Anything that Karch says regarding volleyball technique should be taken as gospel.

Karch meant by "no one told me in 40 years to take it in my middle line". Watch the video as Karch makes contact wit the ball. His arms are off to the left side of his left hip. Then watch one of the girls pass and watch how her arms are directly in front of her body or passing the ball in the mid-line. In short, she is making contact with the ball with her arms/hands between her hips, in front of her body, or again in the mid-line. Taking the ball off center near the outer part of the hip is what he wants players to do.

No one ever told him to "take it in your midline" because back then the phrase was "strike at thy mid-furrow" referring to the rut created by the old-style man- or horse-drawn farming implement, the plow, which boys of his (and my) generation understood well. With advancements in technology multiple furrows would later be cut at once. That along with the move from an agrarian to a manufacturing and services economy, and the resulting urbanization, caused the old technique we might call "midline" to fall out of favor.

The term "midline" is out there for novice coaches like me, that work with young players (age 8-13) that don't play club, or are at small schools. (Our high school has 54 kids in it.) The experts tell us for the girls to receive the ball along the middle of their bodies. After employing this technique, I can see the benefits. Girls have to actually move their feet to get the ball in that 'midline' position. These are stick-in-the-mud girls that MUST move to get free balls. The problem is, these girls, then, do not do well with digs that are not straight to them. With a faster ball going by, their platforms are late. I've made it a priority to teach the difference between a midline free ball pass and digging with these type of players. I can see why Karch doesn't get it, because he's such a go-getter that nobody had to EVER tell him to hustle, and in turn, his players and/or teammates are giving very high effort most all of the time. I'm not Karch and I don't inspire movement like he does by just walking on the court. I'm a short, fat, old, converted football coach trying to get young players to move, or as Karch might say, "get their feet to the ball," a difficult, even monumental task.

Face the ball, angle the platform. This principal never changes.

I almost NEVER pass a ball midline (to be honest, I didn't know there was a technical term for it). I purposely avoid "midline" passing because by taking the ball to the side (even if it's slightly to the side), it allows me to better triangulate where the ball's going and it also gives me a fraction of a second longer to track the ball.

very interesting video. I would like to understand what coach Karch meant by "no one told me in 40 years to take it in my middle line". could someone explain this remark further? should it have been said, or is it something one doesn't want to do?

What does he mean by, "take it in your mid line"?

I think he is saying that nobody had to tell him to pass midline because the game teaches the game. If you let your kids play volleyball in a random environment for an extended period of time, they will figure out that passing midline is the most effective way to pass a ball.

What does Coach Karch consider 'game like conditions'? Are the drills he is showing here considered 'game like'? If so, what is the chaos and randomness in them?

King Karch

In 27 years of coaching, I have never taught passing in the midline. Volleyball is not a linear game, its a triangular game. We are always triangulating the ball from a source to a target at some angle. It is also a 3D game, not 2D. This is tempo. If you want kids to move but not become victims of the "midline" pass fallacy, just stress to touch the ball in the "midzone" which is defined as roughly between knees and width of the shoulders and "tanden" or core behind the ball. This way they can use the reflection angles of their shoulders/platform to redirect to target. But I 100% concur to face the source of the ball, not the target. I won't say left hip all the time, because the angle related to server location related to court position related to target location doesn't require left hip every time. I do not agree that game teaches the game because science does not support it. If you read Talent Code, our biology actually is not random based learning. It's about deep focused learning and practice. It's about repetition and the acquisition of myelin around the neural pathways to hone our skill to levels in which they are performed unconsciously. Playing the game teaches us to handle the struggle and learn from that struggle which is an important component to success, but it is not the best way to acquire the habits of skill. If that were the case, why would military pilots have flight simulators? Why not just stick them in a plane, let them fly and figure it out through the randomness? Well, that doesn't work without a skill set to start flying initially. Game teaches the game is true, but it doesn't teach skill. Repetition teaches skill. The game without skill is just as meaningless as having skills and not utilizing them properly in a game.