Just before I start, I want to be upfront about something: This post could potentially be interpreted as “stepping on some toes”, even though that is not my intent. What I will do below is that I will first highlight a problem that I believe exists in beach volleyball. After that, my wish is to start an “investigative process” into both if the problem is worth solving, and also how to solve it, if solving it is a worthwhile mission. If you decide to read this blog post thoroughly, and consider what it says (and participate in the discussion if you want) you would become a part of this investigative process.

What I do not want is to throw out ideas that would change the nature of the sport too much if implemented. What I do want is to investigate if there are some tweaks we could make to our sport that would make it both more fun to play for the players, as well as more entertaining to watch - which I believe would make a better product for fans to be watch, and therefore attract more money.

If the above was possible, we would all win in the end. We’d all be having even more fun and the sport would grow more/faster. The mere potential that this could become the result sometime in the future, in part because I decide to write and publish this, is what drives me to write this blog post.

Ok, enough of the pre-talk, here we go:

I believe basically all beach volleyball players would like it if we were able to “grow the game”, which to me means more players around the world, more courts, more competitions…

What I'll talk about in this post has been on my mind for years, but I have not gotten around to creating any sort of content (blog post/podcast/video) around it, but a little occurrence the other day got me inspired to finally start putting these thoughts onto paper (or well, screen!)

The reason I want these thoughts recorded is at least two-fold: Partly for my ego because I want to be able to point to this post a few years/decades down the road if/when my prediction turns out to be true/widely accepted, and partly because I have some hope that this could get some people out there to think a little bit deeper, possibly reconsider their convictions and look further into the matter. This again could in the long run lead to a healthier volleyball community as a whole, producing better, happier, and healthier players as well as coaches, which in the long run could even grow the sport, make it more engaging for fans, have more money circulating and all that good stuff.

And just for clarification, even though I mostly coach beach volleyball and at this point not much indoor volleyball at all, this opinion piece of mine applies to both main versions of our sport, as well as probably many other sports in the world as well.

Ok so for the timestamp part, today is the 21st of November 2022 as I am writing this. I've had thoughts like these for some years now, it was probably around 2018 when I mentioned "the dark ages of volleyball coaching" in a discussion forum for the first time.

What inspired me to finally write this

The other day I was on a long bus ride and decided to once again kill some time (while educating myself in my profession) by reading around a bit in my favorite volleyball coaching discussion forum.

I found a post, that for the millionth time went something in the style of: 

"I saw this coach do this type of drill, which I learned in my coaching course is unscientific and will not be good for the learning of the athletes."

Sometimes I reply to posts…