How to Improve Volleyball Skills – Tips to Improve Your Passing

How to improve volleyball skills?

This page gives you more ideas how to improve your passing game.

6 Tips How to Improve Volleyball Skills

Tip #4) How to select correct volleyball passing position on the court? Where to stand?

You can make passing much easier by selecting
the passing location wisely.

The passing position on the court should change according to the server!

Do not automatically divide the court evenly with other passers. Do not just stand on the middle of the area which was appointed to you.  

Be ready to move the line up and change your location on the court.


Example 1: Don't chase the ball if you don't have to

You are a passing on the position 1. You know that the opposing server has the jump serve that has a strong sidespin on the serve and the ball is curving from inside the court towards right sideline.

If you know that the player is constantly hitting the ball on your right side closer to the side, you should move there yourself also, so you don’t have to chase the ball which makes your passing much more difficult.

If you are brave and the player constantly bombs the sideline, you can even go and stand right by the side line. Then you are able to wait the ball to land on your arms, instead of “running” after the curving ball.

Important!
Changing your passing position aggressively is your opportunity to force the player to change their favorite serving style. Force the server to perform other type of serve, something that s/he is not that comfortable doing. You increase the chance of service error - or you will get an easier serve at least.



Example 2: Minimize your movement - make your offense easier

What do you do when the server serves just deep?

If you know a specific player has a habit to serve deep to the back line, it probably would be a good idea to move few steps back and moving closer to the backline.

It makes the serve receive less complicated. Also your offense becomes much easier when you don't have to move backwards before each approach. You'll save some energy.

If you feel these tips are "just common sense" - you're absolutely right. Players need to learn to use that common sense and react to modify their game. They need to take advantage of the patterns they may see happening in the match.

How to Improve Volleyball Skills - Weak Side of the Passer

Tip #5) Have you ever thought that passers left side could be weaker than the right side?

This sounds unbelievable, but top volleyball teams keep stats trying to find out the weak side of the passer. They collect information to determine which side of the passer they should send the serves.

 Which is your weak side in passing?

Example 1: Serve the balls to the weak side

If they notice the receiver’s pass is weak on the left side, then their tactic is to serve the balls on the left side of the player. If you notice serve receiver struggles on the specific side, be sure to send more serves to the weak side.

You as a passer can use that information to your own benefit also. If you know you are struggling when passing on the left side, try to avoid passing from the left.


Example 2: As a passer avoid passing from your weak side

Let's assume left is your weak side or opponent has a great server who hits a powerful serve constantly on the left sideline.

If you are an receiving the ball on the position 4, move close to the side line, then you don’t need to reach to the left when passing the ball. You just receive the ball that comes directly to you, or you pass the ball from your right side.

How to Improve Volleyball Skills - Passing Formations

Tip #6) How to Improve Volleyball Skills - Change the passing line up aggressively?

Let’s assume there is a player who constantly serves the ball cross the court to the right side of the court, towards position 1.

Changing your team's passing
formation can make a
difference.

Example: Moving two primary passers to the server's target zone

Why not to make aggressive changes to the line-up and move the passers to the right, by placing at least two passers to the zone 1 corner to receive the ball.

Give those two passers 30-40 % slice of the court from the zone 1 corner. Libero can take that rest 60-70%. This could be one way to break the pattern of the strong server and force him to serve somewhere else.

Or it would make the passing much easier for those players receiving the ball; they would not even have to move to the ball.

If the passer on the right happened to be the right side hitter, you could even release him from passing, if you are sure the ball lands to the last 30-40% of the court. One player would be enough to handle that.

Conclusion - How to Improve Volleyball Skills

We could go on and on with these examples, but I am sure those already gave you an idea how players and coaches can modify their game during the match.

Remember, you can apply these "how to improve volleyball skills" ideas to all areas of volleyball, not just on serve receive.

The point is - first you recognize the pattern what your opponent is doing, then you adjust your game and change your actions on the court.