Where to begin?

[mycena]

If you had a relatively inexperienced indoor player who wanted to start playing beach.
What fundamentals would you tell them to focus their energies on getting better at?
Passing? Setting? Hitting? or something else entirely?

[Troy]

Passing.

Then serving.

Then setting.

Then spiking.

You can always freeball or cutshot if you can't hit, and you can always go over on two if you can't set, but you absolutely must be able to pass and serve.

[kvb]

That's easy!

Instead of location, location, and location.

It's passing, passing, and passing. Without that, you can forget the rest! (Oh yeah, go running in your off court time!)

Many of the clinics such as Pat Powers et al, 80% of the drills are spent on teaching beach players passing skills.

[spikedeclipse]

I agree, passing is definitely the most important skill to have when beginning any type of volleyball training, but it is definitely integral to having a solid beach game. Without the pass, you have nothing. In beach, the pass needs to control not only the elements the server creates [serve type {topspin, float, etc} and location] but the physical elements of the beach as well [wind, sun, etc]. It's very easy to learn, hard to master!

[CrazyMonkey]

Originally Posted by spikedeclipse

I agree, passing is definitely the most important skill to have when beginning any type of volleyball training, but it is definitely integral to having a solid beach game. Without the pass, you have nothing. In beach, the pass needs to control not only the elements the server creates [serve type {topspin, float, etc} and location] but the physical elements of the beach as well [wind, sun, etc]. It's very easy to learn, hard to master!

I totally agree, passing passing passing...... anyone can serve, anyone can hit a ball, but passing to a target is the key. Defense to your offense is the way to win a game.