This document provides an overview of the game of volleyball including basic concepts, skills, strategies, and personal anecdotes from the author. It covers the six core skills of digging, setting, serving, blocking, offensive and defensive strategies. For each skill, it outlines the basic concepts, stances, motions, and when they are used. It also includes some interesting facts about the history and evolution of volleyball as well as the author's experience playing volleyball competitively and coaching the sport. Students are assigned to create a PowerPoint on two of the skills covered in the document and present on their learning and goals for improvement.

1. ALL ABOUT
VOLLEYBALL!
By: Ms. Baus

2. -Basic Concepts of the Game
-Digging
-Setting
-Serving
-Blocking
-Offensive/Defensive Strategies
-Interesting Facts
-Personal Skill Development

3. BASIC CONCEPTS
 Six people on the court at one time
 Consists of: 2 outside, 2 middle and 1 right side
hitter, 1 setter
 Rally Scoring to 21 points with a cap at 30 and you
must win by two points
 Cannot touch the net with any part of your body!
 A serve starts every possession
 Basic rotation is a circle, harder rotations happen at
higher levels
 Back row players cannot hit in the front row until
they reach the front

4. DIGGING
 Basic Concepts of Digging in Volleyball:
 Get in an athletic stance-low to the ground, knees
bent, on the balls of the feet ready to move quickly
 Hold both arms out in front, as straight as possible
 Clasp hands together so they do not come apart when
hitting the ball
 Arms should form a flat platform

5. DIGGING CTD.
 Basic Motion of Digging
 Squatting Motion
 More of a scooping with the arms than a swinging
motion
 This comes more from bending the legs
 When is Digging Used?
 When there is a hard driven ball coming at you such as
a spike (hit) or a serve.

6. SETTING
 Basic Concepts of Setting in Volleyball:
 Stance: legs shoulder with apart, dominate foot slightly
in front, slight bend in the knee
 Arms: overhead slightly lowered and bent, should be
able to see hands
 Hands: Thumb and pointer fingers on both hands form a
triangle and fingers are all spread widely apart
 IMPORTANT: Do not make the mistake of keeping your
fingers locked. They should be soft!

7. SETTING CTD.
 Basic Motion of Setting
 ALWAYS get underneath the ball (never behind you)
 Bend the legs and arms and push the ball up
 Follow through by letting the fingers go out to the sides
 Cradle the ball DO NOT slap
 When do you use the Set?
 Used usually during the second hit of play to set up the
hitter to spike the ball!
 Can also be used if the ball is coming high at your head

8. SERVING
 Two Types of Serve: Overhand and Underhand
 Basic Concept of Underhand:
 Place ball in non-dominant hand, stance is staggered
with non-dominant foot in front
 Dominant hand makes a fist with the fingers facing up
 Swing arm back and make contact with ball
 Follow through where you want ball to go
 DO NOT TOSS OUT OF YOUR HAND!

9. SERVING CTD.
 Basic Concept of the Overhand Serve
 Staggered stance with non-dominant foot in front
 Ball held in non-dominant hand
 Dominant hand drawn back to ear, elbow sticking back,
all even
 Throw ball up in the air with a slight toss
 Dominant hand makes contact to hit when ball is in the
air
 Dominant fingers are close together making a “high five”
appearance

10. SERVING CTD.
 When to Use the Serve:
 The serve is used to start off each new team
possession
 Can score points off of a serve
 What Serve Do I use?
 First use whatever serve you are better at
 About placement: want to aim for the weakest passer to
get points.
 Underhand: good to serve really high
 Overhand: good to serve hard, but accurately

11. BLOCKING
 Basic Concept of Blocking In Volleyball
 Legs together, arms straight up in the air
 Strong, straight fingers
 Must jump to get hands over the net
 Follow the set to the hitter to know where to block

12. BLOCKING CTD.
 When to use a Block
 A block is used to either stop the ball from the
opponents side to get onto your side or to slow down
the hit from the opponents side so the back row players
can make a better pass.
 Only front row players can block and can have a single,
double or even triple block depending on how hard the
ball is hit on the opposing side.

13. OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSIVE
STRATEGIES
 Allowed to only hit three
times per side before
sending it over
 Basic offense is the bump,
set, spike
 More advanced can run
different plays switching
hitter positions
 (Ex: moving the middle
hitter to the outside to hit a
quick ball)
 Very important and needed
to run a good offense
 Have the base position and
the action position
 Libero: the best passer on
the team that only plays the
back row and substitutes in
for the weaker passers
Offense Defense

14. INTERESTING FACTS!
 Volleyball was invented in 1895 in Holyoke
Massachusetts at the YMCA by William Morgan.
 Morgan derived the game from a popular game in
Germany called Faustball.
 Originally volleyball was called Mintonette.
 Stanford and Penn State have the best volleyball
programs in the world.

15. ME AND VOLLEYBALL
 I play beach volleyball for the GAV (Great American
volleyball league) and won my first tournament this
past summer! Beating out 8 teams.
 Played club volleyball for WVU for 4 years and was
the president last year.
 Coach high school volleyball freshman at my old
high school Roselle Catholic in NJ.
 Have played volleyball since 5th grade
 Won the NJ state title for volleyball my senior year
of high school in 2006 and was captain for 2 years.

16. YOUR TASK
 After completing the volleyball unit create a power
point talking about two skills out of the 6 we
covered:
 Bumping, Setting, Serving, Blocking, Offense, Defense
 Include what you personally learned and a slide
with your strengths and weaknesses and how you
will improve them
 Make sure to add some pictures and be creative!
 We will be presenting on Wednesday the 6th of
December!