VolleyKidz

27/09/2024

It's been a loooong time since I've posted anything 🙈 Same club as this past season but younger girls, Y4 and Y5, mostly beginners. I got inspired by something I had seen on Insta for this simple drill to help the girls focus on their wrists only when volleying. Still work to do but not bad!

05/10/2023

New season new club. Inspired by Rett Larson's work with the German Women's National Team, this fun warm up drill prompted the girls to communicate and work as a team towards a common goal.

31/03/2023

I'm taking part in a regional project taking English as a second language in nurseries. Yesterday we were in the gym and as soon as they saw me volleying with a ball, many kids asked me to teach them. These three here were the most loyal and after a couple of tries mastered the dig.

"Pancake, pancake, sausage, sausage" worked like a charm. 🥞🌭

🦹‍♂️🦸‍♀️ Very interesting to see that they all started by putting their fists together and straightening their arms like a superhero would do ... volleyball players = superheroes 😅

28/02/2023

This was cool. The purpose was to encourage collaboration to keep the ball / balloons going. We started with one ball and one balloon but at this stage, the kids found it difficult to coordinate playing with a normal ball and also keeping a balloon in the air. So we got 2 balloons for each group and they had a blast! Great warm up! 🎈🎈

15/02/2023

🎶 + 🏐 = 😃

Maybe it's because I've been working in and breathing music for my whole life, but I incorporate sounds and rhythm when I coach volleyball as well.

Especially with young players, I always encourage them to listen to the sound the ball makes, or their own body makes when executing a technique.

For example, a volley should not make any sound. If it does, then you are touching the ball with "hard" hands. The last two steps in a spike approach should have a specific (fast) rhythm, and you should hear a ta-da rather than a big stomp (which means you're not making two steps but a big jump with the two feet together...).

In any event...
music + volleyball = happiness

07/12/2022

Always ❤

State calmi! E giocate a pallavolo 😉

06/11/2022

This season I'm coaching girls and boys in the same age group (9-11). Both teams have started their respective tournaments in the past couple of weeks and I'm really proud of how things are going.
👧🏻👧🏼The girls (6vs6) won a match and lost another very close, but most of the athletes are in their second year playing volleyball.
👱🏻🧑The boys have been playing for less than two months and today at their first match (3vs3) they have been amazing, fighting for every ball with everything they had against two very strong teams.

It's a learning curve for me as well, especially since boys and girls seem to require very different coaching methods and are displaying very different attitudes towards training and competing. Will see how this pans out... 👀

14/09/2022

New season, new club 🙃
I am now coaching another U12 team for a different club here in Trentino and we are building from scratch an all-boys squad
👦🏼🧒🏻🧑🏻‍🦰

Here is a cool drill to improve ball control and digging technique - they are supposed to let the ball bounce before the second dig, which encourages moving under the ball to get it right.
Yellow shirt is Coach Alex, two other boys are total beginners, aged 9 and 10, after 3 sessions

26/07/2022

Fab court in the city 🤩

11/07/2022

🥞🌭We all know language is really important for a coach and it is even more so when you coach very young players. Often children do not have a clear perception of their body and sometimes struggle to control their movements. What helps, I find, is to give them visual clues, such as suggesting to walk like a crab to teach them lateral movements or to make a triangle with their fingers when they learn to volley. An old time favourite is "Pancake - pancake - sausage - sausage" to get the sequence right when learning hand position for a dig.

Do you have any special or fun expressions in your gym?

05/07/2022

Hello! Although I am no longer in the UK, I've decided to revamp this page with tips and drills for young players. In the past couple of seasons here in Italy, I've had the opportunity to gain quite a lot of experience coaching primary school children as well as beginner young adults and hopefully some of the things I've learned will be useful to others. And of course coach Alex will help me out 😉
Watch this space... 👀

25/11/2021

Second match in the turnament last night - we lost 3:2 but I'm happy of how the girls have played. They've grown since last season and the training is paying off, I hope! 🏐💙💛