LEARNING VOLLEYBALL SKILLS – keep the kids interested

Do you remeber when you started to train volleyball ?
If you were kid, you just wanted to hit the ball, play with it, make something better than your friends done it. But.. How much did you play at the beginning ?

Try to remembrer.. Coach told you to do some actions, over and over again.. Throw the ball, pass the ball, NOT HIT it.. and all you wanted to play !

In tennis, football.. many other sports, kids are encouraged to do the actions they have seen on TV, or done by older children. But in volleyball, a long period of time can pass before children actually can play a single action. Talking with the children, and their parents, maybe made a possible explantion why so many kids give up volleyball and try a different sport.

Problem is that volleyball is a unique sport, where you acctually depend of your co-players. If they can't do their job correctly, there's a great chance thay ball you should play won't even come to you. And to ensure a minimum of skill, many repetitions have to be done. Older players know that repetition will be usefull to their skill, but younger kids don't always understand that and they loose interest much sooner.

Solution for this problem may be to let the kids play, and not to insist on rules, so many repetitive actions.. They will have more than enough time to learn rules, techiques, and tactics.. if they decide to stay.