Coaching Volleyball Technical & Tactical Skills (Technical and Tactical Skills Series) Paperback – May 18, 2011

I would highly recommend this book to both beginner and experienced coaches. The drills and instructions are great and easy to follow! I had been coaching six years before buying this book. I think it had an enormous impact on the way I ran my practices after reading through it! My practices became much more structured and intentional. Our record also improv drastically after implementing the new drills and techniques included in this book!

Good price for my college textbook

Just as expected

There are a couple of things that set this book apart when it comes to looking at teaching technical volleyball skills. The first is the breadth of coverage. We don't just have a look at the basic skills of serving, passing, setting, hitting, blocking, and digging, but something that gets more specific. It goes into the various types of serves, the different types of hitting, and different ways of playing the ball defensively, among other things.The other differentiating element is a section included with each skill which details common errors and ways to correct them. No doubt many readers will find this quite useful in diagnosing their players' struggles and addressing them.The novelty of the book doesn't stop there, either. The other big section looks at the tactical elements of volleyball and discusses them individually, with a sort of "...for Dummies" feel. It's done in two separate chapters - one for the offensive side of the game, one for the defensive. This section includes things like serving strategy, how to use a libero, varying the attack, defending the slide, and a number of other tactical decisions. Each tactical element has several key common component elements - reading the situation, what to watch out for, key knowledge, decision-making guidelines, self knowledge, and strengths & weaknesses of the opposition. These offer the reader lots of things to think about when deciding on tactics and implementing them.On either side of the technical and tactical sections of the book - which, as the title suggests, are the dominant focus - are ones looking briefly at evaluation and teaching. planning, and coaching during matches. The planning section, in particular, offers several sample practice plans and one for a full season.Overall, though, if you're looking for a book that deals with stuff that isn't directly involved with playing the game on the court, you should probably look elsewhere (Sally Kus's book  Coaching Volleyball Successfully (Coaching Successfully Series)  is a good resource for a broader coaching discussion). If you want a book that focuses on the technical and tactical elements of the game, though, then I think this one is a quite good choice.

There are a couple of things that set this book apart when it comes to looking at teaching technical volleyball skills. The first is the breadth of coverage. We don't just have a look at the basic skills of serving, passing, setting, hitting, blocking, and digging, but something that gets more specific. It goes into the various types of serves, the different types of hitting, and different ways of playing the ball defensively, among other things.The other differentiating element is a section included with each skill which details common errors and ways to correct them. No doubt many readers will find this quite useful in diagnosing their players' struggles and addressing them.The novelty of the book doesn't stop there, either. The other big section looks at the tactical elements of volleyball and discusses them individually, with a sort of "...for Dummies" feel. It's done in two separate chapters - one for the offensive side of the game, one for the defensive. This section includes things like serving strategy, how to use a libero, varying the attack, defending the slide, and a number of other tactical decisions. Each tactical element has several key common component elements - reading the situation, what to watch out for, key knowledge, decision-making guidelines, self knowledge, and strengths & weaknesses of the opposition. These offer the reader lots of things to think about when deciding on tactics and implementing them.On either side of the technical and tactical sections of the book - which, as the title suggests, are the dominant focus - are ones looking briefly at evaluation and teaching. planning, and coaching during matches. The planning section, in particular, offers several sample practice plans and one for a full season.Overall, though, if you're looking for a book that deals with stuff that isn't directly involved with playing the game on the court, you should probably look elsewhere (Sally Kus's book Coaching Volleyball Successfully is a good resource for a broader coaching discussion). If you want a book that focuses on the technical and tactical elements of the game, though, then I think this one is a quite good choice.