At first glance, you would think that volleyball is not a fast sport. This is especially true when you compare the sport to the likes of basketball. When you look at basketball, you would see the ball being passed and dribbled from one side of the court to another. What’s more, this fast-paced game requires the players to be constantly on the go, especially when there are turnovers concerned.

Despite this difference, volleyball is still a fast-paced game, although it may not be that obvious. The reason for this is that in volleyball, the players would have intervals after every point. These intervals take the form of the service. When a player takes his place at the serving area, he would usually take a moment or two to compose himself before serving the ball into play. This would give the players on both sides of the court a moment to compose themselves as well. But once the ball is set into play, the game takes on its speedy nature, and quite fast at that!

You see, anything can happen in a split second. In fact, it would take only a split second for any player to either kill the ball and win the point, or lose the volley and the point as well. Just a split second determines triumph or defeat. That is how fast a point can be scored in the game.

With such nature, it is definitely of importance to be very familiar with the skills needed in volleyball. By having in-depth knowledge of such skills, it would be easier to implement and incorporate them into your game. The first skill here would be the serve. There are actually a number of kinds of service that a player can do. The common ones are the underhand, the overhand, and the jump serve. The underhand serve is when the player hits the ball from below. The key here is to throw the ball up high before hitting it from below. The overhand serve is when the player throws the ball up high then hits it from a higher angle, more like, in an overhead motion. The jump serve is then the player takes a step back, throws the ball very high, and then strikes it while jumping in midair.

The next skills, receiving and setting, are quite related. When the player receives the ball from the opposite side, it is ideal for him to do this at a low position, and with minimum force. This way, it would be easier to control the ball. The receive is referred to as the first contact, while the set is known as the second contact. When setting, the player actually prepares the ball for another player to spike it onto the opponents’ court. What’s important here is for the setter to determine the best position as to where the ball should be set. Ultimately, the setter is the player who decides where the ball should be spiked from and which player should do the spiking.

Now, spiking is quite hard to pull off because the player has to coordinate all of his movements into making that strong attack on the ball. The player has to make a few steps to approach the ball that’s being set for him. Once the ball is at his preferred height, the player then jumps and hits the ball with a downward angle. It is important for the ball to take speed here, so that the opponents would not have time to counterattack.

The last skill here would be the block. When your opponent is gearing for a spike, then you should do everything to prevent him from successfully doing this. You can then jump from your side of the court and block the spiked ball, so that the ball would remain in the offensive side of the court. This way, the ball would be deemed dead and your team would score the point, instead of the offensive.