I worked as a volleyball coach for 10 years, surely after I was a player for 20 years, so I think I could tell you a lot about volleyball! As a coach, I have hard times in making plans, training players, controlling my team, but there is nothing more fabulous than winning a game. Really I feel a huge mix of feelings, which could be described as 'indescribable', that's why I forgot all about hard work before the game.
I'll tell you here some of the coaching tips and I think you will make great use of them. There are basic skills that you should train your team on.
They are: Setting, Hitting, Serving And Reception, Blocking, Defensive, Digging, Passing, an general skills. Too much? No they're not, and I'll explain to you. By all means, you can't be a volleyball coach, without having your own experience as a professional player, so you actually have a solid background of the mentioned skills. What you need is just to broaden your knowledge and having the ability to train and teach others. In addition, there are some soft skills you should have, which I really consider as the key elements of success. Those skills are actually more related to your personality, rather than your knowledge and experience. Let me illustrate with examples from the reality. When I was a player, most of times I didn't find practice time exciting and funny, thus, when I became a coach, I took the decision to keep my team attracted and involved.
First tip is to listen carefully to your team members, giving them the feeling of friendship, i.e. Make them the feel that you're their brother or friend. Once they got the idea, it would much easier to lead them. Try also to discover issues that disturb them and make the practice time unpleasant. It would be great if you arrange a brainstorming meeting to solve their problems. I tried this concept when I found that players dislike the warm-up. Then I gathered them for a friendly meeting and after the brainstorming, we made a plan for updating the warming-up practice. As a result, all the team players now consider it the best.
The next effective tip is to make every player in the team list 3-5 things he/she wish to improve in his/her playing. Then you should follow up each player's progress and improvement and give the right evaluation.
You would be surprised with the amazing results as you will find each player is getting better, more than you could expect.
Another thing that could make a positive different in coaching volleyball is reading books. This could enlarge your knowledge, give you lots of new ideas and points of views, also you could surf the internet for more knowledge and sharing others their experiences.
One way you could make the best use of expert volleyball coaches, is visiting blogs that are dedicated for volleyball. You could find there tons of tips and advices, where you could pick up what you need.
