Universal beach volleyball rating (UBVR) system
Page contents:
Background & vision - Why I created the system and what I want it to become
Using the system - to determine a players level
Using the system even more - as a helper to become a better player
”in depth” versions of the rating system - for the really interested ones
All versions of UBVR-charts - different languages, regional system comparisons etc
help bettering the system - your experience can make a difference
last thoughts - moving towards easier beach volleyball communication
Link to all available versions of UBVR-charts to date
Before we start, if you found this page without seeing one of the actual UBVR-charts before, here is a link to one of the main versions of it. Everything will make more sense if you have a quick look at it before reading this page.
Background & vision
Beach volleyball is a sport that is most fun for everyone involved when the level of all players on the court are roughly the same. However, describing one’s level can sometimes be tricky, especially when traveling and playing against players from other countries (that have different tournament systems, ranking points, and “names” for different levels.)
Having seen how useful and widely used “universal rating systems” are in tennis and other racket sports, I decided that I think we need something similar in beach volleyball - so I created the Universal Beach Volleyball Rating (UBVR) System. My hope is that this creation by me (that will also be expanded and optimized with the help of others in the future) is something so useful that it will become something like an “industry standard” throughout beach volleyball communities around the world.
Any group, volleyball club, camp organizer or individual is free to use the system (and any of the downloadable high resolution charts) as a helper to make their volleyball organizing and communicating easier. The more people use it, the more people will be exposed to it (who again might use it and expose more people to it), which means we get closer to having it as an “industry standard” that ultimately will make communicating within the beach volleyball world easier for us all.
Would you for any reason think the idea of a universal rating system is amazing and something you’d want to use and get the world to start using, but you for whatever reason disagree with how I have designed the UBVR System, then please let me know! The goal is to design the ultimate system and I am aware of that I have blind spots - so I am always open for constructive feedback, ideas and help.
Using the system
Designing the charts for the UBVR System had some interesting challenges - one was that beach volleyball is a 2vs2 sport and your partnership chemistry/”sync” can have a huge influence on how well you play, at the same time I tried to make a chart to rate individual players. Another challenge was that the chart needs to not be too wordy with long explanations (so that people actually bother reading it), but it still needs to be both helpful, accurate enough, and intuitive to use.
When deciding how to design the charts, I often chose to remove words rather than add words (with the cost that people who want a more accurate “rating” might end up a bit confused), and instead to make up for it, added the little text: “for in depth version, go to www.learnbeachvolleyballfast.com/levelchart” to the end of the charts.
Regardless of if you are here because of that text and that you want to determine your “rating” more accurately or not, I will below give some details that will help you use the system a bit better. If you are more interested in how your partnership influences your level as a player, as well as how to use the chart/system as a helper for you to become a better player - there’s a part for you as well, a bit further down the page!
using the system to determine your level
First of all, I believe it is impossible to make a hyper accurate rating system, beach volleyball is too complex of a sport. However, I believe it is possible to make a system accurate enough to do its job - help players who haven’t seen each other play communicate their level quite accurately with ease.
In the “Yes or No” chart, it says if you can say “Yes” to a minimum 3 out of 5 statements, you end up in that general category of player, for example “Intermediate”. However, “Intermediate” includes the range of 3.5 to 4.5 on the UBVR scale, so which one are you?
As a rough estimate, I’d say that a player that can say “Yes” to 3 out of 5 statements on the “Intermediate” level would have a 3.5 UBVR rating, someone who has 4 “Yes” answers becomes a 4.0 UBVR and 5 “Yes”=4.5 UBVR. The more “Yes”-es, the higher rating within the category range.
Same principle applies to Beginner (2.0-3.0 UBVR), Advanced (5.0-6.5 UBVR), and Elite (7.0-9.0+ UBVR). The more “Yes”, the higher the actual rating number, within the category. I guess it would also be possible for example that someone would say “Yes” to 3 out of 5 “Intermediate” statements, but also say “Yes” to 2 out of 5 “Advanced” statements, this I would rate the same as a “5 out of 5 Intermediate statements” - a 4.5 UBVR rating.
On the general UBVR chart, I tried to make the rating numbers as intuitive as possible, the rating numbers are often right next to a “player trait description”, and the player traits are listen in the order that I believe people usually learn them.. However, of course some “trait swapping” can happen here also - after all, it’s not a 100% perfect system and will never be.
using the system as a helper to become a better player
So it is no secret that I (Alex, the creator of the Learn Beach Volleyball Fast-project) am highly interested in all ways to become a better beach volleyball player. I am primarily a coach and online beach volleyball instructional content creator, rather than a charts and systems creator… So even though I sometimes do stuff like this (I obviously went ahead and created the system), my passion lies in helping players play better.
What initially made me curious about charts like this, was when I saw a similar chart to the UBVR chart but for tennis, and I realized that it was sort of a roadmap of my way forward if I wanted to become a better tennis player. Going from point A to B is much easier if we have a map to follow rather than if we are just blindly stumbling around, hoping to get to our goal.
These charts are made by people who have a lot of experience of seeing various levels of the game play, and understanding around what qualities (or lack of qualities) is keeping a player from being able to beat higher level players in games. Therefore, studying the charts, determining your own level, and studying the “requirements” for higher levels that you do not yet possess, can be a very enlightening experience that clarifies how to plan your future training in order to reach the next level.
What the basic “non-in-depth” versions of the charts do not give though, are explanations on how to reach the “requirements” for various levels. Let’s for example take a look at one of the statements for the “Advanced” level: “High attacking success rate in perfect set situations” - just how does a player get a high attacking success rate in these situations?
The thing is that there are many ways to reach this requirement.
Someone who is very physical and has very efficient attacking mechanics is very hard to stop in a situation where the set is perfect, they can basically just bang away, sometimes around the block, sometimes over it, sometimes through it and sometimes by the ball deflecting from the block to a place that is unreachable for the defender.
However, someone who is less physical and has less efficient attacking mechanics can still reach this requirement, often with one or several of the following qualities: Deceptive & accurate shots, good attacking vision, pattern recognition and smart attacking choices.
So we have at least 2 different training strategies we can use to become a player with a “High attacking success rate in perfect set situations” so that we can become let’s say a 6.0 UBVR rating “Advanced” player - we can go to the gym and work on our athleticism in combination with some attacking mechanics work, or we can go and train our deceptiveness, vision and choice-making for our soft shots.
The multi-layeredness of how one can become a better beach volleyball player is something I find fascinating and something that makes my job very interesting. Earlier I also mentioned that the partnership chemistry/”sync” also has a huge influence on ones level of play, a fact that again adds even more layers on top of the existing multi-layeredness.
Anyway, in the end the thing is that the chart has several “requirements” that can be approached in many different ways, and I believe that having an “overview of the possible paths” can help a player plan their future beach volleyball training to become more efficient - approximated plans spanning over several years (that very well might shave off years of training on the journey towards ones goals) can be made. This is the reason for that I as a coach also wanted to provide “in depth” versions of the chart, for the nerds out there that are wired in a similar fashion to me, meaning they want to explore all these possibilities!
“in depth” versions of the rating system
So far, only one “in depth” version of the system exists, it’s a slightly wordier and less visually pleasing version of the basic UBVR chart. You can find it here.
However, my plan is to soon make a podcast episode (the “real” in depth version) where I will talk out a lot of intricacies of the journey of becoming a better player, using the UBVR chart as a “structure” for the episode. Different ways to reach the requirements of the various levels of the chart, as an individual player or together with your playing partner will be explored and discussed.
It will probably be a 1-2 hour episode that you can listen to in the background of your commutes (for example) while gaining a lot of clarity over your possibilities to plan your future beach volleyball learning to make your journey more efficient, fun and rewarding!
Send me a message if you’d love to hear this episode, once I have received a few requests for this I will prioritize recording this episode over other work on the project!
all versions of ubvr-charts
I made a separate page where you can download high resolution images of absolutely all available UBVR-charts.
The most common charts are the “Yes/No chart” (with and without LBVF logo) and the “general UBVR-chart” (with and without LBVF background stamp.)
Once this chart system has gained some more interest, my plan is to also have the charts released in multiple languages, as well as have an overview chart where one can compare the UVBR rating system levels to as many regional rating systems around the world as possible (for example the B to AAA system used in the USA, German rating system etc.) Read on below for more info.
help bettering the system
Making a “universal” system means it should be applicable all around the world - and the thing is that you and everyone else reading this page are from all sorts of corners from around the world. You guys have perspectives of the sport that I don’t have, regional beach volleyball experience that I don’t have, and language skills that I don’t have…
And these are all qualities that could potentially make this system better for all of us.
perspectives that could make the system in itself better
Although I put a lot of thought into the design of the system itself, the wording on skill descriptions etc, I am fully aware that I am not an all-knowing oracle who can’t fail.
Can you think of a player who plays “advanced” beach volleyball but doesn’t fulfill the requirements I have written out for “advanced” beach volleyball? Do you have some other examples of where my system fails/paints a false picture?
If this is the case, please send me your thoughts and examples and we can discuss them further! Not much about the system is 100% set in stone, words can be changed, requirements rearranged and beach volleyball understanding upgraded.. I mean, there is even a chance the game would change so much in the future that the system would need a complete overhaul one day.
alex@learnbeachvolleyballfast.com is the address, include “UBVR perspective” in the subject line.
regional rating systems
If you take a quick look at the general UBVR-chart, you will see that to the right there is a section for regional systems. In the original version I only included one system, the Unrated-B-A-AA-AAA-Open system used mostly in the USA (developed by the CBVA as far as I know), because I think it is the most widely used rating system in the world today. However, in theory the chart can be expanded to the right as far as one wants.. Kinda like this..?
Anyway, I am envisioning that one day there will be a more beautiful version of the above where people can compare different regions/countries rating systems to eachother, as well as to the UBVR System.
If you want to help me include the rating system of your country/region in this future expanded system, and you believe you can somewhat accurately describe the levels of your rating system with the UBVR-numbers, then please let me know.
alex@learnbeachvolleyballfast.com is the address, include “UBVR new region” in the subject line.
Currently the only region I can accurately describe compared to the UBVR System is the Swedish beach volleyball competition level system. I also attempted to describe the American system which I hope is relatively accurate, let me know if you think it is not. All other regions in the world I could use help with.
The UBVR-charts in more languages?
There are regions in the world where a lot of people play beach volleyball, but relatively few speak English. I was thinking it might be good to have the UBVR-charts translated into more languages so that they would become more useful also in these regions.
I could of course just use Google translate to create these charts, but in my experience important nuances can get lost in translation that way and since the language is technical in nature I believe it is even more important that the charts are translated with the help of native speakers who also play beach volleyball.
If you feel called, or know someone who might, let me know!
alex@learnbeachvolleyballfast.com is the address, include “UBVR language” in the subject line.
last thoughts
Regardless of how you found this page, thanks for reading! I hope it has been insightful/visionary/interesting.
The primary goal with the UBVR System is easier beach volleyball communication throughout the world. I was able to create the system (and I will use it for my own business communication, for example for level distinctions for future beach volleyball camps) but if it is meant to become a worldwide commonly used system, I won’t be able to make this happen alone.
For this to happen, more people will have to think it is important enough, and use the system, and only the future can show if this will be the case or not.
Regardless, I have tried to make using the charts as easy as possible, by sharing freely downloadable high resolution images of them. Use them on your website, post them in your Whatsapp-group, print & laminate them and put them up somewhere where people will see them.. Use them in whatever way that helps you, your beach volleyball club or your business and gets players worldwide to see them.
I have provided charts both with and without my own “Learn Beach Volleyball Fast”-logo. Use whichever version you feel fits the situation!
Regardless of if you decide to use the UBVR-system or not, thanks for visiting this sub-page of the Learn Beach Volleyball Fast-project! Feel free to check out some of my most liked Youtube tutorial videos (1, 2, 3), my podcast (where I for example have in depth conversations about how to play beach volleyball better with high profile coaches and ex-Olympians) or why not have a look at what my coaching is like, many people have called it revolutionary. In the future I will release courses, and other inventions that I can’t even mention yet!
Thanks for now, and hope to see you on the beach one day! // Alex