Volleyball Ball Control Drills 5 Ways You Can Practice Your Skills

These 5 volleyball ball control drills will help you improve your passing setting and hitting technique using repetition, wide vision, quickness and ball control.

These volleyball ball control drills will help you improve your passing setting and hitting technique using repetition, wide vision, quickness and ball control.

If you're looking for a variation to your partner passing and setting drills these volleyball ball control drills will help you practice three of your basic skills in volleyball. 

What can you do if you have an odd number of players?

During your practice warmups after you do the traditional passing back and forth, try combining a group of two players with a group of three players for some cross court passing or setting reps.

In the group of three, after the passer passes, they follow their ball to the other side and turn around quickly to pass the next ball.

At this point in the video, we, oops sorry “they” had been passing nonstop for at least 4-5 minutes following different patterns and directions that I called out. Stopping the ball wasn’t allowed.

I explained everything while everyone was passing. 1000 reps a day make you better faster, remember?

I’ll show you in another of my volleyball ball control drills articles what can be done with a group of 5 or even 7 passers working together with two balls moving  at the same time.

Everyone works together as a group of five because everyone has to work together to control their ball so it doesn’t get in the path of the other player’s ball or drift too far off course forcing the drill to stop. 

Many players play with tunnel vision on the court.

When they focus on the ball..that’s the ONLY thing they see.

In these volleyball practice drills players are forced to be aware of what's happening on each side of them while still focusing on the ball.

We work on “wide vision” where a player can focus on the ball but use peripheral vision (look up that word), without turning your head (Ralph Arvesen)

As you’ve seen in many of my drills we work on “wide vision” where as a player I can focus on the ball but I use my peripheral vision (look up that word), without turning my head, to see and have a feel for who and what’s happening on my right and on my left. 

Learn how to use a simple pass and set ball control drill to improve how to “read” and anticipate what an opposing player plans to do with the ball.

In practice we work on believing what you see.

A lot of times you see the ball, where it’s going to land but you don’t move for it because you question in your mind whether you’re “seeing” the right thing. We work on reacting to what we see, no question.

Then we work on “beating” the ball to where we think it’s going to land, not timing it. If you get there at the same time as the ball, you’re late. 

Anticipating where the ball could go, who needs to move where.

Quick feet while shuffling laterally.

The player in the group of three is the one who moves clockwise. When they do they should shuffle step quickly to join the group of two on their right. They need to do it in time so they are in position to set the next ball.

Communication.

There's a ton of talk needed for each player in this drill. The same type of communication needed in a match. The player in each new group of three needs to let the others know when they are arriving and when the player on the far side is free to go join the next group over.

Talking helps you stay in the present.

You can’t think about your last mistake if you’re talking to your teammate about the short pass that’s coming. 

Follow me on Instagram @coach_apchap to improve your game even faster! I share alot of individual, partner and easy-to-do volleyball serving drills we do in class with my followers.

Many of these volleyball practice drills you can do at home by yourself or try at your next practice with your teammates.

If you're a B team or JV player trying to make varsity next year...your goal should be to complete 1000 reps a day of at least three of the basic skills on your own...volleyball passing, serving and setting should be at the top of the list. 

Your three options are: 

1. You can learn more about Drills by visiting the Related Links below.  
2. Follow the suggested reading on our Sitemap page  Learning How To Play (Sitemap)
3. Or visit the pages in the How to Play Volleyball section in the drop down menu at the top of the page to get started. 

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