What Skill is Most Important?

Great news everyone! I'm here to solve the problem of what skill is most important. The really really great news is that most people will agree with me.

The serve/pass battle determines the winner.

This is certainly true. The team who's serving can overpower the passing of the other team will win. Serving is the easiest way to win a point because you only have to touch it once. At younger levels most points are won from either serve aces or errors.

At these levels the distribution of points is (very approximately):

• Total Points - 25
• Serve - 11
• Block - 0
• Hit - 3
• Opp Error - 11

I'm sure some of you agree with this.

If you can't pass, you can't play.

This is absolutely true with developing players and teams. If you can't pass the ball and keep it alive (not be aced), you can't 'play' volleyball which is a team sport with a net and three hits. It just becomes an ace/error serve-fest which is barely volleyball at all.

Passing is really really hard and takes a very long time to be good at as an individual and as a team. But once your team is better at passing than your opponent you have a very good chance of winning.

At these levels the distribution of points is (very approximately):

• Total Points - 25
• Serve - 8
• Block - 1
• Hit - 8
• Opp Error - 8

I'm sure some of you agree with this.

If you can't hit, you can't win.

This on is definitely true. At high levels (I define high levels as professional and international levels) the team with the most kills wins the set

At these levels the distribution of points is (very approximately):

• Total Points - 25
• Serve - 3
• Block - 3
• Hit - 12
• Opp Error - 7

At this level hitting is the easiest skill to score with. A 10% increase in kills gives you an extra point per set. A 10% increase in serving gives you an extra point every match.

I'm sure some of you agree with this.

How do I win?

If you want to 'win' at different levels, you can do it by focussing on different things. But this doesn't account for the long term development of players. We all agree this is important, right?

What do we train?

How long does it take to learn to be excellent at passing, serving and hitting?

If you look at younger players serving it can be so aggressive that it is hard to distinguish it from higher levels. Serving is the easiest skill and the fastest skill to be good at. Once players can get it over and in consistently it doesn't take much to improve it. It takes 2-3 years to be good at serving. We need to teach this from the age of 10 if we want to be good at 12.

Passing errors are a regular part of the sport at most levels. Passing is really really hard. it takes a long time to be great at passing. We need good fundamentals as well as good systems. But in the end, passing stops the other team from scoring, it doesn't score itself. You have to be able to hit to score. (It takes 5-10 years to be good at passing. We need to teach this from the age of 10 if we want to be good at 15.

Hitting is the most difficult skill in all team sport*. You can't really learn to hit in competition until you can pass (and set). It takes 8-10 years to be good at hitting. We need to teach this from the age of 10 if we want to be good at 18.

What is the point?

Great question! The point is that if we are keeping an eye on the future it affects what we teach in the present. You can definitely win at certain levels by focussing on short term gains. But that will compromise the long term development of the players. Players need to start learning skills long before they become good enough at them for that skill to be the key determinate in winning.

* Yes, I know Americans are brought up learning hitting a baseball is the most difficult skill in sport. But you can make a case hitting a volleyball is. So why don't we promote the sport we love and tell everyone how amazingly skilful the players are!