Co-director of the Sports Performance Volleyball Club and co-owner of the Great Lakes Center in Aurora, Illinois.
She has been part of 67 National Championships and coached in Gold Medal National Championship matches in 14's, 16's and 18's. Her travels have included Japan, China and Dominican Republic with the SPVB 18 Elite Team.
In volleyball, movement skills are the most important first skills to teach to young players. In this video, Cheryl Butler demonstrates how to incorporate movement and ball control drills into every practice in a short amount of time.
Coach Butler introduces a series of volleyball specific movement drills that will not only warm-up players, but teach proper moving technique required to excel in the sport of volleyball. These movement drills are great for volleyball players of all ages, but Butler stresses that it is best if these are introduced to girls at a younger age, even before they start to learn how to play volleyball.
She uses two different age groups to demonstrate each drill. Players aged 11-13 are taken through the more advanced version of each drill while Coach Butler also shows how to modify each drill for kids ranging in first through fifth grades. Being able to modify these drills for younger players will help establish a great foundation at an earlier age.
Movement Drills for Warm-up
To start, Coach Butler demonstrates how to get players warmed up using volleyball movements without a ball. This "active warm-up" is how her teams start every practice. Eight different shuffle drills are shown that can be completed in less than 10 minutes that work on defensive posture, shuffle steps, directional movements and change of direction. A blocking movement drill is also shown, with a variation that can be used with very young players.
Coaches will find this very beneficial for their practice as players are executing volleyball movements and warming up properly at the same time.
Ball Control Movement Drills
Many ball control drills are done while the athletes are stationary, which is unrealistic to the sport of volleyball. Coach Butler presents a series of movement drills that focus on ball control. These drills work on the skills of passing and setting while being in motion. These drills will never have an athlete touch the ball while standing still. They all require movement and many of them will work on controlling the ball outside the midline of the body.
Partner drills are shown (can be used with both platform passing and overhead passing) that require court movement in order to keep the ball alive. Serve receive movements are practiced during a drill that requires players to move forward to receive short serves, and drop and shuffle back to receive deep serves. Coaches who are looking to improve their serve receive passing will find these drills very beneficial and easy to insert into practice immediately.
Defensive Movement Drills
The final section of the video focuses on defense and movement drills. These drills create very fast paced and chaotic situations where players will need to stay under control and dig the ball to target. The drills are multi-player drills that will also require a high level of communication to be used among players involved in the drill. The intensity of these drills will really help players prepare for the pace of fast action rallies in game situations.
Movement is the basis of all skills. If athletes can understand the proper way to move to a ball they will be more successful in each skill. Coach Butler gives you many great drills to help you get your players moving.
Produced at the 2014 AVCA Spring Clinic in Chicago, IL.
"The great part is with every drill that she presents with talented 13U players demonstrating, she also uses a group of 1st-5th grade players to demonstrate a modified version of the drill so they can be successful as well. The skills and drills that are being worked on are things that even college players need to practice on a regular basis." - Shawn Stoliker
56 minutes. 2015.