Last week a 4th
grader emailed me and asked if I could answer a few questions for her project
on jump serving. I thought it was really cool that she chose that as her topic,
and I was so happy to help. This is what I sent back to her, answering her questions
and giving her some advice for her future volleyball career.
I think it's awesome that you are doing your project on jump
serving. Here are my answers to your questions :)
1. There are 2 different kind of
jump serves, the jump float and the jump top spin. I will explain how to do
both.
Jump Float:
This is the serve that I use in
games. It is really effective, but it takes a lot of practice. The most
important thing about this serve is your contact. You want to contact the ball
with a strong hand and solid wrist. You want to make sure you contact the ball
with mostly just your palm so you can get it to float. You don't want to follow
through on this serve, you want to stop your hand once you contact the ball.
This serve is meant to make the ball move or float back and forth, so the other
teams’ defenders have a hard time passing it. It is tricky to get this serve
right away, it takes a lot of reps. So right now, since you are so young if you
just practice the toss, footwork and jump you can worry about getting the ball
to float once you have the other stuff down. It is awesome that you are
thinking about jump serving right now. I don't think I started to jump serve
until 8th grade!
Jump Top spin:
This serve requires a toss that is
out in front of you so you can have a big approach and attack the ball. People
who use this serve usually toss it with the same hand that they are going to be
serving it with. While tossing you want to have some spin on the ball that will
carry over into the serve. You want to contact the ball high and follow through
with your arm, creating a spin on the ball. This one takes a lot of practice
and I still haven't perfected it yet.
2. The steps to do a jump serve are
just like doing your approach for attacking. If you are right handed its left,
right, left. If you are left handed its right, left, right.
3. In practice to get better and
more consistent with my jump serve I focus on my technique and take my time on
each serve.
4. For a jump top spin you should
throw the ball pretty high so you have time to do your approach and still
contact the ball high. For a float you will toss it lower because you are not
jumping as high. I will attach some videos of each serve so you can see what
the tosses are like.
5. If you step over the service line
before you contact the ball then the other team gets the point. When you are
jump serving you can jump over the line and contact the ball as long as you
don't land before contact.
6. Some advice for you would be
never give up. I had a dream of playing Division 1 volleyball since I was your
age and I never gave up and the hard worked paid off. I just recently committed
to Loyola University in Chicago to play volleyball. Just always believe in
yourself and keep working hard. Play whenever you can, even if it's just
passing or setting the ball against your house, if it's ok with your parents :)
Just getting extra touches on the ball will improve your skills.
Hope this helps and good luck with
your project!
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