and then played Trips (Queen of the Court, etc...). We progressed to player tossed technique drills and then coach initiated passing drills. I refer to these as Sumo-to-self and either catch or set to target.

We then introduced Cooperative drills, stressing dependence on one another and focusing on teamwork. We made the drills competitive and added consequences for the losers. We also had the team work as one to achieve their goals. One note, I did a two-person switching drill, asking only that free balls be sent over the net. The drill involved two people on the court, one would Sumo the ball up, the other would send it over the net then switch off their side of the court and two new individuals would enter. This is a continuous drill with the team trying to work together as one. Our goal was 20 consecutive balls over the net. We made 14. This will be our benchmark for next week.

We did basic hitting technique and individual setter training. At the end, scrimmaged for 15 minutes.

There is a wide range of talent on the team and selecting those who will play on the national team, and reducing touches for those that won't, will improve practice tremendously. Ages of the participants range from 15 to 39. We have marginal setting so far, marginal passing, marginal defense and blocking, and marginal attacking. We have work to do. But the attitudes are great and everyone seems eager to learn.