Thinking of the Serve as a Weapon The serve is a weapon, and you can sometimes score as many as 40% of your team's points by simply being a good, accurate server. Think of it this way: How many times have you seen basketball teams lose because they could hit their free throws when it counted? The same is true for serving. Missing serves at critical times can kill a volleyball team. In fact, if your team can't serve, you'll never win any volleyball games, pure and simple. To become an effective serving warrior, think in terms of good serves first, and then accuracy. By serving good, you at least give your team the opportunity to score. By serving to a player who has difficulty passing, you vastly increase your chance of scoring. Remember, every serve is important, no matter when it occurs in the match. By serving well and accurately, you can help your team win many more matches than they otherwise would have. Spin Serve Spin Serve A tip for making your serve spin: By striking the ball slightly off center you can cause it to spin in that direction. Serving More Aces, Part 1 Regardless of whether you've seen a team or not, you can maximize your ace totals by looking for the switch on the serve receive and serving to that area. The area where the setter and another player are standing close to each other is congested, and putting your serve into that place will cause even more
confusion. Serving More Aces, Part 2 If a player has just shanked a serve, they should automatically get the next serve, too... and the next, and the next, if they don't get one up. There's no room for sympathy here. Make them pass; that's what they're in there for. And if they can't do it, make the opposing coach sub them out. In the meantime, rack up the points for your team. Serving More Aces, Part 3 Another player who should get a serve right away is a player who just enters the game. That player hasn't had time to get into the flow of the game, isn't quite warmed up, and is going to have the adreneline flowing and liable to be a little nervous and slightly uptight. Hit them while all that is in your favor. Even if they're a good passer, they'll often miss one or two at the very beginning of their rotation. Serving More Aces, Part 4 Areas 1 and 2 are especially difficult to run plays from, since the setter must either turn around or turn to pick up the ball. This may help you pick up more aces. Serving More Aces, Part 5 Another way to score more aces is to be on the look out for a player who looks overly frustrated, upset, tired or injured. Any of those signs should be a flag for your serve. That player isn't in the game as much as they should, so hit them and see if they can pull it together. Easy Float This a tip for float servers: On a float serve, especially if you're hitting a number of serves during a drill, hitting the ball with your fist in the middle of the ball creates more float by reducing hand surface, which touches the ball (hand surface produces spin).
Float Serving Basics, Part 1 A simple float serving technique that can score you some aces is hitting the ball on the stem. Simply toss the ball so that your hand contacts the serve directly on the stem. Although you won't be able to have complete control over its action, contacting the stem makes the ball behave erratically in the air. That erratic motion makes it harder for your opponent to pass, thus scoring you more aces. Float Serving Basics, Part 4 The best spot for your float serve is deep middle, but a serve to area one can be effective, as well. Those two areas give the ball more time to make its movement, making it harder to pass. Float Serving Basics, Part 5 Make sure to contact your floater dead center. If you hit it more toward the top of the ball, it will travel in a predictable arc, making it easy to pass. Hitting it too far underneath may cause it to sail out of bounds. So concentrate on the point of contact, and you'll find your floater is more effective. Serving the Floater, Part 1 In an era when jump serving is all the rage, why would anyone bother to serve the floater anymore? There are many reasons: 1st, the floater can be made to move side-to-side and up and down, which the jump serve won't do. (A jump serve generally needs to be hit hard, and will usually drop quickly, making its flight fairly easy to judge.) To make your floater move, try hitting the ball right on the stem (the place you use to inflate it). This will make the ball's flight erratic and hard for opponents to judge. Serving the Floater, Part 2
In an era when jump serving is all the rage, why would anyone bother to serve the floater anymore? Here's a 2nd reason: The floater is a beautifully effective short serve. The jump server usually is happy just to get the ball in the court somewhere, but if you serve the floater, you can just barely put it over the net, in front of the 10-foot line. That's the most difficult pass to make, and you'll often be serving front-row people who aren't accustomed to passing very often. Serving the Floater, Part 3 In an era when jump serving is all the rage, why would anyone bother to serve the floater anymore? Here's a 3rd reason:since the floater moves so slowly in the air, it's often difficult for opponents to decide who has the ball. They have more time to think, and therefore, more time to make mistakes. Serving the Floater, Part 4 In an era when jump serving is all the rage, why would anyone bother to serve the floater anymore? Here's a 4th reason:once you've mastered the basic technique, you can experiment with different speeds, which will make your floater even more difficult to receive. Passers get into a groove as you serve to them more and more, so you constantly need to give them a different type of serve, just like a pitcher tries different pitches to each batter. Try to mix it up. You'll be more effective. Floater Basics, Part I How do you serve a "floater?" The main characteristic of a floater serve is lack of spin on the ball. You
accomplish this by keeping your hand flat as you contact the serve. Don't follow through with your wrist, as you would normally do. This will allow the ball to travel through the air with an absolute minimum of spin, making its flight hard to judge. Remember though, you'll need to hit the ball slightly harder, since you won't be getting that "slingshot" effect you'd normally produce with your wrist follow through. Float Serving Basics, Part 2 The floater, though not glamorous, is an effective serving weapon, since it can dip, rise, and move in every direction as it crosses the net. The key is not to follow through with your hand. Contact the serve and immediately draw your hand back, so the ball moves into the air without spin. It'll take practice, but the floater is definitely worth having in your arsenal of serves. Float Serving Basics, Part 3 When serving a floater, hit the ball with the heel of your hand, keeping your hand rigid, which will make the ball less likely to spin when it moves through the air. Jump Serve and a Golf Swing Very few coaches teach players technique when it comes to a jump serve. A jump serve is like a golf swing in that regardless of which club you use you want to use the same swing every time. Unlike a spike where there are many variables to consider before and during the attack a good jump serve limits your variables. It is common for a beginning player to practice variables which is O.K. but only for the initial learning phase (less than 100 swings). You should explore
which approach, toss, arm swing, etc. feels comfortable to you before you settle on a routine. Once you have the general feel for the skill your approach, toss, jump, arm swing, tempo and contact should be the same every time. Perhaps the most important variable is the point of contact. Regardless of what else is happening if you have the same contact point every time you will have success. The Jump Serve, Part 1 The jump serve can be a devastating weapon, but it must be executed properly. Step One in learning the jump serve involves where you stand to begin. You have to give yourself enough room to make what boils down to a spiking approach, which generally means you'll need to start far enough back to allow you to take two fairly large steps. The Jump Serve, Part 2 Step Two in jump serving involves knowing your own abilities. If you can't jump high enough to get above the net on your spikes, chances are, you're not going to be a good jump server. You also need to be strong, because your "spike," (which is essentially what a jump serve is) is coming from more than 30 feet behind the net. So you're going to have to crank the ball hard in order to get it over the net at all. If you're not especially strong, you'd better stick with another type of serve. The Jump Serve, Part 3 Step Three in your jump serve involves your toss of the ball, and is critical for your success. You have to toss the ball high, very similar to the height of a set if you were spiking at the net. This gives you the chance to get underneath and make your maximum jump. It also allows you to get a good "crank" on the ball, because you'll need speed and power to get the ball across the net.
The Jump Serve, Part 4 Part Four of the jump serve involves your approach. Once you've mastered the toss, which isn't easy, and takes a great deal of practice, you'll need to work on your approach. If you've not a strong spiker, you probably don't have a great approach, and you'll need to work on that, because the approach is the same, only the location is different. Work on your approach, normally two steps, a strong landing, big lift-off and powerful swing, before you begin your jump serving attempt. The Jump Serve, Part 5 Part Five in jump serving involves the actual contact of the ball. It's similar to spiking, but you will have to adjust the angle of your swing because the ball must cover more than 30 feet. In that way, it's more similar to a back row spike, in which you'll want to add a little more "loop" to your swing. Hit the ball hard, at the top of your jump, give it a strong "loop," and the ball should go in. The Jump Serve, Part 6 The last step in your jump serving routine will be to strive for accuracy. As a high school coach, I generally love to see a player who uses a jump serve against us, because normally they're only good for a couple points. After that, they either hit the net, or our passers adjust to the fairly predictable flight of the ball, and we'll get it back, either way. As a jump server, you'll need to work hard on getting the ball over the net and in the court. That's your absolute first priority. Once you have a high serving percentage, you can begin to pick out a bad passer on the other team and try to serve them.
Accuracy is your greatest worry as a jump server. You never help your team if the ball doesn't stay playable. If you can become accurate, however, you can create havoc for opposing passers.