Oh! Where do you guys play? I have been there for a vacation for a week back in the days and actually cpnsidered if it could be a good winter hideout, but haven't known if theres any volleyball! :)

Thank you so much. It is really fun/good/empowering to hear that people are actually picking up what I am creating these videos for. In one sense, this project is a frustration project (😅), when I started playing beach vb I thought I vould just go online and find someone who had done good tutorials/online courses that I'd be able to learn from.. Turned out nobody had done anything that I considered "high quality".. So sooner or later I ended up trying to produce that quality material myself haha. Still LOTS of work to be done before I have the "all aspects of becoming good at this sport" type of project that I am envisioning becoming reality.. But you guys are helping, I wouldn't be creating this if I didn't see people were interested in the way I break down/explain things.. I'd just leave the information in my own head to only be enjoyed by myself haha, but this is better to see that there are similar minds out there!

Yess, that is true.. One of the ways to cope mentally during these years has been to figure out more stuff about my physical body, and honestly I today at 33 years old feel like my body is in better shape than probably ever in the past 10 years at least. One thought I have had has been, since I have such a grand vision/plan for this project, maybe the harsh reality is that prepandemic Alex wasn't "tough" enough to make that vision reality, and that this pandemic with all its problems came hard at me to make me better (both mentally and physically as you say), so that I am after the pandemic strong enough to pull off what I am trying to create here. Who knows, I guess he who lives will see. This made me remember that I still haven't created the video where I outline my actual vision with what I want to make this project into, gotta tackle that one day also. I can talk all day along about a "grand vision" but people won't understand what I mean unless I at least provide a means to take part of what it means.. 😅

Nice! I was actually in contact with a guy in Cape Town last year and considered it..! Ended up in Mexico instead though, for better or worse I don't know! Now actually something I'm curious about, how is the beach space in Cape Town? Is there a lot of space to set up courts, or is it limited? I have realized I have a much easier time getting my stuff done in places where there is always "more space to be found" so that one day when I want to set up my own net for either recording a video, doinng some specific training with a partner, or playing some specific games, this is actually possible. Some of these beach volleyball communities there is realistocally only space for a few courts, and those courts are full of pickup/challenge games and I end up in a situation where it's impossible/very difficult for me to get certain parts of what I need to do to get done.. Then again other places have huge streches of empty beach so theres no problem at all just walking further down the beach to set another court up.. Soo.. do you know which of these options Cape Town would be? 😅

@@LearnBeachVolleyballFast so in capetown you got two beaches where u can play. a big and a small one. depending on the wind and the directions its coming from you will need to set up at the smaller beach. there it can get quite packed. if you there early like 8am you shouldnt have problems finding a spot though. at the bigger beach we never ran out of space, so you would be able to film for sure. wind can be a factor though in capetown, so you get days where you cant play at all. In average we managed to find people to play and set up with like three times a week. we a striving for more though this year. :D always depends what effort you put into the community.

but yeah if you got your people to train with you could play every day with your own net, as long as the wind allows it. hope i could answer your question. :D ill be happy to answer more, just need to check my yt more frequently :)

@@tottepups7539 Nice, thank you, this is super helpful! Good to hear the big beach has "unlimited" space, that is a very big factor for me! :) So the wind is not constantly more or less the same for the whole winter (which is pretty much the case in Bali and Playa Del Carmen, Mexico), but you say within a week there can be both windless days and days with strong wind? Isn't there surfing in Cape Town also?

@@LearnBeachVolleyballFast yes, it feels like the wind is changing every day. :D There is surfing 30 mins below capetown in muizenberg and kite surfing another 30 min drive to the north in bloeberg. You could so some filming there but there aswell. But for playing volleyball its camps bay beach and clifton 4th in capetown. If you thinking about going i would need to give you a fair warning. The crime rate in south africa is quite high. So moving in the outer slums or "townships" you would be only able to go together with a local you know and if you move around in the city you should pay attention to where you`re going and to not flash your phone carelessly. What i just thought of: If you would set up a camera at the big beach "camps bay", it would be good to have a second person protecting it from youngsters using the chance to take your equipment. at the others beaches you should be fine to film without worrying about that. And if you are there early in the morning you will always be able to find a spot to film at one of the clifton beaches or outside of town. Sorry for the late replies, i will try to check yt more often. :)

Yes, nice "E-meeting" you! 😀😅 What types of videos are you thinking of making? :)

just speaking of the right side part, being able to turn that ball down line is a difficult skill, but if one can do it consistently, I like coming in at an angle, so I can see more/hit a sharper angle. My issue is, when the ball is not pushed further out, it can be quite difficult getting your shoulder to the ball. Whereas if you go from the inside to the outside, you have a better chance of having your shoulder on the ball but I find it makes hitting certain angles harder. If you are getting consistently good sets, then it shouldn't be a big issue, but if the sets are more inside than you want, so to speak, I find approaching at a 90 degree and then going to the outside can be easier.

@@Itstime1231 Let's see I wanna reply to both of you, now J got tagged but I hope Frederic gets the notification also.. Soo yes, during this session which is just a hitting session without a blocker and defender on the other side, my intention was mostly to explore the extreme ends of the range of my hitting possibilities. As you both allude to, being able to hit "outside of your shoulder" to the right, is something a lot of players can't do and blockers and defenders don't expect hitters to be able to do, so I put a relatively high value on being able to do that, it simply opens up more strategical options later on. When I actually play, I try to come in with some angle on both the left and the right side. Coming in with a lot of angle on the left makes one have to do a quite agressive side shuffle out after the pass, which is both somewhat energy consuming, and time consuming (meaning there's just not enough time to do it in certain "worse than optimal" passing situations, or when it is very windy and you want to keep the ball low), therefore I value the ability to be able to hit outsidethe shoulder because then there is not as much of a need to move far outside to approach with an angle. However, probably in games I do come in with a bit more angle on the left than I did in a lot of the hits in this video. On the right side, you both summed it up pretty perfectly. It takes a setter who knows what they are doing if you want to come in with an angle, but coming in with an angle just raises the percentage of situations where you have vision, and as long as you can hit "outside of your shoulder", the line hit is still available even if you come in with an angle. All of this being said, I have to put a disclaimer that I in a sense haven't put my mind into every detail of strategy yet haha. I have been more focused on learning the "hardware" or "technical aspects" of the hit to basically maximize my possibilities and utility.. The exact details of what strategy I'll end up playing will ultimately depend a bit on who I'm playing with in the future. But so far, when I play the right side, I enjoy having a good setter and coming in with a bit of an angle, it seems like a relatively successful approach for me! :)

Hahah joo ha lärt mig bättre nu äntligen! 😅

Hey! I'm no expert at removing valves because I have actually never been able to do it myself haha, but if I understand you right you changed the valve successfully but there are now some pieces inside? Maybe you can change the valve again and get the stuff out at the same time?

Yess, I ended up not losing so much work because I had pretty good backups, but I have backed up everything even better now! It was a fair bit of work installing all the programs and finding all the backups etc to the new computer though, actually it's still far from all done..! Regarding the abs when hitting, it's a type of movement that your body needs to get used to (if it isn't already) that is maybe easiest to learn from some specific drills, then to be transferred to the game. Idea is sort of to "catapult" your arm into movement with your core, rather than "making the arm move" with shoulder and arm muscles.. Does that make any sense? Regarding passing, I'd say that is something different. Definitely also uses core and arms but not at all the same mechanics! :)

@@LearnBeachVolleyballFast Thank You!

@@LearnBeachVolleyballFast Yes, the "Catapult your arm" idea makes sense to me. I think the most healthy and gifted athletic players already know how to naturally jump high and hit a ball very hard. They don't need to think about how to break down each movement. They just do it and then because they are so athletic they are physically able to do extra things that others are not able to do or do not think about doing because they are just not on that level mentally or physically.

@@robertcarrera8533 Yes I agree with you, some people that are "naturally gifted" (maybe I would prefer to say "has learned enough similar movements and overall body control in their younger years") can figure it out very quickly without thinking much.. Then there's the rest of us that didn't get it "for free" haha, and I find there is a lot of enjoyment in trying to figure out how also we can end up playing high level ball one day! 😅

Yess, basically! So in a sense, in this session I was more exploring the physical limitations of my technique, than trying to do what always might be smartest tactically during a game. But basically I want to be able to hit "to the right" from my bodyline because there are some advantages to it: 1. It allows you to hit cross in more situations from the left side, in certain non-optimal situations you do not have the time to "move out" so that you can come in with an angle from the left. Also, you can save some energy in your legs/body if you avoid the big outside move which can be good especially if tired/need to save energy for some reason. 2. Blockers and defenders often don't expect a player to be able to hit in that direction. Surprise attacks=often an advantage for the attacker. 3. From the right side you can still hit line, even if you want to approach with an "outside-in" angle. Coming in with an angle on the right side helps with vision (and possibly with other things also) which can be very useful, especially in situations where the pass has been bad/far off the net. My strategy/philosophy is sort of that I want to have a hitting technique that can handle everything, so that I then get maximum flexibility/possibilities in my playing style/strategies later on. Hope this makes sense! :)

@@LearnBeachVolleyballFast Makes complete sense. Never thought about the impact the approach line left vs. right has on my vision. Though hitting like that from my experience puts additional strain on your shoulder = / It is a little unrelated topic, but I have in general issues with my vision with "standard" high up and down sets and personally actually prefer "wider" sets that are "lower" because it allows me to keep court, oponents and ball in one view without shifting my head up and down to track them separately. Do you experiment with that as well?

@@atfirstiamhuman9183 Yess..! So it probably puts strain on peoples shoulders to hit like that, but that has been a part of the mission with figuring my spiking technique out to understand how to hit that angle without it straining your shoulder.. And I'd say it's working, I can hit in that direction all day and it doesn't strain my shoulder at all, actually on that day I recorded those spikes I had probably at least 80-90 spikes in that direction, no shoulder pain! :) Regarding the set height, I completely agree with you. Much easier to see the court and know whats up with the lower sets. In windy conditions there is even more advantages with it, or I'd almost say it is a must to play lower in windy conditions to play high level ball. However, if the setter is good, and the conditions are pretty much windless, the higher sets can be nice too. When playing in indoor facilities that have deep sand I find it easier to play with relatively high sets.. So I think it kinda depends on both the conditions and your partners setting skill, but I very much encourage everyone to experiment with different setting heights.. I feel like at least in Europe and the US there is a bit of an unspoken standard towards high sets (it's like some people barely know it is even possible to play well with lower sets) that I believe is holding the skill level down somewhat even.. Asian players in general I'd say are much more prone to run fast plays, it's like much more built in to the volleyball culture there. Experiment with different setting heights and learn to play with different heights and learn to figure out when to use which height is kinda my conclusion... Unless you have a stable partner and whatever you guys are doing is working, then just keep doing that! :)

Another thing that I do to and i'm still doing is learning to serve and hit with my left arm. When I play matches for fun or against far worse players, I realised that I can give my right shoulder a break by using the left arm for serving and hitting (not spiking) Learning to spike with the left arm looks for me like a bigger deal, but after a couple of months training I have a pretty decent serve with my left arm and I can hit balls with strength (at the moment working on precision). At the beginning it looks impossible, like my serves wouldn't even reach the net, but it improves faster than I thought.

@@JP-xe3qo Thanks alot! I have heard about hanging, and have done a decent amount of it, however this video did add a few tweaks to it that got me curious.. Will play around with this a little bit and see if it helps! Thanks for sharing the video! :) Regarding learning to use the left, I agree, and I've been playing around with it also! I can serve with my left, hit decently with my left (with a right hand approach) and also played around a bit with learning the left handed approach.. There's a part of me that wants to learn to hit properly left handed just for the hell of it haha. During my shoulder injury I ended up playing a lot with the tomahawk attack (Eric Nygård style, not sure if you've seen my videos about it), and I'd say I benefit from it today, gives me a few more options if the set is bad or I'm just tired or sore from a workout and play more casual games. The left hand training sort of lost its urgency when my right shoulder started working sustainably again, but plan is to continue developing it on "off days" just for fun, we'll see. Have you noticed a difference from these hanging excercises?

@@LearnBeachVolleyballFast Yes, that's why I mentioned it. While other exercises were impossible to do because of the pain, this was the only one that would diminish the pain and allowed for more shoulder mobility.

@@JP-xe3qo Nice! For me, stretching my lats made a huge difference, but hanging and especially th side to side swings probably do that partially also! Hows the shoulder pain nowadays, you can play with it fully when you want to?