dr.ricky online

Month: July 2018

  • How do you want your set?

    How do you want your set?

    I hear a number of common phrases during volleyball play which I discourage athletes from using. This is why. 

    “How do you want your set?”

    Often advised for new teammates, this question is poorly worded and really does not address what is important for the game. What an attacker wants for a set is often pretty different from what she needs in an in game situation. Moreover, the expected answer is often couched in terms of trajectory and distance from the net; it is only applicable in a blocked and controlled passing situation. It can result in some pretty impressive “warm up” hits, but doesn’t necessarily translate to reality.

    The question does reveal something about the setter – the idea of subservience to the attacker, and that ultimately it’s the attacker’s desires that fuel the point earning potential. In this question, the setter outsources his judgment and decision making to the attacker. It lowers the bar, the idea that as long as the setter can deliver along synthetic parameters, he has earned success, even if the team loses the point.

    Looking into the characteristics of a good set, most athletes will define it as some kind behavior of the ball, adjusted with respect to the net. But how effective an attack becomes is contextual to the attacker and the situation. The characteristics of a good set are not easily described between just the setter and the ball, but ultimately it’s the ability of the setter to take responsibility for the options available for her partner that determines the outcome. Falling back onto this question is rejecting that responsibility; the partner cannot really meaningfully answer it, and just describes a desire for a quick answer to a complex question. Let go of the crutch, and understand that good setting is a process – the attack is the outcome.

  • Becoming height neutral

    Becoming height neutral

    The website Beachvolleyballspace covered the recent FIVB Gstaad Major with an article celebrating the winners, the currently top ranked Canadian team of Paredes and Pavan claiming the gold. The article title (Canadian women dominate Gstaad Major – Japan challenges top teams) makes special mention of the fifth place Japanese team of Murakami and Ishii. Why? Was it a remarkable breakthrough performance?

    The whole latter half was spent mentioning how much shorter the team was relative to their opponents. That’s it. Beach volleyball culture venerates height so much that it’s often the first and only statistic mentioned for players. No mention that Murakami is a 7 year veteran of the FIVB circuit – it’s newsworthy because they were supposed to lose.

    Height discrimination is so pervasive that coaches will refuse to consider athletes just for being too short. I’ve spoken with talented young women who have already given up the dream of playing beach volleyball for college because they’ve been told time and again that their genetics will simply not give them a chance. Players constantly pine about being taller, and taller players, regardless of experience, are always groomed. A metric this damning should be backed by extensive studies or data – yet every discussion I’ve had with coaches either point to anecdotal experience, or cherrypicked material. Saying that the best athletes in the world are always taller is flawed logic – they are the product of this pervasive bias, so of course the selection for taller players is evident. What’s more telling is that despite this, players of all sizes break through: Bruno Schmidt, Shelda Bede, Holly McPeak, Annie Martin. If the thesis is that height is always a beach volleyball advantage, these counterexamples are sufficient to discredit it.

    The cultural baggage of height superiority is entrained from a young age, and repeated incessantly – thus, how height becomes an advantage stems from a psychological one. Taller players are simply given more opportunities to play, to explore, to make mistakes. Pay attention without bias next time, and see the language difference between how coaches treat taller and shorter players, and how they treat each other. A shorter team hands to the taller team an immediate advantage by simply expecting themselves to be at a disadvantage. The way out of this is to begin young, and to start instilling in them the confidence of height neutrality. Even among older athletes, we can unlock a richer vein of talent from our pool of players by simply opening our eyes beyond how tall they stand or how high they jump. The game is deeper and wider than the height of its tallest players.

  • Earned or Found

    Earned or Found

    I was having this discussion once about buying chicken. My friend was of the opinion that there are just superior sources of birds, and that one should judge a restaurant already by knowing where they buy their chicken. My position was that it was a poor measure of the skill of chef – after all, where true mastery lies is in extracting a delicious dish from what’s considered inferior ingredients. It’s what our grandmothers have honed through a lifetime of experience – making do with what was available, and still nurturing their families. At the end of the day, when those fancy chefs need inspiration, they go to learn from those grandmas and aunties.

    When I encounter conversations among volleyball coaches, I hear echoes of this conversation. There’s immediate talk about how this player is tall, or that player is athletic, or if that other player has that relentless competitiveness to pursue the ball – and that of course, they should be the first picks when being trained. But how is that the measure of the coach? In many circles, by only considering the win-loss record of a squad, the measure of a coach is that of a prospector, that if they can just find the right pieces already pre formed, or that it just needs a little polishing, they can win and be rewarded. For all that is preached about growth mindset, coaches often fail to accept the challenge of being mentors and teachers, of seeing the murkiest glimmer of potential and bringing it forward.

    And maybe some of that is inherent in the reward system that doesn’t see the historical context of good athletes, or how we judge beach volleyball players on individual performance versus team contexts – and how they were trained in either. In a sense, the outcome of good competent coaching is to make the role of the coach invisible. Much like how our grandmothers simply dished out miracle after miracle from their meager cupboards that we take for granted – as we rain accolades on the preening chefs that cannot be bothered with the cheap cuts.