That being said, I’ve been employing these techniques from the day I learned them. I’ve also employed them with the girls I coach in my club and in my high school.

Do not confuse what everyone else does with progressive teaching styles. What we were taught when we were kids? Lift with your legs. Watch great liberos. What do they do? A commen above states that it is for D I or olympic. I would say that it uses those concepts. THey are treid and true. Watch the weaker players in the camps progress to be stronger, more confident, more able players after the first day.

I can speak for certain that if players stick with it, they are better players. I do not have any olympic or D I candidates on my teams, but I can tell you that all of them are better with these techniques than they would have been anyway.

Also, I am CAP Level II certified. You’ll notice if you piece it together that was USA Volleyball’s training program provides and what Pat provides are similiar, but teaching the same thing (and even the same thing the ‘old school teaches)…which is quiet platform, little arm movement and stable base. Those concepts have been throughout time.

I continue to support his camps as an assistant because i have seen when you embrace the technique and teach it to young players the outcome is significantly better. Also, remember, every player is different and what one player has working, another player may never get to work.

Good luck and I hope to see you all in NJ next year.

My sons and I played a volleyball match Sunday night after the clinic.

My sons played better and older son was exited about how many kills he got by reading the block better.

I definitely got an immediate improvement in my defense and my offense. I was much better at reading the hitters and the blockers. Also, Pat’s suggestions on communications were easy to apply immediately and effective.

I am going to have a much harder time correcting my swing and my approach. It will take a while to re-program my muscle memory to correct these skills. When I try to swing using what Pat taught me I feel like I am hitting with my left hand. This is why I think it would be better for young players to learn these skill earlier and not wait until they have developed bad habits.

I agree with Osaez though and would wait until a player has at least 1 years experience in a good volleyball program.

We will definitely attend next year.

I was one of the coaches working at the clinic this weekend at CHerry Hill. It was my first camp working with Pat Powers but it’s so hard to imagine how any of his camps – which essentially are the same at each location – could involve 5 hours of sitting in an 8 hour time frame. If averaged for the days at Cherry Hill I would say that a maximum of 10 to 15 minutes per hour were spent with Pat teaching and the kids asking questions while the rest of the time was spent in drills and with a great deal of feedback being given on each of the skills being taught. As an exercise physiologist and a guy pretty knowledgeable in motor learning and training I can tell you that the ratio of teaching, drilling and feedback given to the campers was pretty outstanding. This was a very hands-on camp.

I have coached women’s college volleyball, girls juniors, boys varsity high school, and boys juniors for several years and have also attended some of the top clinics in the country, including the Gold Medal Squared clinic and although Pat may have some different ideas on certain skills than some other coaches I can honestly say that I felt that just about all of the skills being taught were highly transferrable to the court and made almost immediate performance improvements transpire as the players learned the skills. Whether the players were advanced girls juniors or experienced AA/Open level club players or pretty obvious beginners I could see actual learning and improvements taking place in what amounted to a 24 hour period of time. This is impressive regardless of whether you believe or follow a different system of coaching.

Being teachable and open to learning should be a process that happens until the day you die and I would encourage people to be open to breaking or challenging their dearly held coaching paradigms. After all, how many times has Tiger Woods gone back to the drawing board to change his swing only to come back an even better player?

Happy Holidays!

Yes, we did spend some time sitting while Pat explained skills and techniques. but, it was certainly less than 10% of the time. most of the time was spent running drills to reinforce each skill and some time palying survivor.

I saw definite improvements in abilities of just about all players during the weekend. except for possibly a couple real newbies.

I will comment more tommorow. We have to leave to play a volleyball match tonight.