WELCOME TO VOLLEYBALL DEVELOPMENT CAMPS
Volleyball Development Camps ran its first event in 2005, a week-long day camp for two dozen local athletes ranging from beginners to teens who practiced with their parent’s club. Two years later there were more camps, for introducing the sport to first-timers, for adolescents who needed help learning to handle the volleyball, and for teen-agers who were beginning to play year round at higher levels.
Today there are seven levels of training in the VbDC curriculum, along with one-day workshops for positional players, programmes to help mature recreational players enjoy the game more, English language tuition for athletes from abroad, and outreach activities for schools and leisure centres. A VbDC event takes place every month. Young athletes aged 8 to 22 participate in training tailored to a particular level of ability. Aspects of the game covering players’ technical form and game tactics are introduced from early ages. Guest speakers discuss the game during lunch breaks, professional and national teams have joined the training sessions, and sports science specialists analyse individual performance. Many athletes return year after year and progress through the range of camps. Some have become friends in whom VbDC has taken an active involvement in helping them chart their sports future.
Activities have grown off court, too, with VbDC assisting athletes in their search for scholarships to US and Canadian universities, organizing courses for the qualification of game officials, and sponsoring local clubs. A sister company, Top Flight Volley, retails training equipment, balls, shoes, accessories and clothing.
But the founding guideline on which VbDC was founded has not changed over time: Assemble highly qualified coaches in the best facilities available and create a course of instruction that will help disciplined, dedicated volleyball athletes take their performance to a higher level.
Welcome to the VbDC website. Please explore it and read about our approach to volleyball training, how we structure our camps and when various programs are scheduled, who we are and the support services we offer, and the latest developments in the lives of VbDC athletes of note. You’ll quickly see how VbDC has become not only a good training programme, but a community of volleyball enthusiasts.
Enquiry Form
Would you like to learn more about Volleyball Development Camps programmes, or about one camp in particular? The form below can be used to send us an enquiry.
The form asks for a few general details, which help us be more accurate in our response to your enquiry. This information is kept only for the purpose of providing a reply. In keeping with new data protection regulations, it will not be shared with any outside organisation. It will be removed from our database after our initial contacts if you wish it to be removed.
Why do we ask for this information?
- Very general personal details, such as age and gender, enable us to know who we are discussing.
- If we know the athlete’s location and dates of availability, we will have an idea whether the athlete is likely to require a residential or language option, and for us to be prepared to help with transport and tutoring arrangements, if necessary.
- Some questions we ask about the athlete’s playing history and club association enable us to make a better recommendation on the type of camp they will benefit most from attending.
Please take the time to fill out the form if you wish to learn more about VbDC activities. The data will be used only to help you make the right choice for the athlete on whose behalf you are enquiring.
ONLINE ENQUIRY FORM
WELCOME TO VOLLEYBALL DEVELOPMENT CAMPS
Volleyball Development Camps ran its first event in 2005, a week-long day camp for two dozen local athletes ranging from beginners to teens who practiced with their parent’s club. Two years later there were more camps, for introducing the sport to first-timers, for adolescents who needed help learning to handle the volleyball, and for teen-agers who were beginning to play year round at higher levels.
Today there are seven levels of training in the VbDC curriculum, along with one-day workshops for positional players, programmes to help mature recreational players enjoy the game more, English language tuition for athletes from abroad, and outreach activities for schools and leisure centres. A VbDC event takes place every month. Young athletes aged 8 to 22 participate in training tailored to a particular level of ability. Aspects of the game covering players’ technical form and game tactics are introduced from early ages. Guest speakers discuss the game during lunch breaks, professional and national teams have joined the training sessions, and sports science specialists analyse individual performance. Many athletes return year after year and progress through the range of camps. Some have become friends in whom VbDC has taken an active involvement in helping them chart their sports future.
Activities have grown off court, too, with VbDC assisting athletes in their search for scholarships to US and Canadian universities, organizing courses for the qualification of game officials, and sponsoring local clubs. A sister company, Top Flight Volley, retails training equipment, balls, shoes, accessories and clothing.
But the founding guideline on which VbDC was founded has not changed over time: Assemble highly qualified coaches in the best facilities available and create a course of instruction that will help disciplined, dedicated volleyball athletes take their performance to a higher level.
Welcome to the VbDC website. Please explore it and read about our approach to volleyball training, how we structure our camps and when various programs are scheduled, who we are and the support services we offer, and the latest developments in the lives of VbDC athletes of note. You’ll quickly see how VbDC has become not only a good training programme, but a community of volleyball enthusiasts.
Enquiry Form
Would you like to learn more about Volleyball Development Camps programmes, or about one camp in particular? The form below can be used to send us an enquiry.
The form asks for a few general details, which help us be more accurate in our response to your enquiry. This information is kept only for the purpose of providing a reply. In keeping with new data protection regulations, it will not be shared with any outside organisation. It will be removed from our database after our initial contacts if you wish it to be removed.
Why do we ask for this information?
- Very general personal details, such as age and gender, enable us to know who we are discussing.
- If we know the athlete’s location and dates of availability, we will have an idea whether the athlete is likely to require a residential or language option, and for us to be prepared to help with transport and tutoring arrangements, if necessary.
- Some questions we ask about the athlete’s playing history and club association enable us to make a better recommendation on the type of camp they will benefit most from attending.
Please take the time to fill out the form if you wish to learn more about VbDC activities. The data will be used only to help you make the right choice for the athlete on whose behalf you are enquiring.
ONLINE ENQUIRY FORM
Welcome
Forthcoming Events
Volleyball Development Camps ran its first event in 2005, a week-long day camp for two dozen local athletes ranging from beginners to teens who practiced with their parent’s club. Two years later there were more camps, for introducing the sport to first-timers, for adolescents who needed help learning to handle the volleyball, and for teen-agers who were beginning to play year round at higher levels.
Today there are seven levels of training in the VbDC curriculum, along with one-day workshops for positional players, programmes to help mature recreational players enjoy the game more, English language tuition for athletes from abroad, and outreach activities for schools and leisure centres. A VbDC event takes place every month. Young athletes aged 8 to 22 participate in training tailored to a particular level of ability. Aspects of the game covering players’ technical form and game tactics are introduced from early ages. Guest speakers discuss the game during lunch breaks, professional and national teams have joined the training sessions, and sports science specialists analyse individual performance. Many athletes return year after year and progress through the range of camps. Some have become friends in whom VbDC has taken an active involvement in helping them chart their sports future.
Activities have grown off court, too, with VbDC assisting athletes in their search for scholarships to US and Canadian universities, organizing courses for the qualification of game officials, and sponsoring local clubs. A sister company, Top Flight Volley, retails training equipment, balls, shoes, accessories and clothing.
But the founding guideline on which VbDC was founded has not changed over time: Assemble highly qualified coaches in the best facilities available and create a course of instruction that will help disciplined, dedicated volleyball athletes take their performance to a higher level.
Welcome to the VbDC website. Please explore it and read about our approach to volleyball training, how we structure our camps and when various programs are scheduled, who we are and the support services we offer, and the latest developments in the lives of VbDC athletes of note. You’ll quickly see how VbDC has become not only a good training programme, but a community of volleyball enthusiasts.
Enquiry Form
Would you like to learn more about Volleyball Development Camps programmes, or about one camp in particular? The form below can be used to send us an enquiry.
The form asks for a few general details, which help us be more accurate in our response to your enquiry. This information is kept only for the purpose of providing a reply. In keeping with new data protection regulations, it will not be shared with any outside organisation. It will be removed from our database after our initial contacts if you wish it to be removed.
Why do we ask for this information?
- Very general personal details, such as age and gender, enable us to know who we are discussing.
- If we know the athlete’s location and dates of availability, we will have an idea whether the athlete is likely to require a residential or language option, and for us to be prepared to help with transport and tutoring arrangements, if necessary.
- Some questions we ask about the athlete’s playing history and club association enable us to make a better recommendation on the type of camp they will benefit most from attending.
Please take the time to fill out the form if you wish to learn more about VbDC activities. The data will be used only to help you make the right choice for the athlete on whose behalf you are enquiring.
ONLINE ENQUIRY FORM
Shop
Our first camp outside England, VbDC joins forces with the International School of Brussels to conduct an all-skills camp at the ISB campus. From elementary school athlete to high school varsity competitor, VbDC coaches will lead a week-long program that incorporates elements from both the Skills and Performance curricula for a range of abilities.
The flagship VbDC event, the Elite Camp is designed to help refine the skills –both mental and physical – which committed elite players have been acquiring through their participation in the highest level of volleyball. It is is a limited enrolment camp to which athletes must apply to determine their eligibility. Enrolment is restricted to 24 athletes who submit videos, coach recommendations and an essay with their application. Most athletes are members of their national team, but those who play for a university or in the top division of their national league may also be considered.
A transitional camp with a curriculum designed to take the athlete from individual ball-handling drills into team-based game simulation drills. Skillz Plus doubles the hours of training as preparation for the stamina and attention required for the Performance camps. The curriculum includes revision on closed-ended ball-handling skills, but also puts the athlete into open-ended situations where they gain a fuller understanding of how competence in performing individual skills contributes to a successful team effort.
The highest level of the weekend VbDC Skills camps, in which drills are designed to train the individual athlete how to play the ball in its most basic actions: the serve; the underarm pass, or dig; the overhead pass, or set; and the attack, or spike. The curriculum calls for some scrimmaging to emphasize the importance of good ball-handling technique, but most of the camp is devoted to refining the skills needed to effectively move the ball around the court.
The weekend Pathways Camp is designed for the new volleyball player who, having had an introduction to the game, has decided to participate in a competitive school or club programme. The curriculum features drills to develop each of the basic actions required to play the three-touch game: the dig, set and spike, and the action that initiates a rally, the serve. This is the first VbDC camp in which the athlete will be expected to exhibit self-discipline and communication with the coach.
Those young athletes who enjoy their introduction to volleyball via First Stepz will then be able to sign up for the Next Stepz Camp, a half-day course that introduces the athlete to the fundamental rules of volleyball, and initiates drills to teach the basic ball-handling techniques. A little game-time fun rounds out the day to encourage use of the newly acquired skills.
In Autumn 2018 VbDC intends to convert its First Stepz Camp to an outreach programme in which primary schools, leisure centres, clubs, churches or social groups introduce volleyball to young athletes, usually of (but not limited to) primary school age. Interested organizations can contact VbDC to set up a session, and VbDC will provide the coaches and equipment for a four-hour session at a venue chosen by the host organization.
Emerging Elite is VbDC’s entry level Performance camp, with a curriculum designed for athletes who have been training and playing competitive volleyball seasonally for three or four years, or year round for at least two years. Athletes will have sufficiently competent ball-handling skills to enable them to participate in team drills that simulate game situations.
Talented athletes will, at some point in their volleyball career, have to make a choice whether or not to play at the elite level. It can be a life-changing decision, since the move to elite sport involves not just an increase in on-court training, but affects almost every aspect of their life: mental discipline, diet, off-court physical conditioning and regular long-distance travel are just some. The most physically demanding of all VbDC camps, Pre-Elite is designed for athletes whose coaches have identified them as being capable of elite performance, but who have yet to experience the elite training regime.
Busy summer for Emerging Elite head coach
Clayton Lucas, who this year is head coach for the June Emerging Elite Camp, will be flying into the camp from China, where he will be covering the FIVB Volleyball Nations League games as a broadcaster. Before that he was in Brazil to cover the new series, which began 15 May, features 12 core teams and four challenger teams for each gender. The finals are in early July, with the women’s final in Nanjing, China, on 1 July and the men wrapping up their competition in Lille, France a week later.
Lucas will be fitting in his coaching between broadcast sessions in a busy 260-match series. We know he’ll be bringing some remarkable stories to share with campers. The question is, will he be able to get enough rest to recover before his next round of broadcasting? To help, he’s been loaned a VbDC staff member’s house a short distance from the gym so he can unwind from working on one of the most exciting recent developments in international volleyball.
Ohio university gives Losada first-year court time
Former VbDC camper Alejandro Losada, who hails from Ludo, Spain, near Santiago de Compostella, has been given more court time than usual for a freshman, as he wraps up his first year as a member of the Wittenberg University men’s varsity team in Springfield, Ohio.
Losada took part in 42 sets in 21 matches of the mens’ 25-game season, and put six services aces, two blocks and 16 points on his personal scoresheet. Most first-year athletes spend the majority of their introductory season on the bench while they learn the college’s playing style. The Tigers had 17 men on this year’s squad, and finished their season in the NCAA Division III North Coast Atlantic Conference with a 14-11 record.
Masters studies scholarship for Carey
Hannah Carey, former VbDC camper and coach, has stayed on in the US after completing her bachelor’s degree at Missouri Baptist University in St. Louis, where she played volleyball for four years under a full ride scholarship, and won All-American honours in her final year as an undergraduate.
Receipt of a degree normally concludes an athlete’s career at a US university, but Carey’s performance at the school was so impressive – she also took part in the first conference beach tournament in her final semester, and took fourth place – that the university offer her a fifth year under scholarship to study for her masters degree in sports management, as an assistant in the school’s successful volleyball program.
Grimson fourth at Commonwealth Games
Jess Grimson, who decided to devote her sports career to volleyball after attending a VbDC camp, reached the quarter finals of the beach volleyball competition at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games with her partner Vicki Palmer.
Grimson attended one of the first VbDC camps as a teenager, when she was being courted by a US university to play football. Active in a variety of sports, Grimson had also taken a serious interest in volleyball and was undecided which of the two sports she wanted to focus on. Years later, as a guest speaker at a VbDC Elite Camp, she told her audience that her experience at the camp had been a factor in her decision to concentrate on the court game, which eventually led to her move to sand.
In a recent interview posted on the Volleyball England website, Grimson said one of the athletes who had inspired her to move into the sand game was Lucy Boulton, who has previously coached at a VbDC camp
Two coaches become match commentators
VbDC’s head coach for the 2018 Elite Camp, Luke Thomas, has teamed up with former England juniors coach Carol Gordon, who has also coached a VbDC camp, to become commentators for Volleyball England’s web streaming of games and tournaments. They made their debut in Kettering, Northamptonshire on the final day of the National Junior Championships, and feedback on their game analysis was sufficiently positive for them to be invited back to do further work in future streaming.
Luke Thomas
Their first effort at commentating was made technically smoother than the experience another team of anchors had on the previous day, after repairs were made to a breakdown in the audio link which had interrupted the new streaming service. But their ability to present as a team was due to work that began many years before: Gordon was Thomas’s coach when he was a member of the England Cadet squad from 2000 to 2002.
Welcome
Volleyball Development Camps ran its first event in 2005, a week-long day camp for two dozen local athletes ranging from beginners to teens who practiced with their parent’s club. Two years later there were more camps, for introducing the sport to first-timers, for adolescents who needed help learning to handle the volleyball, and for teen-agers who were beginning to play year round at higher levels.
Today there are seven levels of training in the VbDC curriculum, along with one-day workshops for positional players, programmes to help mature recreational players enjoy the game more, English language tuition for athletes from abroad, and outreach activities for schools and leisure centres. A VbDC event takes place every month. Young athletes aged 8 to 22 participate in training tailored to a particular level of ability. Aspects of the game covering players’ technical form and game tactics are introduced from early ages. Guest speakers discuss the game during lunch breaks, professional and national teams have joined the training sessions, and sports science specialists analyse individual performance. Many athletes return year after year and progress through the range of camps. Some have become friends in whom VbDC has taken an active involvement in helping them chart their sports future.
Activities have grown off court, too, with VbDC assisting athletes in their search for scholarships to US and Canadian universities, organizing courses for the qualification of game officials, and sponsoring local clubs. A sister company, Top Flight Volley, retails training equipment, balls, shoes, accessories and clothing.
But the founding guideline on which VbDC was founded has not changed over time: Assemble highly qualified coaches in the best facilities available and create a course of instruction that will help disciplined, dedicated volleyball athletes take their performance to a higher level.
Welcome to the VbDC website. Please explore it and read about our approach to volleyball training, how we structure our camps and when various programs are scheduled, who we are and the support services we offer, and the latest developments in the lives of VbDC athletes of note. You’ll quickly see how VbDC has become not only a good training programme, but a community of volleyball enthusiasts.
Enquiry Form
Would you like to learn more about Volleyball Development Camps programmes, or about one camp in particular? The form below can be used to send us an enquiry.
The form asks for a few general details, which help us be more accurate in our response to your enquiry. This information is kept only for the purpose of providing a reply. In keeping with new data protection regulations, it will not be shared with any outside organisation. It will be removed from our database after our initial contacts if you wish it to be removed.
Why do we ask for this information?
- Very general personal details, such as age and gender, enable us to know who we are discussing.
- If we know the athlete’s location and dates of availability, we will have an idea whether the athlete is likely to require a residential or language option, and for us to be prepared to help with transport and tutoring arrangements, if necessary.
- Some questions we ask about the athlete’s playing history and club association enable us to make a better recommendation on the type of camp they will benefit most from attending.
Please take the time to fill out the form if you wish to learn more about VbDC activities. The data will be used only to help you make the right choice for the athlete on whose behalf you are enquiring.
ONLINE ENQUIRY FORM
Shop
Forthcoming Events
Talented athletes will, at some point in their volleyball career, have to make a choice whether or not to play at the elite level. It can be a life-changing decision, since the move to elite sport involves not just an increase in on-court training, but affects almost every aspect of their life: mental discipline, diet, off-court physical conditioning and regular long-distance travel are just some. The most physically demanding of all VbDC camps, Pre-Elite is designed for athletes whose coaches have identified them as being capable of elite performance, but who have yet to experience the elite training regime.
Our first camp outside England, VbDC joins forces with the International School of Brussels to conduct an all-skills camp at the ISB campus. From elementary school athlete to high school varsity competitor, VbDC coaches will lead a week-long program that incorporates elements from both the Skills and Performance curricula for a range of ability.
The flagship VbDC event, the Elite Camp is designed to help refine the skills –both mental and physical – which committed elite players have been acquiring through their participation in the highest level of volleyball. It is is a limited enrolment camp to which athletes must apply to determine their eligibility. Enrolment is restricted to 24 athletes who submit videos, coach recommendations and an essay with their application. Most athletes are members of their national team, but those who play for a university or in the top division of their national league may also be considered.
A transitional camp with a curriculum designed to take the athlete from individual ball-handling drills into team-based game simulation drills. Skillz Plus doubles the hours of training as preparation for the stamina and attention required for the Performance camps. The curriculum includes revision on closed-ended ball-handling skills, but also puts the athlete into open-ended situations where they gain a fuller understanding of how competence in performing individual skills contributes to a successful team effort.
The highest level of the weekend VbDC Skills camps, in which drills are designed to train the individual athlete how to play the ball in its most basic actions: the serve; the underarm pass, or dig; the overhead pass, or set; and the attack, or spike. The curriculum calls for some scrimmaging to emphasize the importance of good ball-handling technique, but most of the camp is devoted to refining the skills needed to effectively move the ball around the court.
The weekend Pathways Camp is designed for the new volleyball player who, having had an introduction to the game, has decided to participate in a competitive school or club programme. The curriculum features drills to develop each of the basic actions required to play the three-touch game: the dig, set and spike, and the action that initiates a rally, the serve. This is the first VbDC camp in which the athlete will be expected to exhibit self-discipline and communication with the coach.
Those young athletes who enjoy their introduction to volleyball via First Stepz will then be able to sign up for the Next Stepz Camp, a half-day course that introduces the athlete to the fundamental rules of volleyball, and initiates drills to teach the basic ball-handling techniques. A little game-time fun rounds out the day to encourage use of the newly acquired skills.
In Autumn 2018 VbDC intends to convert its First Stepz Camp to an outreach programme in which primary schools, leisure centres, clubs, churches or social groups introduce volleyball to young athletes, usually of (but not limited to) primary school age. Interested organizations can contact VbDC to set up a session, and VbDC will provide the coaches and equipment for a four-hour session at a venue chosen by the host organization.
Emerging Elite is VbDC’s entry level Performance camp, with a curriculum designed for athletes who have been training and playing competitive volleyball seasonally for three or four years, or year round for at least two years. Athletes will have sufficiently competent ball-handling skills to enable them to participate in team drills that simulate game situations.
Busy summer for Emerging Elite head coach
Clayton Lucas, who this year is head coach for the June Emerging Elite Camp, will be flying into the camp from China, where he will be covering the FIVB Volleyball Nations League games as a broadcaster. Before that he was in Brazil to cover the new series, which began 15 May, features 12 core teams and four challenger teams for each gender. The finals are in early July, with the women’s final in Nanjing, China, on 1 July and the men wrapping up their competition in Lille, France a week later.
Lucas will be fitting in his coaching between broadcast sessions in a busy 260-match series. We know he’ll be bringing some remarkable stories to share with campers. The question is, will he be able to get enough rest to recover before his next round of broadcasting? To help, he’s been loaned a VbDC staff member’s house a short distance from the gym so he can unwind from working on one of the most exciting recent developments in international volleyball.
Ohio university gives Losada first-year court time
Former VbDC camper Alejandro Losada, who hails from Ludo, Spain, near Santiago de Compostella, has been given more court time than usual for a freshman, as he wraps up his first year as a member of the Wittenberg University men’s varsity team in Springfield, Ohio.
Losada took part in 42 sets in 21 matches of the mens’ 25-game season, and put six services aces, two blocks and 16 points on his personal scoresheet. Most first-year athletes spend the majority of their introductory season on the bench while they learn the college’s playing style. The Tigers had 17 men on this year’s squad, and finished their season in the NCAA Division III North Coast Atlantic Conference with a 14-11 record.
Masters studies scholarship for Carey
Hannah Carey, former VbDC camper and coach, has stayed on in the US after completing her bachelor’s degree at Missouri Baptist University in St. Louis, where she played volleyball for four years under a full ride scholarship, and won All-American honours in her final year as an undergraduate.
Receipt of a degree normally concludes an athlete’s career at a US university, but Carey’s performance at the school was so impressive – she also took part in the first conference beach tournament in her final semester, and took fourth place – that the university offer her a fifth year under scholarship to study for her masters degree in sports management, as an assistant in the school’s successful volleyball program.
Grimson fourth at Commonwealth Games
Jess Grimson, who decided to devote her sports career to volleyball after attending a VbDC camp, reached the quarter finals of the beach volleyball competition at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games with her partner Vicki Palmer.
Grimson attended one of the first VbDC camps as a teenager, when she was being courted by a US university to play football. Active in a variety of sports, Grimson had also taken a serious interest in volleyball and was undecided which of the two sports she wanted to focus on. Years later, as a guest speaker at a VbDC Elite Camp, she told her audience that her experience at the camp had been a factor in her decision to concentrate on the court game, which eventually led to her move to sand.
In a recent interview posted on the Volleyball England website, Grimson said one of the athletes who had inspired her to move into the sand game was Lucy Boulton, who has previously coached at a VbDC camp
Two coaches become match commentators
VbDC’s head coach for the 2018 Elite Camp, Luke Thomas, has teamed up with former England juniors coach Carol Gordon, who has also coached a VbDC camp, to become commentators for Volleyball England’s web streaming of games and tournaments. They made their debut in Kettering, Northamptonshire on the final day of the National Junior Championships, and feedback on their game analysis was sufficiently positive for them to be invited back to do further work in future streaming.
Luke Thomas
Their first effort at commentating was made technically smoother than the experience another team of anchors had on the previous day, after repairs were made to a breakdown in the audio link which had interrupted the new streaming service. But their ability to present as a team was due to work that began many years before: Gordon was Thomas’s coach when he was a member of the England Cadet squad from 2000 to 2002.
Forthcoming Events
Emerging Elite is VbDC’s entry level Performance camp, with a curriculum designed for athletes who have been training and playing competitive volleyball seasonally for three or four years, or year round for at least two years. Athletes will have sufficiently competent ball-handling skills to enable them to participate in team drills that simulate game situations.
Talented athletes will, at some point in their volleyball career, have to make a choice whether or not to play at the elite level. It can be a life-changing decision, since the move to elite sport involves not just an increase in on-court training, but affects almost every aspect of their life: mental discipline, diet, off-court physical conditioning and regular long-distance travel are just some. The most physically demanding of all VbDC camps, Pre-Elite is designed for athletes whose coaches have identified them as being capable of elite performance, but who have yet to experience the elite training regime.
Our first camp outside England, VbDC joins forces with the International School of Brussels to conduct an all-skills camp at the ISB campus. From elementary school athlete to high school varsity competitor, VbDC coaches will lead a week-long program that incorporates elements from both the Skills and Performance curricula for a range of ability.
The flagship VbDC event, the Elite Camp is designed to help refine the skills –both mental and physical – which committed elite players have been acquiring through their participation in the highest level of volleyball. It is is a limited enrolment camp to which athletes must apply to determine their eligibility. Enrolment is restricted to 24 athletes who submit videos, coach recommendations and an essay with their application. Most athletes are members of their national team, but those who play for a university or in the top division of their national league may also be considered.
A transitional camp with a curriculum designed to take the athlete from individual ball-handling drills into team-based game simulation drills. Skillz Plus doubles the hours of training as preparation for the stamina and attention required for the Performance camps. The curriculum includes revision on closed-ended ball-handling skills, but also puts the athlete into open-ended situations where they gain a fuller understanding of how competence in performing individual skills contributes to a successful team effort.
The highest level of the weekend VbDC Skills camps, in which drills are designed to train the individual athlete how to play the ball in its most basic actions: the serve; the underarm pass, or dig; the overhead pass, or set; and the attack, or spike. The curriculum calls for some scrimmaging to emphasize the importance of good ball-handling technique, but most of the camp is devoted to refining the skills needed to effectively move the ball around the court.
The weekend Pathways Camp is designed for the new volleyball player who, having had an introduction to the game, has decided to participate in a competitive school or club programme. The curriculum features drills to develop each of the basic actions required to play the three-touch game: the dig, set and spike, and the action that initiates a rally, the serve. This is the first VbDC camp in which the athlete will be expected to exhibit self-discipline and communication with the coach.
Those young athletes who enjoy their introduction to volleyball via First Stepz will then be able to sign up for the Next Stepz Camp, a half-day course that introduces the athlete to the fundamental rules of volleyball, and initiates drills to teach the basic ball-handling techniques. A little game-time fun rounds out the day to encourage use of the newly acquired skills.
In Autumn 2018 VbDC intends to convert its First Stepz Camp to an outreach programme in which primary schools, leisure centres, clubs, churches or social groups introduce volleyball to young athletes, usually of (but not limited to) primary school age. Interested organizations can contact VbDC to set up a session, and VbDC will provide the coaches and equipment for a four-hour session at a venue chosen by the host organization.
Busy summer for Emerging Elite head coach
Clayton Lucas, who this year is head coach for the June Emerging Elite Camp, will be flying into the camp from China, where he will be covering the FIVB Volleyball Nations League games as a broadcaster. Before that he was in Brazil to cover the new series, which began 15 May, features 12 core teams and four challenger teams for each gender. The finals are in early July, with the women’s final in Nanjing, China, on 1 July and the men wrapping up their competition in Lille, France a week later.
Lucas will be fitting in his coaching between broadcast sessions in a busy 260-match series. We know he’ll be bringing some remarkable stories to share with campers. The question is, will he be able to get enough rest to recover before his next round of broadcasting? To help, he’s been loaned a VbDC staff member’s house a short distance from the gym so he can unwind from working on one of the most exciting recent developments in international volleyball.
Ohio university gives Losada first-year court time
Former VbDC camper Alejandro Losada, who hails from Ludo, Spain, near Santiago de Compostella, has been given more court time than usual for a freshman, as he wraps up his first year as a member of the Wittenberg University men’s varsity team in Springfield, Ohio.
Losada took part in 42 sets in 21 matches of the mens’ 25-game season, and put six services aces, two blocks and 16 points on his personal scoresheet. Most first-year athletes spend the majority of their introductory season on the bench while they learn the college’s playing style. The Tigers had 17 men on this year’s squad, and finished their season in the NCAA Division III North Coast Atlantic Conference with a 14-11 record.
Masters studies scholarship for Carey
Hannah Carey, former VbDC camper and coach, has stayed on in the US after completing her bachelor’s degree at Missouri Baptist University in St. Louis, where she played volleyball for four years under a full ride scholarship, and won All-American honours in her final year as an undergraduate.
Receipt of a degree normally concludes an athlete’s career at a US university, but Carey’s performance at the school was so impressive – she also took part in the first conference beach tournament in her final semester, and took fourth place – that the university offer her a fifth year under scholarship to study for her masters degree in sports management, as an assistant in the school’s successful volleyball program.
Grimson fourth at Commonwealth Games
Jess Grimson, who decided to devote her sports career to volleyball after attending a VbDC camp, reached the quarter finals of the beach volleyball competition at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games with her partner Vicki Palmer.
Grimson attended one of the first VbDC camps as a teenager, when she was being courted by a US university to play football. Active in a variety of sports, Grimson had also taken a serious interest in volleyball and was undecided which of the two sports she wanted to focus on. Years later, as a guest speaker at a VbDC Elite Camp, she told her audience that her experience at the camp had been a factor in her decision to concentrate on the court game, which eventually led to her move to sand.
In a recent interview posted on the Volleyball England website, Grimson said one of the athletes who had inspired her to move into the sand game was Lucy Boulton, who has previously coached at a VbDC camp
Two coaches become match commentators
VbDC’s head coach for the 2018 Elite Camp, Luke Thomas, has teamed up with former England juniors coach Carol Gordon, who has also coached a VbDC camp, to become commentators for Volleyball England’s web streaming of games and tournaments. They made their debut in Kettering, Northamptonshire on the final day of the National Junior Championships, and feedback on their game analysis was sufficiently positive for them to be invited back to do further work in future streaming.
Luke Thomas
Their first effort at commentating was made technically smoother than the experience another team of anchors had on the previous day, after repairs were made to a breakdown in the audio link which had interrupted the new streaming service. But their ability to present as a team was due to work that began many years before: Gordon was Thomas’s coach when he was a member of the England Cadet squad from 2000 to 2002.