Blog Profile / Huy's Volleyball Blog
| URL : | http://volleyballblog.wordpress.com/ | |
|---|---|---|
| Filed Under: | Sports / Volleyball | |
| Posts on Regator: | 45 | |
| Posts / Week: | 0.3 | |
| Archived Since: | November 19, 2010 | |
Blog Post Archive
Teams
The word “team” is used so liberally now to describe a collection of people with a common purpose. I’ve worked in several “teams” in my professional life that weren’t really teams. We just shared a common supervisor and divvied up the work. There are teams that are exactly the sum of their parts; there are [...]
Ignition v Quick Wins
I’ve previously written about the choices coaches can make in how they teach players and the implications for short term and long term success. In some of the programs I have been involved with, many of the decisions on how kids are coached, and at what level of competitions they will compete have been made [...]
More fun with an iPad mounted on a Tripod
I wrote yesterday about how handy it was to have a video delay system at trainings that consisted of an iPad mounted on a tripod. Here’s some other things I’ve found handy: Goodreader. It’s a file management system. The annoying thing about iPads is that you can’t organise your videos and photos into a conventional [...]
Video Feedback, Technology and Laziness.
Tripod from eBay: $23.99 Tripod mount for iPad from eBay: $27.95 BAM! Live Delay app from iTunes: $5.49 Having a video delay system at training: PRICELESS As you read in my post it’s not always actually “priceless” It’s great to see that Moore’s law applies to volleyball and art too. The defining moment for my [...]
The 12th Player
“I thought one of the most valuable players in the game for us didn’t play, and that was Damon Huard (#19). I thought the look he gave us in the scout team for our defense was fabulous.” – Bill Belichick after the Patriots win over the Baltimore Colts for the AFC Championship One thing I [...]
Sad Day
While I was watching New Year’s Eve fireworks with friends from my volleyball club on Brighton beach (SA), an 18-year-old was killed only a few streets away in a moment of madness that is incomprehensible. We saw ambulances driving past as we headed back to the house but thought nothing of it until news broke. [...]
Risk Part 2: Creative Risk Assessment
Risk is assessed by likelihood and impact. For example, if a spiker contacts the ball high and aims deep in the court, the likelihood of getting blocked is low and the impact (ball usually stays in-play) is relatively low. It’s low risk. At this point it gets interesting. As an IT Project Manager, I’m required [...]
Risk Part 1: Risk and Skill development
One aspect of volleyball (and sport more broadly) that fascinates me is the element of risk, and the role it plays in a coaching or playing philosophy. For example in a competition for 12-year-old beginners, playing the first ball straight over the net is low-risk/high-reward; playing three hits is high-risk/low-reward. Even at a slightly more [...]
Volleyball Culture
One of the benefits of living in Canberra for the last 8 months is experiencing a different volleyball culture in Australia. One thing it’s made me appreciate, is that many of the values and behaviours I took for granted as “universal” to (Australian) volleyball, was actually more specific to where I came from – South [...]
Video Analysis
(A clip created from VBStatsHD. From Mens Australian Volleyball League, QLD v Canberra Heat) A few years ago, I was fortunate to meet through this blog, Chau Le, a Programming/database/user interface expert who was developing a suite of volleyball statistics applications for iPhone devices. The first of these products, VBStatsHD became available last week when [...]
Things I learned from the USA part I: “Get the locker room right”
I’m usually pretty good with sticking to at least a post a month, but I’ve been somewhat slack and distracted. So I thought I’d write about some additional insights I gained from the AVF Coaching Study Tour (I thought it appropriate to just keep an accurate account of our travels on the AVF blog and save [...]
Protecting The Shield
I’m currently in LA as part of the AVF Coaching Study Tour (I’m also posting from this site at the moment). One ofthe enjoyable things is 24 hr sports coverage on various channels. Dominating the NFL at the moment is the poor quality of officiating that has resulted from substitute referees who have had to replace [...]
National Myth
The decision of CBS to cut away [from the 77 Trailblazers post-championship-game celebrations] was a reminder that for all of its artistic beauty and its high salaries, and the fact that it might employ more truly brilliant and complete athletes than any other sport, professional basketball [NBA] had not entered the national psyche or become [...]
Not putting limits on players
I hate “Cats” the musical, but that’s not the point. The picture is from an article i read recently about a New Zealand (private) high school that put on a $85,000 production of Cats. It sounds over-the-top and I laughed initially. Until I realised it was the kind of thing my friends and I did [...]
Individual awards
Disclaimer: All players that make an all-star team are those who have stood out in the week. For those who get in, there’s always another 4-5 players who are close to the mark that just missed out. Although I may not like participating in selecting an all-star team, I think every player that is awarded [...]
Tears flow down
About an hour before our first game at AJVC, I received news that my 90-year-old paternal grandmother had passed away peacefully in her sleep. She lived in Paris and we weren’t close, but some of her last words had a profound effect on me as I coached throughout the week. “Tears flow down, not up” [...]
Australian Junior Volleyball Championships 2012
The Australian Junior Volleyball Championships are over and I was happy with my team’s result – a silver medal. Coaching the team (SA U17W) was a challenging assignment. I lived in a different state 1200km away and flew back on 8 weekends to train the team. Even then, I received criticism from people that I [...]
Emotional Intelligence Part II: Walter Mischel, Delayed Gratification and the Marshmallow Test
My interest into emotional intelligence began with this study by psychologist Walter Mischel in the 1960s that my mother recounted to me. 4-year-olds were given a marshmallow by an experimenter and offered a second marshmallow if they could hold off eating the first marshmallow until the experimenter returned from their errands. The experimenter would leave [...]
Systems
I got sent this video some time ago. When i saw it, it reminded me of the feeling I get when I see 3 undersized junior players with no conditioning trying to receive a whole court in a 5-1 system. My boss at my new job paraphrases this Henry Adams quote whenever things don’t go to plan: [...]
Referees and Officials
Many years ago at AJVC, i saw an U17M gold medal match end in an out-of-rotation call. It was match point, and the losing team was indeed out of rotation and the call was correct. However, when i did the basic refereeing course shortly after, it was explained to me that it was a wrong [...]