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The following Newsletter has been forwarded to you, from the Volleyball Newsletter  E-Mail list. The UK's leading on line Volleyball News service, providing up to date volleyball information, direct to newsletter members throughout the UK and Ireland. Articles are collected from a variety of sources and credited appropriately. The Volleyball Newsletter uses advertising sponsorship to support our free and non-profit making service to newsletter members. To advertise your volleyball events or products, direct to players, club and league secretaries throughout the UK & Ireland, then please see our web site for details or contact Dave at  Dave.Reece@volleyballnewsletter.com

Hi all - More Volleyball news from the web.

Cheers - Dave Reece Dave.Reece@volleyballnewsletter.com

Hi Dave, I am Secretary of VK Barnet Volleyball Club.  This year we have gone all out to promote our female junior club members and have been delighted with the response.  We now have eleven committed Under 18 girls who regularly join us for weekly training.  We have entered a team for the U16 National Clubs Championship but desperately need some fixtures against other junior sides to maintain their interest and ability.

We are based in North London, at the end of the Northern line in Barnet.  We are happy to host matches on a Wed night (8:00-10:00pm) and we are equally happy to travel to other clubs.  Is it possible that you could put me in touch with other clubs/junior sides who might be interested?  My phone number is 07976732946 or my email is traceywilkin2@hotmail.com

Here's hoping, Tracey
traceywilkin2@hotmail.com

Well here it is, I just moved to Hereford from Miami and I’m in desperate need of getting onto a court. I’m not having much luck in finding a club in my area or any where close so I’m hoping that you can provide some assistance. I’ve played for over 20 years, beach, grass and indoor in various formats and levels including Nationals as well as refereeing so I know the game. If you can point me in the right way I’d really appreciate it.

Cheers
Dave Ghany imagery@artists.fsworld.co.uk

Hi Dave, Could you please advertise a level 2 coaching course on the website. Running on the 8th, 14th and 15th of December at the Northgate Sports Centre, Sleaford cost £90 pounds.

Anyone interested to contact me ASAP.

Thanks
Janet InmanLN1@aol.com

Cost £75.00 (£50.00 for course, £25.00 for exam and manual) Course Organiser: Jon McGugan. 

Jon McGugan jon@mcgugan.co.uk

To learn more about professional Volleyball and European events, we have decided to adopt a team, Asterix Kieldrecht from Belgium and follow their progress in National & European competitions.

Just a quick note to let you know that Sky Sports will be screening the inaugural WESSEX AMBASSADORS CUP in January 2003. The match itself will be on Friday December 6th, 7.30 warm-up at Poole Sport centre in Poole, Dorset. Entry is free.

The game is an annual challenge match and this year Team Wessex are challenging the Poole and District Volleyball Allstars, featuring Chris Eaton, Vince and Gary Joyce, Andy 'Mushy' Jones, Tim Hollis to name but a few. It should be a tough game for the young Wessex side.

There are still some sponsor opportunities available and I am offering some free options to people who support the sport. 

More good news. 

Eurosport will be screening the forthcoming CEV European Champions League (Dec 02 to Mar 03) of Volleyball, I think I am doing the commentary.

Simon Golding simon.golding@virgin.net

Following our request for more club web sites in the last issue, we have added Eight more clubs to the directory this week.

Dave
Dave.Reece@volleyballnewsletter.com

The Nottingham Area web site displays details of their Mr Moon awards, awarded for outstanding on court performance:

Mr Moon awards
Chris (5 points) - For calling the refs bluff that he hasn’t got a yellow card with him. 
Mark (4 points) - For volleying an easy ball straight into (the bottom of the) net 
Andreas (3 points) - For his overoptimistic team talk call of “come on, we only need 11 points” at 12-4 down in the 5th. 
Mickey (2 points) - For asking the ref which planet he was on. 
Andreas (1 points) - Mickey made an extreme pickup, Rich nearly broke his neck setting a perfect ball… for Andreas to plonk into the net. 
Rich (1 points) - for claiming the net was higher on our side. 
Kevin (1 points) - for non attendance. Being in Jersey is no excuse.

Nottingham Arena VC http://www.ArenaVolleyball.net

I have been recently asked to keep score for a high school volleyball tournament this weekend. The site changed at the last minute because the
original gym is flooded. Anyway, I have followed volleyball pretty well for most of my life but I have never had to keep score for it. Is there a
website that I can get a quick rundown on how to do this?

Thanks,
Will Bumgardner solplyr@sbcglobal.net

It may be too late for you but try www.avoa.ab.ca/documents there is a PowerPoint show there on how to keep score using the International
Scoresheet.

Glenn Johnston glennj@telusplanet.net

Shoulder injury - update - rsv 

I'm considering shoulder surgery which will help shoulder impingement and a partial rotator cuff tear. The injury is 4 years old and hasn't responded to aggressive physical therapy or rest. I'd like to return to something approaching my former level of play. What are people's experiences with shoulder surgery? Quoted success rates are high but I'm somewhat distrustful of them. Can I return to "real" play ever? I'm 39 years old which may have an impact.

Thanks for any comments or advice you have.
Cathy S. besthiker@attbi.com

Do it. It's called decompression surgery. The surgeon should be able to do it all arthroscopically. My doc had to open me up tho, cos when he removed the CA (coraco-acromial) ligament (to make more room for the impinged biceps tendon), I started to bleed too much for him to go on with the scope. I spent one night in the hospital because of having to be under anesthesia longer than anticipated. When I got up the next day, I was able to lift my arm over my head higher than any other shoulder patient he'd had. Being in the best shape you can be in before surgery helps, as you probably are after all of the aggressive PT. My surgery was in mid October 1992 (age 37), and I was playing back row and serving underhand in November and December. I was swinging at balls off speed in January, and hitting balls full speed in March. I still have some occasion biceps tendonitis because the doc did not relocate the biceps tendon, as it was only partially frayed. If that were to happen, your recovery would be a bit tougher and longer. I don't play vball much any more, but I do play tennis and have a killer serve and overhead!

See what you can find out about impingement syndrome and decompression surgery on the web.

Diane Williams dianewms@aol.com

Hi, folks, My local league is about to implement a men's 4s division for its next season of volleyball, and as I think about it, there really isn't much written about strategies for 4's. There are for 2s and sixes, but seldom in between. I guess I am writing to solicit opinions and ideas on running 
offense and defense on 4s. There really isn't a back row or a front row, as in, anyone can attack from anywhere on the court?

There are essentially 4 positions: Middle Front (MF), Middle Back (MB), Left (L) and Right (R). The classic thing is to take off from a standard 4-2 offense, and plunk the setter as MF, and keep him or her in the standard area 7. The disadvantage is that this splits the hitters, and makes is predictable - not to mention a little tricky protecting the corners on defense.

There is the alternative strategy of putting the setter at R, and permitting the players at MF and L to handle blocking, while the setter covers the dinks and the middle of the court. Do you think a modified swing offense can be carried on on 4s? Using the MB player as the swing hitter? That would need a really athletic guy on the court, and good defensive reflexes on everyone... 

Anyway, thoughts?
Ricky richard@monarchy.com

We run middles to our back row player on transition. We also have one "lefty" play rightside. If you get a chance to watch some pro-beach fours you'll get a good idea of what they run. They also occasionally run a three-man block...

good luck!
Vballdancer1 vballdancer1@aol.com

I find myself in the last couple of years making my practices more and more detailed. I am not sure if this is a good thing or not, I would like to hear what some other coaches that I do not know think. I coach high school and club volleyball. And really about the fact I spend much time working on nothing but fundamentals, it works but I wonder if I am going to burn out my athletes. Let me know what you think. 

Dennis Murphy payton80@aol.com

I just started using a computer product to help me with my practices and found it very useful. It's called Interactive Volleyball and is available at Volleyball Canada's website (http://www.volleyball.ca). I'm not sure what you mean by a detailed practice plan, so I'll illustrate what I've started to do.

Basically, I first set out a purpose of the practice. I come up with two or three drill for each skill I want to improve upon. I make the transition of the drills successively more gamelike. Basically, the software gives me a description of the drill and the equipment I need. I spend the last 10-20 minutes of practice running a rally, so the team can apply their skills to a game-like situation. Also, it gives me an opportunity to see if they have applied what they learned.

I hope this helps.
Colin Glass volleyball_coach@email.com

I coach a mix of men, women, novice/intermediates and extremely experienced players (20+ years) in a single open session. Because of the difference in skill level and fitness, experience has shown that the sessions have to be reasonably technically-focused in nature. For the better players they appreciate the value of better technique about footwork, movement, systems, positions, accuracy. For the novice/intermediates it's all new anyway and can really improve their game once they understand the basics and can recognise the value of improving technique.

The players it doesn't work for are those looking for a really physically demanding workout. We save that for our team sessions where we want to test technique and skill under pressure - it would simply break down too quickly at lower levels or be too slow to put pressure on the better players. And secondly technical type sessions don't work for those just looking to get the ball over the net and play an ad hoc knock about. We do get players who does just come along to play, but it seems that for some of them once you introduce them to the skills, tactics and technical they find there is more to volleyball than they thought and so become more interested in learning more.

Saul Dobney saul.dobney@dobney.com

If you let a team with 5 play instead of 6, you should designate one spot as the missing player: (s)he is in front row half the time and in the back the other half, you automatically lose service if it's that player's turn, etc.

RMF fra@bwi.bepr.ethz.ch

Book on Karpol is to be launched

If you have ever seen Coach Nikolai Karpol in action, with his sideline antics, aggressively dressing down players during Time Outs etc, then you may be interest in this forthcoming book, just to find out what make this guy tick.

Dave

Hi, everyone!, I am sporting journalist from Croatia and the author of the book about Nikolai Karpol, titled "Karpol: lunatics, that's what I need". English version of the book will be launched at the end of November in Zagreb, Croatia. We'll sell it on internet very soon. 

But, there are some samples from the book...

I could choose between unloading freight from wagons or teaching children to play volleyball, and it was not difficult to choose. The scholarship I was given by the Mathematics Institute was not even sufficient for food, so, as an amateur second league player (setter) with no real success, at the age of twenty, I became a volleyball coach. I continued to live simply, very simply, but at least I could continue studying. At that time, of course, I had no idea that my work as a coach would become my career. I was convinced I would be a mathematician, but there it is, life simply gave me the opportunity to become a coach, which I did and I still am one today.

In 1971 I decided to turn the amateur team into a professional one, to turn a factory club into a top ranking club. One day I told the girls that they were not to go to work, but only train from that moment on. The next morning the director saw them in the factory enclosure and asked them why they were not at work. They replied that their coach had told them not to go to work. Now I had to persuade the director to accept our new way of working. I asked him if he wanted a top team. When I came there I did not say that the players I found there were mine, but two years later I had the right to do so. I told him that if he did not want a top club, we would go to another factory, which would maybe want us. It worked!

However, a player can be taller, we can make her grow, by training, by up to two or three centimetres, and if we are able to allow the child to train in a variety of climates, then even more. Precisely, changing climates encourages growth by a few centimetres, and so we spend some time in the Urals, a little in Croatia. By exercising and changing climates we can add four to six centimetres. Also, we can also influence growth with food containing many vitamins and certain fermented products. In the spring I would go south from Uralochka to the Crimea since in the Urals at that time of year there is no fresh food, which is vital to us. Electro-magnetic fields also influence human growth and they vary in different parts of the globe. 

So what is this, a gift for teaching? A real teacher is one who has not learned education at university, but who is a real teacher from birth. It is not metaphysics but pure genetics. I know an anecdote. A man opened the door of the WC. He saw a woman. Sorry madam, he said and shut the door. Another man opened the door and shut it again at once without a word. The third opened the door and said, Sorry sir and shut the door. What is all this about? The first man who opened the door and said Sorry madam, was representing culture as learned at university. The one who opened the door and said Sorry sir, received his charm at birth. He knew it was a woman, but said Sir to her to minimise her embarrasment. 

I will describe one of the exercises my girls do for stamina. They go up to six hundred metres by car, run to the top of a hill of a thousand metres and then run down. It would be impossible to tell someone to do four thousand squats. Who could do four thousand squats? The effort needed for running those four hundred metres uphill is equivalent to the effort used by the body doing four thousand squats, and this is how you gain both strength and stamina. This exercise is also good for the ligaments, the knees and ankles. 

The way the game is organised is based on science, mathematics, mathematical game theories which are based on mathematical analysis, function theory and differential calculus. In order to know what your opponent has available (how you can oppose him) and what you have available (how you will attack), you have to understand mathematics. We have organised the game in a way that no one else ever has. That is why few people understand the way our game is organised. In relation to the way other teams play, ours differs in only one way - it has been organised using science, mathematics. We have used differential calculus in the theory of the game. The dependency of attack and defence may be shown as functions.

Smirnova has a grandmother whom she loves very much. She could not smash the ball in the match against Peru in the finals at the Seoul Olympics. It just would not work. In the break when Peru was leading 2-0 and 12-6 in the third set, I asked her, What would your grandmother say if we lost? She nearly broke down in tears. I asked her again and she started to cry, Come on, go and play for your granny, I told her. And she played like never before. 

But you can use these, I won't say weak, but strong points that players have only once. Sometimes you have to wait years for the right moment, determine when it is important enough to use what you know. I need self-confident women who will not admit to any greater authority than themselves, and everyone else who works with me needs to be like that too. Those around them should see them as lunatics. They must be great in the sense that they are so completely self-confident. I tell my girls if they can't settle with their husbands the details of travel arrangements, matches and competitions, they cannot be the best in the world. A woman may be tall, fast, strong but she can't win. Only when she is capable of being the boss in the family is she able to be the best in the world. I need strong people.

Miroslav Ciro Blazevic, the one time selector of the Croatian national football team and winner of the bronze medal at the World Cup Championships in France in 1998, where his colleagues elected him as the best coach in the world, once said. If you are just a coach, and you do not have the authority of the president or a director of the club, you are done for, nothing can save you. And I have to say that Blazevic is right. That is why it is easier today to work as a coach with national teams than in clubs, for with the national team you are truly the boss, in the true sense of the word. Should a sportsman get involved in politics for an idea that seems right to him, or should he stay out of any form of politics? It doesn't matter. The greatest idea was, is and always will be - our responsibility to our supporters. If a sportsman behaves responsibly every time he appears before his supporters, then he has done all he needs to do. Even when it was important to other people that the Soviet team win in the name of ideology, I did not have any other motive, I played for our volleyball school. For our idea of volleyball and not for the state. I wanted to show the world that I can prepare both players and the team, and that is what I did. I did not just paint pictures, but I put on an exhibition. ... I have traveled throughout the whole world, but I am not a cosmopolitan. Lets say I am an internationalist. 

Tom tbirtic@yahoo.com

SPECIAL CASES

9.9 At the Women's World Cup China was playing Korea. In the third set, the Chinese coach, Lang Ping, pushed the buzzer and signaled for a time out. The second referee instinctively blew his whistle but then recognized that the Chinese team had already used its final time out. He then "waved" for the teams to remain on the court and did not sanction China with an "improper request" because the delay was slight.

At that moment, the Chinese coach then signaled with her hands that she desired to make a substitution. The second referee then waved the substitute away as an "improper request" and the game continued. Was the second referee correct in his handling of the situation?

The second referee was correct. The situation is complex because the rules allow the coach and referee some judgment in this situation and the judgment of the first referee is final. The complications begin when the second referee blew his whistle at the sound of the buzzer. He should have known that the Chinese team had no more time outs. Since there was a small delay and the time to register a delay on the scoresheet is often longer than the action being penalized, the second referee probably showed good judgment in hastening the game to continue.

Concerning the request for substitution, the referee reasoned that since the time to request the substitution was gained by an improper request, the substitution should not be allowed. This decision was supported by the Control Committee. Rules 16.6, 17.1, 17.2

More examples in the next issue....

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