🏐 John Dunning part 2.

Welcome to The VolleyBrains Weekly. It’s that time again. Let’s go!

Here's what we've got this week

• John Dunning’s Masterclass part 2 🔥

• Striking out swinging (science huh?!) 🧪

• Stanford practice: High hands setting

• BQT: Big Quote Time 🥇

• Cooking up a new practice session 👩‍🍳

John Dunning on VolleyBrains

Last Sunday we launched part 2 of 2 of our extended call with John Dunning.

In there John talks about:

• John's concept of continuous improvement

• Why we need to improve the 3 weakest skills in US volleyball

• Which are the 5 most important player characteristics

• The number one thing John excelled in and helped remove other coaching weaknesses

• Why thinking you know it all is an expensive mistake to make

• and so much more, ...

Coach Dunning’s dedication to mastering the craft of coaching is so obvious.

He spoke very openly and thoughtfully about his own never-ending process of becoming a better coach, the technical side of the game, and what he expects coaches and players to put more emphasis on.

Here are 2 very short clips from our 2-hour call.

Question: What is an unusual habit or an absurd thing that you love?

Question: What new belief, behaviour, or habit has most improved your life?

HUGE!

Go and check out part 2.

Click below or go to volleybrains.com.

Striking Out Swinging.

Story time:

You remember that time when Babe Ruth was asked to sell hotdogs and beer during the 7th inning stretch, only to hit a homer in the 8th?

Okay, that never happened, but what if I told you that doing tasks outside your specialty might actually boost your game?

Using archival data from 22 years of MLB games this study concludes that tasks outside your area of specialization channels into better performance in your area of expertise.

Table 1: Light blue area = Pitchers ‘poor’ batting performance

Table 2: Pitcher Performance After Pitcher Did vs. Did Not Bat

Table 2 shows that ‘the effect’ isn’t huge and that it wears off over time…but it seems to hold up.

So next time your goofy 7 ft middle ‘needs’ to try that in-game jump serve…let him. 😅 

…and send us the footage.

On that Cardinal roll

Between coach Dunning’s double whopper and Kevin Hambly’s 40 minutes practice video we’ve been on a serious Stanford roll here over at VolleyBrains

Last one, we (don’t) promise.

Team Canada is Paris 2024 bound

This is a quote from one of our earlier Masterclasses with Canada’s and Zaksa Kedzierzyn’s (the best club team in the world?) Tuomas Sammelvuo.

Keep your team and yourself to high standards. 🫡

Coming up on VolleyBrains

We’re cooking up our next expert practice video article. Going LIVE next Sunday.

As a sneak peek: these are the coaches notes.

Full access, as always, will be for VolleyBrains Members only.

To our VB members. We love this.

Nothing beats coaches being happy and satisfied with the work we put in.

Thank YOU!

If you like this newsletter, please forward it to other coaches and players. It only takes you 5 seconds. Can't thank you enough! ❤️

Thanks for your support.

See you in 2 weeks.

Matias