4 Important Volleyball Skills A Good Volleyball Defensive Player Has 

A volleyball defensive player like a libero or defensive specialist needs to be aggressive in the backrow while passing, digging and communicating well.  

A good volleyball defensive player definitely needs to have three important skills including

• good passing skills
• excellent digging skills
• communicate well to teammates in a secondary leadership position behind the setter
• aggressive mental attitude 

If you're a defensive volleyball player like a

• libero,
• defensive specialist 
• back court defender

another very important skill you need to have is to have a very aggressive attitude in the backrow.

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Let's start with the mental attitude, since its super important. 

Aggressiveness is a mindset. It comes from how you think and feel about playing defense while you are on the court.

3 Things A Defensive Player Tells Themselves While Playing Defense

A good libero or backcourt volleyball defensive player tells himself or herself things like:

• "This is my court and there is no way, no how am I going to let a ball fall on my court without giving 100% effort in keeping it off the floor."
• I'm going for EVERY ball that's hit or tipped near me."
• "No balls fall on my court today!"

Since digging a volleyball is the last line of defense used by a team's backrow players in an effort to keep the opposing team's attacked ball from hitting the floor, its important for backcourt defenders to go "all out" in covering large parts of the court floor to pick up any balls the opposing team hits.

One way you can work on improving your defensive mindset and aggressive attitude in the backcourt is to use the pepper drill

• to increase aggressiveness in going for every ball
• increase game focus and
• concentration during drills and warm-ups.  

Here's your chance to practice two things during pepper:

• practice going for every ball no matter where it is on the court
• learn to ignore pre-existing pre-game distractions like playing in a venue with a small court, warming up in a confined  space, balls flying around the court in your pepper zone, or team benches.

In practice, you have to narrow your focus and concentrate on the footwork and the defensive technique needed to get to every ball on your side of the court that's within your defensive area. 

Whether you have to

• drop immediately to the floor for an oncoming ball
• take one step and extend to dig a ball that's 1-2 feet away from you or
• take 2-3 big steps to chase a ball down to get it up 

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The pepper drill gives you a chance to challenge yourself about not letting any balls that are about to fall in your immediate area hit the ground without you aggressively making a move to keep them off the floor. 

The pepper drill gives a volleyball defensive player a chance to focus on getting the ball right to your partner while keeping up the intensity of your pepper warmup, even if you have to do it with alot of distracting elements happening around you.

The ball you get and the ball you give in pepper practice gives you a chance to do that. 

The better you get at increasing your focus in warmup, the better you get at focusing and concentrating and being able to narrow your focus during a game.

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This way crowd noises, whistles, opposing fan noise, referee interruptions, cat calls and other game time distractions will have little effect on you.

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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. 

Okay here's where you need to go now! There are three options: 

1. Learn more about Volleyball Skills by clicking 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. 
4. Before leaving this page Say "Hi" to Miss O.I Gotchu the Octopus wearing the #8 jersey below.  Miss O.I. is the libero for the All Beast VolleyBragSwag All Star team.

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