Beach Volleyball

        The indoor season for volleyball is played from November to May or June, depending on if your team makes it to the National Competition. In the off months, a few players chose to participate in beach volleyball, a different type of the game. This game is involves more physical movement than the indoor variation because there are only two players on the court at a time. However, less injuries occur because a player can dive and go for every ball without fearing being hurt, this is because beach volleyball is played on the sand (Dunphy, Wilde 112).
        Volleyball Essentials provides a clear description of how the beach version of volleyball is different than indoor. Having played multiple years of beach volleyball, I knew the basic differences. You can't tip, if you use your hands to set the ball then the ball can't spin, there are no antennas, and you can't overhand pass a slow-speed ball. The book helped me realize things that I had not known before about the game. "A player may block any ball crossing over the net, including a serve," (Dunphy, Wilde 113). In indoor volleyball, blocking a serve is illegal. I did not know until I read that part of the book that this was legal in beach volleyball. So, I went out with my friends and tried it. For a two player match, I found that having one person up front and ready to block the ball was a bad idea. That meant that there was one person back for serve receive. The court is only a tiny bit smaller than an indoor court and on hard serves, the passer would have a hard time reaching to every ball that the opposing team gave my team.

       The book also says that the ball is heavier than the indoor ball because the wind won't move a heavier ball as much (Dunphy, Wilde 112). I had known that the outdoor ball was heavier, but I didn't know that was because the wind wouldn't move it as much. "... wind will also have a profound effect on every pass and set. For this reason, the ball should be played lower to reduce this variable," "Dunphy, Wilde 115). While the beach volleyball was built to limit this factor of the game, the unintentional movement of the ball by nature still does occur. What the book told me to do made sense to me and I went out onto the court with a mindset to keep the balls lower than normal (also keeping in mind that most players use a bump as the second contact). I found that sometimes my partner would have difficulty getting to the balls I passed, but the passes I made were accurate and normally to the right spot. I also used this advice and reversed it. If the intention of keeping the balls low were to have more control over the wind effects, then would it be more effective sending a high ball over to the opponent so that hey would have difficulty. While this thought popped into my mind only after I had gone home, I was wondering what you thought.

         Do you think that sending the opponent a high ball in beach volleyball would be more effective than a higher ball?

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