Second, I operate under the assumption that practice should be more of a workout for the players than the coach. In other words, the number of balls you hit is neither indicative of the quality of your practice nor your coaching skills. The constantly participating coach is a typical characteristic of new, young, ex-player coaches and aptly describes my own first years. Once your shoulder starts to hurt, and you develop the ability to analyze technical problems, the urge to hit a million balls an hour in the pursuit of a quality practice dissipates rapidly. You find you are more effective in giving feedback if you actually see what is going on.

Third, I think it's important to review some of the principles of learning. Research shows that there is no decrease in learning time for complex motor skills, like hitting, if they are taught via progression. In fact, learning time may actually increase with breakdown work. This is not to say there is no place for progression work; however, the piece-piece method of teaching should be confined to the following situations:

1. Where it is needed for safety. In teaching the dive, for instance, your athletes could seriously injure themselves if you show them this defensive technique and then simply start throwing balls around the gym. You have no idea whether the player has the upper body strength to execute the skill.
2. You may need to revert to a progressive step to keep a raw beginner coming back. If you are teaching hitting and the player does not have the eye-hand coordination to jump and make contact with the ball, that player will not stay around long without any successful feedback. A part-of-the-skill drill like hitting a held ball may keep that player interested enough to return for more practice on hitting a tossed or set ball. Don't make the mistake, however, of thinking that success in one area will lead to success in the other.

There is no evidence to support the hypothesis of progression that the mastery of a lot of little parts enhances the mastery of a whole skill.

Along these same lines, as coaches we must realize that most of our athletes are visual learners as opposed to auditory learners. In other words, they learn by doing and mimicking rather than by listening to us talk. The message is, then, that whether we are teaching skills, systems or specific match situations, we must simulate the competitive environment to evaluate learning.

We think that we make learning occur rather than just creating the environment in which it might occur. I must always fight the urge to verbally correct every mistake. Sometimes the athlete is not ready to make the correction. Also, try to correct only one thing at a time, even if more than one mistake is made. And finally, the most important principle is to show the correct technique whenever possible.

The rule for efficient practices that this principle implies is that good practices have little talk and much action. This environment enhances learning. And remember, generally the lower the skill level the less feedback can be absorbed. For example, the player who is focusing all her attention on simply making contact with the ball, cannot know, care or control what her feet are doing.

Finally, let me say a word about conditioning. I cringe every time I hear a volleyball coach say, "Well my team is not very good, but we're in great shape." Let me ask you something, "How tiring is attempting to serve and attempting to receive?" Poor volleyball is not tiring. Your team does not need to be in good shape, they need to learn to serve, pass, set, and hit.

Translating that into practice activity, it means forget the wind sprints, weightlifting, and mile run. Instead, design drills that will condition your players, like a repetitive hitting and blocking drill or a continuous digging drill. The level of conditioning achieved by these drills will be equivalent to their skill level. If that is not very high level of fitness in your mind, then spend your time teaching your players to play the game better, so their fitness level will improve.

Another key is to design practice drills that emphasize mass participation. How many players can be active at once? The more activity and less standing around, the more your players enjoy practice, the more you will get done and the more exercise they will get.

Let me give you a very simple example. Traditionally, when teaching blocking the coach stood on a chair and hit balls at one or two players until his/her arm fell off. The rest of the players stood around, shagging and waited their turn.

An easy modification is to put four players on four chairs opposite four blockers. Assign another player to each chair to shag balls. Now four players are practicing blocking, four players are practicing their arm swing, four are running after balls and, best of all, you are free to coach.

Also important in drill design is to develop drills that are as game like as possible. This can be done by making drills competitive. Match one group or individuals against another and set goals for the drill so players know what they need to accomplish. These parameters will develop a task orientation in your team. They will learn to work together to get something accomplished. You are also satisfying that competitive spirit that brings them to the gym in the first place.