[00:00:00 - 00:00:54]
Mark Burik:
For all of our coaches are better at beach coaches. Now we're talking to them and we're saying, guys, you explain and show at the same time or you show like you do not explain and then try to show the people have to see it to understand it. Really, really, really. Especially when you're working with new volleyball players or players who aren't frequently in drills. Hey, everybody, let's get settled in. And everybody who's attending Life, we're going to give you a minute. If you're watching a recording of this or you're just seeing it from the very beginning, like you're hearing me speak now, then you can probably scroll ahead. I don't know, three or four minutes until we start. But we are going to lock in. And Brandon, go ahead and give some announcements along the way. I'm going to go and set up my Instagram tripod so we can get rid of Rock.
[00:00:54 - 00:02:44]
Brandon Joyner:
All right, so a couple of announcements. First off, it's the holiday season, so I want to send a warm holiday greeting to all of you guys. Hopefully if you're traveling this week, you're able to do it safely. We are still looking forward to our camps coming up. We're going to be moving down to Florida for two weeks from December 26 to January 9. Those camps are completely sold out, which is freaking awesome. Cannot wait to be back down there in Florida. Postcard in. That would be amazing. And registration is now live for our April camp. And I believe we're already about halfway booked up, which is if you have considered coming to a camp and you are one of those people that likes to wait till the last second, I'm telling you right now, do not do that, especially for our April camp. I think last year when we ran a camp right around the same time, we had about 80 to 90 people. And we are cutting off our camps now to cap out at 40. So only half of those people would have gotten in. So even though it's still really far away, if you haven't asked for anything for Christmas or if you want to treat yourself, I suggest signing up very quickly. I see that probably selling out within the next month. Next three weeks, probably. So, yeah, I think that's my announcement for camps. I know, Mark, you just finished a nice little clinic in New York that went pretty well, from what I've heard. So. Well that you're opening up another session, right? You're doing another one this week.
[00:02:44 - 00:03:02]
Mark Burik:
Yeah. I told them all I was like, when I come home for the holidays, I used to go kind of crazy into work mode, right? Technically, yeah. We're in work mode right now doing this. But you're still friends and family. So technically I'm still hanging out with friends and family. Always.
[00:03:02 - 00:03:08]
Brandon Joyner:
The best part about this. That's what I said.
[00:03:08 - 00:04:59]
Mark Burik:
What we're doing here is I do get to come back home and share high quality information with my hometown, which is something I think, like Long Beach, Queens. Brooklyn, New York City desperately needs. I think we need longer beach or sand. I think a Highline facility is doing something great. There is another one in Long Island City that's about to pop up, which is in Queens, and they're going to have basically a basement of a warehouse, but with really high ceilings. They're getting, I think, four courts. There is a facility that I'm operating out of Endless Summer that's been around for five years. It's small. They don't have a lot of area outside the courts, but it's sand and it's the ability to play. So I think it's super important then to bring in coaches and to get that information. And what happens at these clinics, which is really cool, is a lot of the players who are hungry to do drills and to improve themselves. All of a sudden they meet each other instead of like within their own playing group and the phone number exchange and the contact exchange that happens then. Now you have players who are on the same learning the same language and who have the same passions. They all get to meet, and then they get to kind of meet together afterwards and train. When I hear that the players who met at our clinics, when they then meet again and they tell us, oh, yeah, we've been training since last year. We do this, this drill, drill, this drill that you showed us, and that's always a good feeling. And it's nice to come home and show the city what you learned on the outside.
[00:04:59 - 00:07:07]
Brandon Joyner:
Yeah, I think especially like, I was one of those people because before I moved out to California, I lived in Virginia and in Virginia Beach, they have a phenomenal indoor facility. Tva runs it Tidewater Volleyball Association. If anybody is from that area and they're looking to get into it. And even when I was there, I did not take advantage of setting up my own practices. I tried. And like a lot of the hardest part is about finding people that are interested in doing that training with you a lot of the time. Volleyball is a great sport to keep you in shape. And a lot of people treat it just like that. They want to get out there, they want to play, they want to sweat. But it's always really cool when you find some people that have similar, like, just goals as you. And it's not only about staying in shape, it's better. It's about getting a little bit better. And especially if you have an opportunity to have a clinic in that area that teaches you some drills. If you're from an area and you don't know what drills to do, send us an email. We can hook you up with our we have practice plans set up that have videos included with them. It's cool with a lot of these people. I feel like you do hear about people complaining, oh, the Sands too shallow or the ceilings are too low. And at the end of the day, you just have to be thankful that you don't have to. Like, there are some people there's a group of Russians that come to our camps who I absolutely love. They're all from the Seattle folk, and they're Seattle posts. Seattle Russians. Yes. And they're still posting videos about training outside. I know Charisma, who is one of our constant campers, like, 38 deg. And if it's 38 deg, it's hard for me to go outside, but some of these people are doing that, and it's really cool to see that. And so if you have an indoor facility, no matter what it looks like, if you're able to play with your shoes off and able to dive in some sand, you just got to be grateful. It's really cool.
[00:07:07 - 00:07:34]
Mark Burik:
Yeah, I definitely agree with that. And if you're in South Dakota, like, Jeremiah from our time, right, and it's like, negative 38, then come onto a camp. What do you think is the weirdest and most unique place you've ever trained or played? By the way, I invited you to Instagram, so if you want to, I'm always sad about that. We got to make the Instagramers happy. I get it.
[00:07:34 - 00:08:38]
Brandon Joyner:
The weirdest place I've played, man, it's hard to say because I've always been very fortunate. Wherever I am, I'm able to play. But I know, like, I've trained in indoor a lot. I've trained at one point I was playing in a cul de sac, and we had to create our own lot. Like, we brought chalk and created this game where it was like, now looking back on it's, very silly, but it was kind of like we drew our own court and we made up our own rules to kind of like that game. I don't know if you've seen it with the Ping pong table where they're, like, passing back and forth and then hit it off the table. It's kind of like that, but our table was on the ground. And so it was like if you were inside of a certain line, then you had to make the ball go up and land on the other side of the court. If you were out past the line, then you're allowed to hard drive and attack it.
[00:08:38 - 00:08:46]
Mark Burik:
Did you and me play that together? Because during quarantine, we made up the exact same game.
[00:08:46 - 00:09:11]
Brandon Joyner:
I think we played it in your cul de sac. I think I played it again with somebody else. Maybe that's where the idea came from. I'm not sure, but I've always been lucky. Wherever I'm at, I have an indoor facility. Virginia beach was great. Now in California, it's like we complain if it's under 50, but people are still getting out there.
[00:09:11 - 00:09:13]
Mark Burik:
I can't believe you didn't go with Slovenia. Or where is your first country?
[00:09:13 - 00:10:18]
Brandon Joyner:
No, Slovakia Slovakia. That one was very interesting. It's very tough being in a place where you're the only person that plays that speaks English. I still remember I was a sitter. So it's like you have to know the drills as a setter. But he would explain the whole drill in Slovak or whatever it's called. And then I would have to try to figure out what the drill was as the drill was going on. So I would set the outside and I would look at my coach and he would either give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down. And if he gave me a thumbs up, that meant that I could keep setting the outside. If he gave me a thumbs down, then that meant for that drill, I was not allowed to set the outside. And so I think I was only there for like six months. But yeah, for that little time stint where I was there, it was a little interesting and definitely had to figure out the best way to get going. But it was still pretty cool.
[00:10:18 - 00:13:18]
Mark Burik:
I wouldn't trade it for the world. I'll tell you one thing, I wish some of the players in camps, clinics, classes would do exactly that. Would imagine that they don't know the language so that they just get to the back of the line and they see what everybody else does before they start asking those questions and saying like, what about this? What about this? And that slows things down, first of all. Second of all, you just got to feel it like try to screw up a few times. It's fine. You got to be perfect right away. That's one of those like, volleyball life lessons. You don't have to be perfect to start and you don't need the answer to every single question before you start going. But the only other thing that I'll kind of say about that is when you are new and you're going into a volleyball class, right? This is going to be for coaches and for players. Try to get to the back of the line and see what's happening. And for those coaches out there who are explaining their drills for like five minutes, four or five minutes, stop trying to explain the drill with words. Just grab your four people, literally. Take them by the shoulders. Put one person here, one person here, say, Mark, you dig this, Brandon, you set Mark to the antenna. Mark, you pass a free ball like show the drill three times and then start planning people in there. Because I think most volleyball players have been there in that situation where their coach spends ten minutes explaining a drill, and then you spend another ten minutes trying to figure it out because the words don't make sense when you explain a volleyball drill, they really don't. So for all of our coaches or better at beach coaches, now we're talking to them and we're saying, guys, you explain and show at the same time. Or you show like you do not explain and then try to show the people have to see it to understand it, really. Especially when you're working with new volleyball players or players who aren't frequently in drills like our guys in Hermosa. They're in drills twice a week for 2 hours so they can get on a little bit quicker. But then we get those two new players and all of a sudden they've never been there, and they slow the rhythm of the practice down. It's like just watch all those coaches who are there explaining, Joels, and then you get blink the big deer eyes looking at you after the explanation. And when you see people slowly looking at each other and walking onto the court, you know that your explanation sucked. Stop trying to talk about it and just have them do it right. That's definitely made coaching easier for me. I don't explain jobs anymore. I just put people in places and I say, watch what we're doing.
[00:13:18 - 00:15:32]
Brandon Joyner:
Yeah, it takes a lot of practice. I have kind of another little personal story. A lot of people well, before I joined Mark with Better Beach, I taught for four years. And I have a lot of people that ask me, like, do you regret teaching for four years before you moved out to California? And I tell them, absolutely not. Obviously, I probably would have enjoyed it. I would have gotten to work with Mark a lot longer. But those four years were huge for me. Learning how to establish a practice, learning how to establish a plan, learning how to speak to people. Especially when you're trying to teach, whether it's adults or kids, you have to figure out how to speak differently to different people, how to show different people different things. Everyone learns a different way. And if you're willing to figure that out on your own, then that's great. But if you're trying to make everybody do the exact same thing that you're thinking, you're not thinking about the flexibility of trying to teach to other people, then you're kind of just making your job more difficult. And that's when frustration sets in. And I'll be the first to admit that I'm not perfect with it. If a drill isn't going the way that I want or somebody happens to not be listening, I'm probably the first one that's going to be like, hey, listen up, or like, hey, let's figure this out. Tend to get a little short every now, and I take it a little personally when a practice isn't going the way that I want it to. And especially my big thing is whenever I'm coaching, I know that people are there to get better. I want them to get reps, reps, reps. And the more time that I spend talking and the more time I spend answering questions, that's taking time away from reps. That's where my frustration builds. It's not necessarily with the person, even though sometimes they're not very good at hiding that. But it's more like, hey, we're wasting valuable opportunity here on how to get better. And like you're saying, if you are able to use your words and your actions to explain the drill, then that's always going to be the best way. It's going to help you get to that position quicker where you're actually allowing them to do reps.
[00:15:32 - 00:18:26]
Mark Burik:
Yeah. All right, coaches. So all of you out there, we are working behind the scenes on our better at beach coaching certification. And we're going to start doing some coaching clinics this year. So if you're interested in that, please just get in touch, send us an email [email protected], and just ask that question. Hey, I like your coaching clinics. I like that idea. I want to learn how to coach. We had somebody in the New York clinic who we ran out of player spots early and he said, hey, man, I'm a player, but I also do a lot of coaching around here. Could I just work for you for the day? I know there's no player spots left, but can I just help you feed? I'm going to absorb it. And I said 100%. Absolutely. Wow. We will always say yes. I think any coach would always say yes. It's always nice to have help. And if they want to learn. He went off the rails a little bit when he started kind of coaching his own keys. And I was like, hey, you got to coach only the keys. And the feedback that we've discussed don't enter any sort of new anything. And he did talk about this one. He said circle it up on high hands digs, which we talked about yesterday. We talked to the last class online lesson. We talked about overhand digging. And he said that some people are giving feedback to literally circle their hands to the outside after a dig. And I think some coach might have seen that at some point and said, oh, well, I see their hands break apart, but that's definitely not something that we want to encourage. So it's another example of somebody seeing something once or twice and then over noticing it once they decided that that was the key. Do not teach that. And he was like, oh, okay. So I was like, focus on the keys that I give you, and then we can do that. It was fun. And it's tough for me to then have double attention because when I was in Salt Lake, I had to train myself how to teach coaches. I'm not allowed to talk to a player right now because if I talk to a coach, then they'll be allowed to talk to like five or six players and they'll have better information for all of them. So that was the biggest transition that I made when I was in Salt Lake was needing to go to the coaches and say, hey, look, at this. Look at this. There's a beginner with an advanced player. How do we make them both happy? Okay, go ahead and jump on it because it was a problem that was obvious to me, and I want the coaches to see through my eyes so that they get a little bit more experience in that way because we have a unique coaching protocol because of all the different levels that sometimes we end up with. Right. Not like everybody is a 14 year old same level, you know, like the elite squad, and they're all at the same level. Our camps can be our clinics can have a first day and an advanced player at the same time.
[00:18:26 - 00:19:27]
Brandon Joyner:
Yeah. So coaches, there's a way for you to have an advanced level player and a beginner level player in the same practice. And both of those people can still walk away with a lot of value. Yeah. I think that's something that's very overshadowed players think it too, and that's something that I've been trying to get away from in her Mosa. We have different levels, and I'll have a level four person be like, hey, can I go to this level one practice? I'm like 100%. The only difference between a level one practice and a level four practice is level one is going to be a little bit more fundamental. But even when Mark and I are starting our preseason out, it doesn't matter who joins our practices. Sometimes I'll hop in with our men's class because the practice plans that we have set up are going to make me just as good as those guys, you know? And so I think if you have a good practice plan, it doesn't matter what level of player you have.
[00:19:27 - 00:25:55]
Mark Burik:
And for any of you who are also considering starting your own practice or coaching or anything like that, you guys can go ahead. I'm putting this down below, but better at beach. Compracticeplans. We have 50 plus practice plans all written out for you. It's the same practice plans we use at our camps and our clinics, and 20 of them have complete video demonstrations. So that literally all you have to do is open up your phone, look at the next drill, you see how it's done, okay. And then you can move on to that. But practice planning, I think people will spend too much time stressing out about that when you do not need to reinvent the wheel. Right. You need your players passing, setting and hitting. And we've already got the drills designed, so don't waste any more time on it. Just be a better coach and have a practice plan set. It's very much like building a workout program where you don't need to reinvent a workout program in order to get better. You can just do it. It's all laid out for you. We know that it works. So just do the program or give it to your kids or your athletes and then you're ready to work. So people have laid the groundwork for you. All you need to do is put your own little tiny spin on it. And if you guys want some practice plans, whether you're a player or coach, betterbeach compracticeblinds, you could get them there. So are you a 25 minutes intro? Yeah, we're talking about coaching. That's good. That's kind of what we do, kind of. Let's talk about Chase defense. I like that thing. So the theme of today's lesson, guys, we're talking about how to dig more high lines and cut shots, essentially Chase defense. And we just went over this in our clinic in New York. It was the second last session that we had. And there are a few keys that are going to, number one, help you read better. Number two, help you move faster. And number three, help you stay in control as you're touching the ball. Okay. And a lot of them, if you were with us last week, a lot of these are going to be really similar to the keys that we talked about for hard driven defense. But the first thing that I want to talk about is going to be elbows on knees. So for defensive posture in surf receives, people kind of lean with their hands on their knees a lot. But when you're preparing to play defense and specifically to Chase, your legs need to be loaded, right? They need to be like Springs. So I'm going to play with this a little bit. Check this out. So when your elbows are on your knees, your knees are bent and your hips have that King for them, right? Your hips are flexed. What that does is that loads your glutes, loads of hamstrings, loads of quads so that you can fire right out of the gate if your legs are a little bit too straight, like they're above that quarter bend, that quarter squat. Well, you're not going to have as powerful as a first push. Powerful of a first push, because the first step that we need needs to be a full extension step. And if you started in a quarter squat, let's say everybody who's at home like kind of listening. If you started in just a quarter squat, you bent your knees a little bit. And from that bend, you tried to jump straight up as high as you could. Then you got down to a full 90 degree squat. And then from there you jumped as high as you could without going down any further. You would jump higher from that 90 degree squat because you have more time to access that power. Right. So the same thing is going to happen when we're playing defense. If you're standing up straight or you're still moving or anything like that, then your elbows aren't at the depth where they could be resting on your knees. Some people do this and they sit back on their heels because they learned a lot of that squat technique where you're supposed to be on your heels, which, by the way, you're not. You're supposed to be midfoot, but you should be leaning forward a little bit. Your butt should still be above your knees. But when you put your elbows onto your knees, it puts your shoulders forward in a good forward position, and it loads your legs and the muscles that are going to help you move faster. So for all of you who are getting into that defensive position, if you're not at the depth where your elbows could be on your knees, again, I'm not saying put your elbows actually on your knees. We're just saying that be at the depths where you could feel that position, then you're going to be automatically faster. You're going to be faster because you're going to be more explosive. You're going to be in a stronger position. So when you guys are watching film, in other words, of course, every practice, every match, you guys put your phone on the side and you record it, whether it's on Facebook or whether you're recording for yourself. But on contact, are you at that depth or are you higher? You need to look at that for yourself, and then you need to adjust that. And if you can't find that in your own film, if you can't find that your hips and knees are at that depth, at that bend, then you are not going to be explosive enough to react. Do you think that more people make the error of being too high or too low? I think too high. I think the problem with being low, like sitting into that squat, is that it's more tiring for your muscles like to sit in a squat for the majority of the thing. Like your body is basically at rest. When your knees are locked and the higher you are, your muscles are less engaged because of mechanical advantage. Right. So your body will naturally choose a low energy stance. Right. And if it's choosing that, then you're not going to be low enough. And sometimes you tell people to get low and they sit super low and it's like, but it's very rare that somebody puts their ass under their knees to get to that depth. If they are, then you got to get them up because they can't run outside of that. But I do think that the most common error is that people stand too high when it comes to depth.
[00:25:55 - 00:26:19]
Brandon Joyner:
So maybe just trying to I mean, I like the idea of putting your elbows on your knees because that gives you like a visual cue, but also realizing that if you feel like you're putting some strain on your legs when you're playing defense, that's a good thing. I know a lot sometimes I find myself a little too comfortable and that's when I'm standing up too high.
[00:26:19 - 00:34:04]
Mark Burik:
So, yeah, sometimes you get to that kind of high chest position, which I assume that came from something from indoor where you're ready to get blasted on the chest and you're okay with that? Lovely, like, moving back low so that you have that hip cushion for the hard driven stuff. One of our coaches at the camps who's coming to coach at the camp, Jade Hayes, who is now the assistant coach at Tulane University. I saw her playing at Potstown. No, sorry. I saw her playing at the Packet Boat Ride. And her depth for the entire point. I was like, I have to get back to that. It's so fun to watch a player who plays intense defense 100% of the time. And Jade is one of those players where for the entire point, her butt is like, down low, her shoulders are forward, and she's ready to react. She doesn't fall asleep for 1 second, so she's always ready to spring. And if you follow her on Instagram, I mean, she's a workout, right? She's way stronger than both of us. Yeah, probably. Especially in one legged stuff, crushing it. So it's nice to see those players that are really engaged defensively and sitting low for the entire point. And you're like, man, that is exhausting. But that's elite athletics, right? So that's where we could be if you could imagine, like, how hard and fast an offensive lineman has to fire out. When they're in football, they're sitting low for a reason. They're not starting standing because they want that acceleration. Same exact thing for sprinters. They have a big bend in the knee to be able to fire out of that first step. So elbows on knees is my first one. Okay, so the second one, guys, is going to be a crossover step, and we're going to talk about a few keys within this. But a crossover step when you're pursuing your cut shot, when you're pursuing your high line, initiating with that drive across your body is so important, it's the most efficient way to get the most distance. Some people, when they're going to the right, they will lift their right foot and turn it. And so they take like a four inch step, and then they start their crossover step. Now, there's a lot of science behind this because we talk a lot about baseball players. So volleyball players should pay attention in a big way to all the studies that have been done with times to second base. For baseball players who are stealing a base, what we found was that for baseball players who needed to start, who needed a full run, right, they were actually faster utilizing a drop step where they picked up that right foot and then turned it. But they were faster all the way to second base. They weren't faster to halfway to second base. So here's why that happens. It's because when you're bringing your left arm across right, what happens is your body has to counterbalance itself. So when you use a crossover step, your left knee and your left arm will come across your body at the same time. And then your body spends this little bit of inefficiency counter balancing itself to get yourself into the correct running stride where your left knee and your right arm forward, left arm and right knee come forward. So to be able to move a long distance and get into that running stride right, it was better for them to take that drop step. And then their knee and their left arm came across at the same time, their right knee and their left arm came across the same time. But to do what volleyball players do where we can get one step, maybe a step and a half, you need to be low and you need to be basically diving off of that first step. And the fastest way to do that is with a true crossover step instead of the lift and go. So that was interesting to find out when you look at the studies between baseball players who are running a long distance and volleyball players who are essentially diving off of their first step. Right. So using that crossover step, not lifting. And what happens with this crossover step? And I know at home, if you're listening to this on the podcast, I'll try to make it clear. But some people, they pitch and toe their feet, and then they crossover step by going over the outside edge of their foot instead of pivoting their foot. So if I'm going to the right, I would pivot my right foot and I would go over my toes so that I can actually use my calves and my toes to claw and push the sand. Right. That's going to get me a much longer, more powerful first step because I know that we're talking about a crossover step. But what happens with this crossover step is that people just cross over without pushing as they cross over. So if I'm going to my right, my left knee is picking up and going across my body, but my right leg is firing like the biggest, strongest one legged push that I can have. And if you don't, if you're not able to fire by going over your toes or you just cross over without pushing, your step can be like literally less than half of the distance. And then you need another step and probably a third step to be able to get to the high line. So we like to start, especially if you're playing against somebody who is a big shooter. Most indoor players will pigeon toe themselves because they need to make one quick lateral move. And it's usually just one quick collapse to the side or the other. Volleyball players actually have to run. So we're going to put ourselves very slightly duck footed so that it's quicker and easier to go over my right toes and push with my toes and calves. That's going to make me faster because I'm going to have a stronger, more powerful step because I'm able to use my calf muscles and my toes to claw through the sand. But in the beginning, when I was thinking crossover step, I would always go over the outside edge of my foot. And then I realized what I was doing. I was like, wait a second, I'm not even able to use my calves here, so I'm losing a lot of energy, and I'm side pushing instead of straight pushing. So when you're crossing over and you're going to your cut shot or you're going to your high line, make sure that you're going over the front of your toes and you're getting an exaggerated drive step. And here's an exercise that you guys can do at home. Put yourself in that elbows to knees depth, and see with one crossover step, how far you can actually get with the first crossover step, put a line far outside of your right step and see if you could jump over that line with the first step. Same thing, of course, going to the left side, right. And the further you can get to exaggerate the length of that, it'll be farther than a step because it'll be explosive. You'll actually float through the air a little bit, and then you'll be able to get that distance. So for my second key crossover step, and I know that that's heavily involved with your foot position and what you should be doing and how wide you should be or not be. But second step is second key for defenses crossover step. What do you think?
[00:34:04 - 00:36:49]
Brandon Joyner:
I think there's two things that I think that I want to add to that. And one, focusing on the footwork is huge. I know for me, one of my biggest issues is I was one of those floodstone feet people. I tried to trust my athleticism, and I was like, I'm Super quick. I'm pretty fast. If I read and I get there as quick as I can, then there's a good chance that I might touch it. But I noticed that I was wasting so much time. So if you can get the crossover step into another big step and then a lay down, I think that that's going to allow you to be more controlled, and it's not as much energy as you think. It's a lot easier. And so you're going to be touching the balls you should be touching. Okay. I think that's kind of a big point. We'll probably talk about that later. There are some balls that you're not going to be touching, and that's okay. So I think that trusting the footwork or realizing that if you get this positive footwork with that crossover step, another step and then a lay down, that's going to set you up for the most success. The other thing, when we're talking about how to kind of do that crossover step, and you're talking about kind of rolling over that foot instead of turning and pivoting. I think that error might come mostly when people try to keep their shoulders square to the attacker too long and they don't think about turning and actually chasing. If you can kind of imagine this scenario when that person makes that contact for, let's say, a high line when you go to make your first crossover step now, your shoulders and your body should be pointing in the direction of where that contact point is going to be for you when you're making the dig. I think some people tend to keep their shoulders facing the net a little bit or the attacker a little too long. They end up doing these side digs and like the kind of sideways collapse instead of like full run. You're not the one. mSo turn, allow yourself to be athletic. Allow yourself to make that running motion even though you're only doing it for a couple of steps. And then that'll allow you to actually be looking at what you're doing. So many people when you keep your shoulder, you're like making your touch, but you're not even able to look at where you're making that touch. But if you turn and run, then you're making that touch right in front of you. And I think that might help a little bit.
[00:36:49 - 00:37:16]
Mark Burik:
Yeah. But 1 second before you go on that the thing about that is that that goes with the same application of going over your toes because once you roll to your side, your foot won't stay pointed where you're going. So you're actually going to lose your final push from your toes by rolling off your side because then you're going off the side of your foot. So that goes back to that same like keep your toes driving forward whichever way you're going. Sorry, go ahead.
[00:37:16 - 00:37:28]
Brandon Joyner:
We just had a question from Larco that was should you push off your back foot or lift it and push off the lead foot? Initially, I think that's a pretty good question. But yeah, I think it's kind of just an athletic stance and realizing that it's your job to get your momentum going in that direction. So that front foot or so that crossover step can happen first. I don't think it's like particular on one or the other. Yeah.
[00:37:46 - 00:41:39
Mark Burik:
Your back foot, your trail foot is going to have a short, quick push. Right. It won't be able to push very long because you'll already be leaning away from it. Your leg will basically be extended. So you'll get a little momentum from your back foot, a little bit of pressure. But the longer, more exaggerated push and the stronger push will be from the leg. That is the direction that you are going. So if you're going to the right, your right foot will be able to push longer. You'll just get a quick tap push off from that back foot, basically. So that is a good question. Thanks, Harco. Okay, so crossover step, let's go to T three here for digging high lines and shots. Keep your chest down. This is so big. Here's what happens when I call it Labrador syndrome when you're throwing a ball, right. Are you pretending to throw a ball or you throw a ball high? And Dutch, we love puppies. Brandon loves puppies. I like puppies. Brandon loves puppies. Janelle, right now we're going to all of our friends and families, and everybody in our friends and families just keeps getting pets. That's terrible for her in the house is longer and her allergies just struggle. So we're literally in our hometown going to an Airbnb tonight. And we're like, so yes, a place where hopefully the owners don't have animals because otherwise she's just Loading herself up with drugs. Sorry to distract you. Yeah. Anyway, back to puppies. Keep your chest down, right. So that your head and your chest don't lift up with the ball. One way to really do this, to conquer this is I find that helps is if I keep my focal point on the bottom of the ball, I will have a tendency to kind of stay under it. Right. But if when I see a ball goes up, it's going above a blocker, usually for a high line, so that makes my head go towards it. I see that it's up there. So my body naturally lifts up. That makes my lateral drive step where I'm going across the court. That makes it much shorter because my shoulders aren't forward. So I'm not pushing forward. I'm actually pushing up now instead of laterally, and that's going to cut my distance on my first step. And I have to go down at the end anyway, if it's a great shot, I'm going to be diving anyway, so I need to be driving horizontally. So they used to call Nicholas in the Greyhound, right. One of the reasons is that when he was chasing shots, I mean, he had this horizontal torso like a dog. And yes, it was very fast, like Nick the Quick. But having that horizontal torso is going to help you. Jm and our camps always demonstrates this perfectly. But a lot of people, when they run, they puff out their chest as their first move instead of keeping their shoulders and heads down, like elite sprinters are taught to keep their heads down, and then they slowly come up out of it after the 7th of each stride. But keeping your chest down will make you faster laterally. And since you're probably going to have to dive anyway, it'll keep you lower to the ground, which is going to make for a more controlled dig later. So when you're pursuing a ball, do not let your neck, head, chin, chest up. Even though the ball tie, force yourself to stay down. Or you can use the queue of the bottom of the net. If you when you dig shots, can run under the bottom of the net. You're going to be in a great position to continue accelerating and being fast. I like that.
[00:41:39 - 00:43:14]
Brandon Joyner:
There's a scene from the movie Race about Jesse Owens where he's learning how this park specifically is like, right on. We get an affiliate link. Yeah, but he's being taught by this new coach, and he's already like one of the fastest humans in the world. But he's being taught by this new coach. And one of the drills that he has him do is he sets up hurdles at the starting point. And as he's going, he's not allowed to hit the hurdles because Jesse one of his problems when he first got to College was that he was doing exactly what you're saying. He rises up too early. And one of the drills that I really like that the coach made him do is he had to, like, have this kind of slow Uprise to keep his body in that position because it allows your steps to be a little bit shorter and quicker. And one of the things that he says is when we think about sprinters, a lot of times people think about how long their strides are. But like elite sprinters, they're thinking more about having their feet on the ground more because when their feet are on the ground, that's when they're moving. They don't move when their feet are in the air. So it's kind of like that idea is just really cool. And I think it's a really good visual of what you're talking about. So if anybody's listening, you don't understand it. If you watch that movie Race with Jesse Owens, it kind of explains the science behind it a little bit more, which is really cool.
[00:43:14 - 00:45:20]
Mark Burik:
And for those of you guys who don't know this just as well, add for us, we have this Ultimate Defender course which is on the bottom of the screen right now. So better at beach. Comultimatedefender, we take you through these drills, the correct types of sprinting drills and movement drills. We have a lot of shuffle step drills, speed drills, agility drills, and sprint drills where we show you how to cross over drive. Also in our online coaching group where you post all of the videos that you do of your drills and remember all the drills. You can do them from anywhere. You don't need a court to do them. But when you do post yourself running, doing the agility drills in your front yard or even in your garage, like I do a lot of the agility drills in my own garage, you send those videos to us on the private Facebook groups. And physically, we are really coaching you on your technique. So for anybody who's interested in that program with, of course, with the Ultimate Defender, you also get the 60 day Max vertical program. And those two programs running at the same time is an intense training course. Whether you have a court or you don't, you'll be able to do all of the exercises and understand defense a lot better. So betterbeatch comultimatedefender. It is a 60 day technique and tactics defense, of course, that uses real footage from AVP and FIV matches to show you where you need to be and to show you how to get more digs, more Aces, more blocks. And if you're peeling a lot more Peel, digs. So if you guys are ever interested in that and working with me and Brandon personally and letting us see your tapes as well as Joe, our online coach, Joe, we will absolutely 100% Joe, by the way, national champion guys, we have a national champion on our staff like USC. We have two National Champions on our staff, right, Paige and Joe. Not me. Continental Champions,
[00:45:20 - 00:45:24]
Brandon Joyner:
actually. District city champion when I coached my middle school girls.
[00:45:24 - 00:51:21]
Mark Burik:
Well done. Well done. Thank you. So back to business. Chest down. When you're running, one key to help you do that is stay underneath the bottom of the net at all times while you're pursuing the ball. Another key to help you do that is try to look up at the bottom middle of the ball instead of looking at the side face of it. And that might encourage you to run under the ball, which will mentally trick you into thinking that you have more time. And it will also give you a physical advantage in being able to drive horizontally and stay low for the day. All right, covered that sufficiently. I like it. We don't have too much more time, so we're going to cut this one a little bit short. But the final dig that I'm going to use and we can add some peripherals afterwards if we still got a little bit learn to use your Hands When you're Diving to make a dig, a lot of players still get focused on using their platform where they're like, okay, I'm a volleyball player, so I'm going to use my forearms, I'm going to touch the ball. But if you're horizontal and you're diving or sometimes you're even in the air, this part of your body will not unless you use your elbows to pump it. It's not going to have enough power to touch the ball with the meat of your forearms and get the ball high enough because you just Dove. So now you have to take high enough so that your setter can jog under the ball, give you a nice handset if they want you to, if they want to. And then you have to be able to back up, get behind half court or get to half court if you do the high line and then see the ball, take four steps, jump and hit. So if you end up digging while you're diving with your forearms, the meat of your forearms, you're not going to get that height with ease. So this is why we teach really good hand position for passing and for digging. Because when I make this hand position. When I go fingers perpendicular, thumb's parallel, right? And I get that some people will do this. Okay, that's okay. The ball and fist, it's reasonable. It's a little lumpy for me. But this flat, wide surface, I end up digging the ball while I'm diving, or when I can't reach the ball with the bony part of my hands and wrists, but because it's flat, because I've got a good hand position, then I'm able to pop that ball higher. And that allows me the time, allows my setter the time to create an actual offense. But if you're digging, like full layout, cut shots where you're still pursuing it and the ball is moving super slow and you're digging it with your forearms high on your forearms, you're really not going to get enough power and height on that ball for it to be high enough consistently. So being able to have properly shaped hands and most people on every clinic we run, every camp we run, I have to freeze people and I grab their wrists as soon as they're done passing. And I say, look at your hands, because they thought that they were doing it right for their whole life, for the last ten minutes of the drill, when I said your hands. And then they go back in their autumn weird handshake position. And I'm like, look, this is why two out of ten times instead of zero out of ten times, because at some point this makes you pay the price when you have an uneven surface. So learn how to dig with your hands and some of the hand positions that you can also use for one handed digs. Right? Because we have your hands built well for that, for the two handed digs. But if you can't reach it, then you need to have a focus, one handed touch. And having this right here, this open fist, like you can rub the side of your cheek with the inside of your fist. That's a good one. A remote control where you put your thumb sort of hook your index finger around your thumb. Then you have a nice, again, bony flat surface. But if you have your thumb on top like this, as if you're like almost in a boxing match, then you're going to have a big pointy surface. And that's not going to be flat enough. So the remote control works very nice, where you hook your forefinger around your thumb. The flipper is completely underutilized, and it's such a fantastic flat, hard surface that the ball can pop out of. And then I also use the inside of my hand. But here's when I use the slap part of my hand, the inside of my palm, I only use that when I'm in a lot of control. When I have the opportunity to pop the ball and get like extra power by it, then I'll use my palm. It's a softer surface, so I have to work harder to get the ball higher, but I feel like the extra little in there give me a little bit of better contact feel for the ball. Is that legal? Yes, that old question. Because guys, when you use the palm of your hand under hand over hand, that is legal. It doesn't matter how hard or how fast the ball is moving so long as it rebounds. If it pops off, if you throw it and you use that finger action to try to lift it or curl the ball, that's different than it popping off of your hand. If it has the same sensation as it does with an attack, no matter if it's underhand sidehand or overhand, it is a legal dig using your palms. So, yes, that's one of the most common questions we get, and it drives me nuts that it's still a thing. I was like coaching professionals in Sweden, in Norway, and they're like, oh, our open tournaments don't let us do that. They called that a lift. I'm like, what are you talking about? How can that be? Anyway? We're not going to get into it.
[00:51:21 - 00:51:25]
Brandon Joyner:
But finger action. No finger action. That's all you need to know.
[00:51:25 - 00:51:33]
Mark Burik:
That's all you need to know. That's our four key use your hands today when diving and you need good surfaces to do that.
[00:51:33 - 00:53:57]
Brandon Joyner:
And before we had this conversation, that was one of the things that I had written down was practicing. And I love it when we talk about practice because that's like the easiest way to get better. If you don't know that, then you're under rock. But practicing these one arm digs, one of my favorite drills that we do at our camps, we do at our trainings, wherever is having people get down on their knees, they lay down on the ground, they do a snow angel or a sand angel because we're on the beach. And that shows, like, what your reach is, right? And then you get back up on your knees and somebody just gives you a nice, easy toss, and it allows you to practice patience and the body movement to make this touch. I think a lot of times we forget that it's not just about touching the ball. You know, like, once you get to that area, it's your job to finesse this ball to make it go where you want. And if you don't practice it, then you're just going to be the one that your partner says, hey, nice touch. And unfortunately, if your partner says nice touch after the end of the play, it probably means you didn't get the ball up, because if they're saying nice touch, then they probably weren't able to touch that second ball. But if you're able to kind of practice those contacts that Mark was talking about with the fist, the remote control for the ice cream cone, we've heard of the backhand flipper, the front, the open palm smack with no finger action, and if you're able to practice those, then you're going to realize like, all right, in this situation, I like to do this. In this situation, I like to do this. And it kind of goes back to that same conversation we're talking about Jade earlier where Jade is super strong. She's able to hold that positioning, but she's taught her body how to do that. She spent hours and hours in the gym allowing herself to feel comfortable in that low position. And it's kind of the same thing we're talking about digging, as if we do not focus on actually making this touch in a controlled environment and allow our bodies to get used to it, then you can't expect to actually successfully do it. If you do it during that time and you haven't practiced it, then you're kind of just lucky, in my opinion.
[00:53:57 - 01:00:29]
Mark Burik:
Yeah. Practicing it, doing those drills like the snow anger drill, doing ten forearm passes, ten sets, ten top line Pokeys, ten openhanded slaps, and then ten lay downs and ten peels where we're heading at your face and you're digging your high hands. You've practiced every emergency touch, and you can do that in less than four minutes. And that will give you so much more value than that slow, easy, boring, pepper rhythm of pass that hit with only forearm digs. Right. We haven't even practiced an overhand dig or one handed dig at that point. So I think people need to challenge each other more during pepper or just get rid of pepper entirely and say, what do I want to practice today? I don't think you and I have normal pepper before practice in probably two and a half years. No way. I hate it. Yeah, it's so boring. And I hate when people throw before I can't stand throwing because I can get a volleyball contact and literally move my forearm four inches. My shoulder doesn't need to be able to do that. So I'm wasting a volleyball touch every time I throw a ball. And I probably have to move my arm faster if I say I need to throw so I can get warm. Yeah, your ass needs to get to the beach earlier and bring a band. Some people like throwing. They enjoy it. And I know, like throw around football, but yeah, kind of that's a heavy weighted ball that engages their throwing system so that they have a little bit more lag in their back on it and increases arm strength. That's different than throwing a volleyball instead of hitting a volleyball. I just completely vehemently disagree with throwing a volleyball before practice. Of course, if a partner wants to throw, I'm like, yeah, you can me, but I'm going to hit backwards. So I'm practicing actual volleyball hand contact. But I have not warmed my players up with a throw drill unless we are teaching. Like, unless we need to show very specific arm swing mechanics. And I'm working on that. Like with a tennis ball or a weighted ball. But to just warm up for a practice, you're contacting the ball and learning how to get great hand contact wasting those reps. I got limited time on this, right? Come on. I know, Dang. Okay, so guys, that is everything that we're going to talk about for defense. We're going to take our live audience through a little bit of Q and A here, but just a couple of announcements from us. I'm going to do another round of our live training. So if you guys want to do a seven day mobility training to prepare your body for the strength training season, that should be coming right about now, where you're going into your season in January. Towards the end of January, you should be getting into a heavy lifting phase. But if you have the Imbalances still in your body or you don't have the mobility to allow you to do that, you absolutely are not ready to lift heavy because you're going to be off balance and that's going to lead to injuries. So I'm going to be doing a seven day mobility training with everybody. So if you are interested in that, please pay attention. Make sure that you are ready for sign ups. It's going to be $27. It's going to be seven days of mobility and small agility move. Now, what I'm going to take you through is essentially like week two of our Max vertical junk program. That training is going to be weeks one and two of that. But we're going to push it all into one. And by the end of the first day, I promise you, you will be able to get into more positions than you can get into right now because you're going to open up a range of muscle. You're going to hurt less. You're going to move better, you're going to feel faster. You're going to feel more athletic just because you can move into better positions. So that's going to be coming up. If you're not on our email list, go ahead to betterbeach.com. It's our home page, and you can sign up for a free drillbook. We give you 36 essential drills for beach volleyball. And then you'll be on our email list. And I will be able to tell you everything you need to know about how to get into our seven day mobility flow for beach volleyball. And we cover all of the important moves that help you be a better volleyball player. Right. We want our bodies to be healthier, to be stronger and more ranges of motion so that we can make more plays. And if you're the type of person who gets fired up in January, don't get fired up and just hit the weights as hard as you can because you've got a lot of Imbalances built up that we need to take care of. So do it the right way. If you want to continue with us and do that Max vertical program. Cool. More than invited. If you just want to use this mobility program to get you started on your own, then great. Then at least you started seven days, the first seven days of the new year the right way so that you don't get hurt. Because as soon as you get hurt, no matter how motivated you are right now, you work with that imbalance, you hurt yourself, and then you're gone for six weeks. And then by that time, you've lost motivation and you're at the end of February. So let's start the new year the right way. I'm going to be posting this all over my personal Instagram, all over the better beach volleyball Instagram. And of course, to our email list. Again, if you're not on that bitter Beach.com, just sign up for any of the forms on that home page and you'll be on the email list. And I will tell you about our seven day mobility program to get this year firing the right way so that you stay healthy, injury free, and you feel really good. And it's good for anybody because it's all body weight. So you don't need any sort of equipment to start this mobility program with me. And we'll be doing a few of them at our camp. We'll be recording them there for everybody fun. Yeah, those people twice a day anyway. And that's going to be online, right? Yes. We just had a question from Scott. Yeah, that would be online, online with videos. And we're going to get a little private Facebook groups that you guys can post yours and we can pay attention to what your movements look like to make sure that you guys are doing it right.
[01:00:29 - 01:01:00]
Brandon Joyner:
Yeah. And I would also say, like, if you're a coach, this is a great opportunity for you as well, because a lot of these exercises, a lot of everything Mark's going to be talking about are things that you should be relaying to your athletes as well. And a lot of times, especially when we're talking about club or coaching, you don't really have the time to think about what they're doing outside of your practices. So just giving these nice little exercises to do before, after, during practice, whatever time you have for it, that will help your team as well.
[01:01:00 - 01:03:30]
Mark Burik:
As far as clinics, guys, if you're in New York right now, I'm running a clinic. On Wednesday. We got 6 hours of training. We're going to do an offensive training and a defensive training. That's an Oceanside, Long Island, December 22. On a Wednesday, we had somebody drive 4 hours from Maryland for our last day of training on Saturday. It was so cool. He actually finished second at the Rance Classic. And he was just like, there are no other coaches around me. You're my only option. So he drove 4 hours for us. So that was pretty cool. Very cool. And if you guys want us to come to your home town. So here's what happened. Within the summer, they're like, we want you here every two to three months. This is too successful. We get new players into our facility who otherwise wouldn't normally come because they think that our reach is a little stronger than theirs. So we brought the facility owner new customers. We introduced players to each other, and so now we're setting it up so that we're going there every two months. So I'm going to be coming back to New York pretty frequently and with Brandon and Toe so that we can hang out together. So if you guys want us to come to your hometown, make sure you get in touch, go to clinics, and you can fill out that form so that we can come to you. If you don't have a facility, that's fine. If you got a park that you could get a permit to, if you have a court in your backyard, if you have courts on the beach that you know, there's kind of no issues to run any sort of training, or if you just want us to work with your club program, we are more than happy to do it. Just go to bitterbeach. Comclinics. And finally, we have our camp on April 3. April 3 to April 10. Half of the spots are gone. I think we have 19 left. And what better way to start your season in the middle of spring than to get seven days of seven and a half hours of volleyball every day? Great opportunity. And if you don't do the mobility and strength stuff before that, you won't be able to survive April. For all those who are coming to the April camps, please make sure your bodies are ready. And if you want us to help with that, we're doing that seven day mobility flow coming up next week. So make sure you guys are ready for that. All right. Want to answer some questions? Let's go for Q and A wraps up Our Podcast episode. It's now time for live Q and A with our members.
[01:03:30 - 01:04:40]
Brandon Joyner:
All right, I'll just start at the top. So, Caleb, is there a place where we go to be a part of the chat? I got an email for it. I've been searching. I'm assuming you're talking about Volley Chat. I think he might be talking about how to. Well, he's on the chat. Yeah. If you're talking about the streaming, which we're doing right now, I see your chat. So you're good. If you're talking about Volley Chat, it's a Facebook group. You should be able to search better at Beach Volley Chat. If you're coming to one of our training camps, then you should have been sent a link that sends it to another group, which is better at beach training camps. But if you're looking to join a specific chat, Caleb, just shoot us an email [email protected] and we'll make sure we get you started. I'm not 100% sure what chat you're talking about. Scott, we already told you it's online training. Mark, it was nice to meet you again. I hope I get to meet that person at some point. Any tips on fixing shoulder pain on the guide arm? Is the guide arm the non hitting?
[01:04:40 - 01:06:01]
Mark Burik:
I think that's your left arm. Yeah. Number one see a physical therapist. You should not have a lot of pain in that guide. It depends what they got. It depends what you got going on. Guys, the number one thing that you can do is small bits of rehab, light band work, and mobility work. They really help with a lot of pain. So the best way that you can do other than a torn muscles, start strengthening things. And if you got a torn muscle, then you need to strengthen the muscles around it so that you're not putting too much tension on that. But if we're talking about like, why your shoulder hurts, we don't know. We can't see you. We can't fix you right now. If you join our online coaching program, of course, we'll be able to help you a little bit better, but light rehab and a little bit of stretching, making sure that you've got good overhand range. You can do your downward dogs. You can do your modified downward dogs like a coffee table using your elbows. Or you can just hook a band back to a chin up bar and just stretch forward so that you're getting some range. Right. But all of those range of motion exercises for your shoulders and light band work for external rotation usually are going to help you out.
[01:06:01 - 01:06:20]
Brandon Joyner:
And definitely before your training, if you're not focusing on warming that should that arm up, then that pain is always going to be there. But if you get it warm and loose and that might help a little bit. Yeah. Going to keep moving down.
[01:06:20 - 01:06:57]
Mark Burik:
I got one question from Instagram. When will it be possible to sign up for a camp in August? I'm coming from Italy. We don't have our summer schedule booked yet. We're waiting for the AVP schedule to come out. So it'll be kind of slowly, softly after that. So if you're looking for summer camps, the schedule will be coming after that. However, if you do come to Hermosa, we will be happy to work with you. And if you go to Better Beach.com and then across the tab, you look at Los Angeles. That shows you the private lessons you can get and the classes that you can sign up for in California.
[01:06:57 - 01:09:00]
Brandon Joyner:
All right. Have you ever had a server take forever to serve and you're sitting there holding your squat and burning out your legs? Is there a time limit for a serve? Yes, they only have 8 seconds. But I think Mark and I have kind of had this conversation before and I've kind of played around with this. This is Corey from Camp I think that finding your starting position on Server Steve is different from defense. Yeah, I think when you're playing defense, you need to find that position that Mark was talking about, about finding your elbows on your knees. But when you're in service, Eve, I think you need to be more comfortable. You need to be ready to move a little bit more. The ball is not going to be coming at a trajectory that really needs you to be in that really low squat. And we also need to have our upper body able to relax a little bit. So I would try standing up a little bit out of that deep squat position. I think when you're in service position, you should be in a position that you're okay sitting in for probably 30 minutes. And I think as long as you get that, your hips should be over your knees and then you have that rounded back, then that should allow you to do it. Obviously, you don't want to be standing straight up because now you're going to have to drop down before you start moving. But yeah, I think it sounds to me like that question. You're probably putting yourself into a very uncomfortable position too early in service. You might end up in that position when you're passing the ball, but I think you need to rise up a little bit out of that position so that you can move a little bit quicker and then find that position later. I don't know if you want to add anything to that.
[01:09:00 - 01:10:02]
Mark Burik:
Somebody just asked me to give a quick visual of your elbows underneath. So I'll just take over the screen for a second just to show it. So Greg, Vegas or VicAS, this one's for you, baby. All right. So if we're looking at this. Okay, so here I am. I'm right about here, right? You're kind of buffering. There you go. All right, here we go. This is my good defensive stance right here. So, yeah, just my elbows on my thighs, elbows on my knees. That puts me in this great forward position where I can drive either way, that's my elbows and knees position. Again, I don't want to be here where I'm sitting back. I want to make sure that my shoulders are hanging. If my arms hang, they would be in front of my knees and my toes. If you're sitting back and your arms hang, even with your knees or between your legs, you're not forward enough. Get yourself forward so that when your arms are hanging, they're hanging in front of your knees and your toes. All right.
[01:10:02 - 01:10:11]
Brandon Joyner:
When doing Server Steve, how do you see the incoming balls depth earlier with really good floaters, I tend to get to the ball too late. Any tips?
[01:10:11 - 01:10:47]
Mark Burik:
Vision number one for me is just you have to study the hand contact on the ball. The earlier you pick that up, the more you focus on how that person is contacting it and where they're contacting it, the earlier you're going to be able to pick it up and just be ready to move to serve to you. You want to just like saying, I'm going to need to go to this ball.
[01:10:47 - 01:11:35]
Brandon Joyner:
Yeah. I think we talked about this a little bit before. A tip that I give a lot of players that are having trouble getting to the ball early enough is instead of being completely stopped and having those feet kind of dug underneath the sand, it's kind of a good idea. I tell people to sway back and forth, and with that, you can kind of step out of the sand. Don't just sway side to side and have your feet buried up to your ankles. Allow your feet to pick up and put down on the sand. And if you can find that rhythm and then get in rhythm with that server most of the time, it'll help you anticipate your movements a little bit earlier. And then once you realize what you're looking for, then you'll be able to use your vision and that rhythm to get to that ball a little bit quicker.
[01:11:35 - 01:12:40]
Mark Burik:
We've got both Larco and Alex Cross asking if we'd ever be willing to come to them for camps or clinics. One is in Canada, London, Ontario, and the other one wants us to come to Europe 100%. Absolutely. We want to go everywhere. We're trying to get to Hawaii for the Dyno. We want to run a clinic there. We would like to be a couple of days early for Fudge in Florida to run a clinic there. And I'm talking to Charlie Salaris from Thailand. Volleyball, hopefully we can get there. Brandon almost got to MALDI. I know I was too slow. So the best way to get us there, guys, is to get in touch with us because there is a chance that, hey, maybe we need a vacation or we want to see a cool country and we just like to get it paid for and hang out with some volley people. So if you want to fly us to Timbukt Two, we would love to hang out and do some Timbukt Two and volleyball players. I love it.
[01:12:40 - 01:13:01 ]
Brandon Joyner:
All right, Alex Krause, thanks. I will join the team again when summer comes back to Europe. Until then, don't really have a court where I am. You guys are super good coaches. Alex, I'm calling you out. Don't need a court to get better. You can join the team again during the summer, but you're going to be just as good as you were when you left. Actually a little bit worse, right?
[01:13:01 - 01:13:33]
Mark Burik:
How much do people need to realize that just because you don't have a court doesn't mean you can't get better? This is why NFL teams, basketball teams, College teams. It's why they all watch and study film. It's to learn what happens in certain situations, to see where you currently are I mean, in my off seasons when I couldn't play Beach, I was practicing beach exercises in an indoor gym, and I was watching film after film after film and learning how to win in different scenarios. And that's a lot of what we do in the online coaching program.
[01:13:33 - 01:14:16]
Brandon Joyner:
There was one girl that was in the online coaching program this past winter. I want to say her name was like Babs. Oh, yeah. She posted every single video of hers. Was her doing workouts in her homemade gym in her spare bedroom or whatever she has. And all of her drills that she completed were done in her driveway. And she was probably one of the like, when I was looking and comparing people that first start up, and then towards the end, she had probably one of the more consistent kind of progressions that I saw out of anyone. If that doesn't tell you that it's possible, then I don't know.
[01:14:16 - 01:14:59]
Mark Burik:
And she hit three different PRS, like for the workout program when she was in the Max vertical program. She had three different lifetime lift records for herself. And of course, her vertical jump, she jumped higher than she ever had in her life at the end of our ten week program. So that's what we're starting again in January. So if you guys are trying to hit new peaks and you're motivated for the new year and you're like us where you're ready to hit hard this year and make this your year, come and find us. Make sure we start with the mobility program, which is starting this week. And I will tell you where to sign up all over our Instagrams and in our email list. And then that will lead us nicely into the 60 day next vertical program.
[01:14:59 - 01:15:13]
Brandon Joyner:
Cool. And Alex just responded again saying that it's all indoor volleyball. So, hey, as long as you're still playing the sport of volleyball, I don't care how you're doing it, whether it's on sand or indoor, as long as you're still playing. So I was just giving you a hard time. I appreciate you.
[01:15:13 - 01:17:22]
Mark Burik:
I have an interesting question from VB. Sand. Vb. Sand said, what if somebody's got a great Cutty and a great high line? And how do you stop that? How do you defend against them? I'll preface the answer with make sure that you're not giving hitters too much credit. I think most offenders put themselves off balance too easy because they're so concerned that the hitter knows where they are. We did a vision drill with pretty advanced players in New York two days ago. And to be able to take a four step approach and look at the right time, and then here's the thing, and then trust your shot, trust what you see, and then put it in the perfect spot is incredibly difficult and takes years and years and years of practice to become good and accurate and confident in that decision. So if you're kind of bouncing around back there trying to mess with a player. 99% of players aren't looking anyway. They're just assuming that there's an opening. And to say that they can hit like a three by three foot box, it's just not going to happen for most players because they're not willing to put in the hours. So first, get stable and make sure that you're actually getting a perfect start, that you're not guessing, you're not thinking what they're going to hit. You're more just reacting and seeing their hand hit a certain part of the ball. After that, when you're struggling to get a touch on the shot, Peel your freaking blocker. Get your blocker out of there. If you're getting beat every point by a shooter, your blocker needs to leave, period. It's not up to the defender to get digs. It's up to the team to get digs. And you have to figure out the best way to create digs. And a lot of times, especially in shooters, it is by peeling the blocker late so that you close those windows for the hitter. Then after that, you can add some jokes. But we're not going to get into that because we're running out of time today. I like that. Good answer. Thank you.
[01:17:22 - 01:17:47]
Brandon Joyner:
All right, one more question. Sure. All right. What about Shanking? I practice passing a lot seems to suffer from if the ball is a half inch off, then it goes a bad angle. Can't tell if my wide shoulders, skinny arms or psychological. Caleb, have you taken a passing course? Was our first day on passing.
[01:17:47 - 01:19:12]
Mark Burik:
Take a look through our videos. We talked a lot about passing on our YouTube channel. It should be like four videos ago and we talked everything about to receive. And if you need help with passing with a 30 day course pass with confidence and consistency, the Serve Receive Masterclass, we can't see what you're doing. We can offer blind advice, but it might not apply to you. But all of our members get to take their video, get to show us their technique, post that video on the private Facebook group. And right now we have a great deal. It's 4.97 for a one year membership to get personalized coaching. Imagine getting twice a week plus everything on Facebook for less than $500 for coaching for a year. It's a really damn good deal. And so to be able to get twelve months of coaching for 497 twice a week, plus we're in there in the commentary every day. You can post as many videos as you want. We keep commenting on them, and then we get to meet with you and talk with you all the time. So it's 497. If you're looking for that, it's better at beach. Comcoaching. And we can hook it up in there. And included in that, of course, is our Surf Receive Masterclass, along with all of the other skill and strategy courses.
[01:19:12 - 01:19:52]
Brandon Joyner:
Yeah. So Caleb, I'm not sure if it's your wide shoulders, your skinny arms or psychological, but I think you got this. Caleb, just real quick. I think it's a lot about simple. I think if you're already thinking about all these different ways that you're messing up, you're already too far. Think about the simple points that you need to do. Be stable when you're passing, get your platform out early and hold your finish. I think if you can do those three things, then you'll be able to start picking up on what you're doing wrong.
[01:19:52 - 01:20:14]
Mark Burik:
All right. Wish them all a good holiday week and then we'll meet back on Wednesday, December 22. We haven't decided if we're going to prerecorded and have Brandon run the Q and a or if you and Joe want to hang out and talk about the next topic because you got your lesson, right. Yeah, the new York clinic.
[01:20:14 - 01:20:15]
Brandon Joyner:
Cool. Figure it out.
[01:20:15 - 01:20:26]
Mark Burik:
Either you can have it or we can prerecorded conversation tomorrow and then can post that and you can do the Q and a after or you and Joe can host it and I would love to see that.
[01:20:26 - 01:20:30]
Brandon Joyner:
Yeah, we'll figure it out. We can talk about it afterwards. Cool.
[01:20:30 - 01:20:33]
Mark Burik:
Guys. Have a fantastic couple of days. I hope you guys like this. That's it from me. I get to go and do Christmas fun with Kyle.
