My Own Experience Of Playing Volleyball For Seven Years

I’ve been playing volleyball for seven years now. During my fifth year of playing volleyball, My skills were behind everyone else on the team. I was bumped down to the freshmen team even though I was a sophomore. My coach recommended I go and play beach volleyball to help me improve. I had no clue what she was talking about at the time. I didn’t realize how hard beach volleyball was until I actually played. After a summer of experiencing beach volleyball and returning back to play indoor volleyball, I realized how much I’ve improved.

But people would look at me funny when I told them I played beach volleyball when they asked me what I did to improve. Beach volleyball and indoor volleyball are not the same.

The biggest difference between the two versions are the number of players that can be on the court. Indoor volleyball requires six players on the court with other team members sitting out and subbing in when it’s their turn to get into their positions.

The positions for volleyball are, setter, outside hitter, middle hitter, server, and more. While playing beach volleyball, I realized how much more effort you have to put into the game. The goal of both games are the same. You have to make the other team drop the ball in order to get the point. But beach volleyball requires only two players on the court and there are no other teammates to sub in. If one of the two players cannot participate then they must forfeit the match.

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Having two players means there are no set positions. The hardest position to play is the setter.

Being a setter means the team will always pass you the ball for you to pass it back to them so they can attack the other side. So in summary, every play relies on you. Normally setters will set the ball by using their fingertips to toss the ball high up in the air for the team, but since beach volleyball is played on the sand instead of the even ground, the best method to set is to bump set. Bump setting is using both of your arms to hit the ball up to your players.

My coach used to say shopping for volleyball is essentially like shopping for prom and she was right. Indoor volleyball is way more expensive than beach volleyball. With multiple players on the court comes the uniforms. Everyone on an indoor volleyball team is required to to wear a jersey when their volleyball number printed on the front and back. Usually the jersey is long sleeved and the colors matches the school’s color theme. Having a jersey number makes it easier for the referee to identify players on the court and switch them out. My jersey number throughout high school was the number nine and I always subbed in for the number eleven. With beach volleyball, you do not want to be wearing a long sleeve shirt while playing outside in the sun. Normally beach volleyball players would just wear their swim suits because of the sand. The plus side about playing beach volleyball is that you don’t need to wear knee pads and shoes. For indoor volleyball, since it’s not sand that you’re playing on, you’re required to have knee pads to break your fall. Knee pads are as cheap as $25 and range up to $155. The more padding the more money. Specific shoes for volleyball is a must also. You can wear regular athletic shoes to play but you won’t perform as well. My volleyball shoes were $120 and I wore them only indoors.

As I’ve said before, the goal of both versions is to get the other team to drop their ball. But two different versions means two different sets of rules. One rule that was hard for me to adjust to was the illegal tips. In indoor volleyball, you are aloud to tip the ball over the net. Tipping the ball in volleyball is using your fingertips to lightly tap the ball over the net. Players usually tip to throw the other team off instead of a usual spike. I tip the ball whenever I know that my spike won’t make it. While playing beach volleyball I had to come up with different ways to get the ball over the net because fingertip play is illegal. Another rule that is different for both versions is that you can cross the net when playing beach volleyball, but you cannot cross it when playing indoor volleyball. When playing indoor volleyball, they are more strict when it comes to net action. There are two people standing at the net watching at all times. If you even move the slightest bit across that line under the net, they will count it as you moving to the other side and give the point to the other team. In beach volleyball since the ground is uneven and the sand makes you slide everywhere, they do not mind if you cross under the net, so long as you don’t interfere with the play.

These two versions of volleyball are hard to play in their own way. By saying that beach volleyball is harder to play, I am not saying that indoor volleyball is easy. It all depends the player. Indoor volleyball allows you to rest and be able to rely on others. If helps you become more open and trust that your teammates will have your back. But if you’re looking for room to improve, beach volleyball allows you to think and move quicker. Both sports have given me a fun experience.