Using the Block to Play Better Defense

          In every higher level of play for volleyball, the block is the very first stage of defense against an attack by the other team. For front row players of any kind,  middles, outsides, or opposites, it is a fundamental to be able to put up a solid block that balls can't get by. based on my experience, the basics of this skill is clear: getting up as high as you can by using your legs and pressing over the net to the other team's side. However, the positioning is much more complicated as the whole defense in mostly the back row will be set up around your block.
          In Volleyball Essentials by Marv Dunphy and Rod Wilde, it says that, "Once the blocker has identified where the set is going, his or her focus changes from the ball to the attacker." (Dunphy, Wilde 73). Many coaches teach that the eye-work for blocking should be ball-setter ball-hitter. As the level of play gets higher, the sets get lower and faster. This is done to make it harder for the other team to get a block. When scrimmaging against my team who does quick and complicated sets, I attempted to minimize my vision of the ball as little as possible. And it worked more effectively than my previous style of blocking, which involved watching the ball for most of the time. This style allowed me to predict where the ball was most likely to go so that I could set the block up there fast, while previously I had been often late to get up on the block because I was busy watching the ball. Also because of my old technique, I would set the block up far inside because I was late and wasn't watching where the hitter wanted to place the ball.

         Another point about blocking that Volleyball Essentials makes is that after a crossover block, a sequence of footwork that is essentially running by the net, a player must reorient themselves to the net to make a correct block (Dunphy, Wilde 73). I didn't know that this was a downside to swing blocking, another name for the crossover block, and I started to observe that players would often go up sideways. Often, this would cause the ball to go in a direction that wasn't intended. When I went to block, I would make sure that my feet were straight towards the net when I was about to go up. There was an obvious difference with making sure you were oriented towards the net. The book's technique allowed me to use the momentum of the swing block and straight feet in order to put up a strong block that the ball couldn't get through.
         My question to you, from any stand point whether a player or not, is that do you think that orienting yourself to face the net is more important than getting to the place you're supposed to block?

Dunphy, Marv, and Wilde, Rod. Volleyball Essentials: Video-Text. Total Health Publications, 2014