Publisher: Championship Productions
Year: 2002
Coach: John Dunning – Head Coach, Stanford University Womens Volleyball
Length: 63 Minutes
Cost: $29.99
TheVolleyballTeacher rating:

This DVD is very valuable, especially when it’s double the length of many similar DVDs and about $10 less. John Dunning is a great educator and developer of talent. He uses this video to show both players how to train to be better setters, and coaches how to train theirs. It features one player and an assistant coach and they do a good job of demonstrating while Coach Dunning is talking over the microphone.

Part One: Introduction

Coach Dunning begins the video with a ten minute discussion about a few things to get players to understand the concepts of becoming a good setter:

• The four primary phases of setting.
• What factors are involved in a successful offense.
• What the role of the setter is.
• What it takes to be a great setter.

This section may seem like a waste of valuable DVD runtime for someone reading this review, but I’m sure coaches can agree that its necessary to understand the role of the setter if a player plans to become one or become better at the position. Many of the items above are based on Coach Dunning’s personal coaching opinion and he states that a few times, but coaches can also change the bullet points when needed based on what fits their philosophy. As I watched this section, I couldn’t help but compare all of my setters to his ideals and I tend to agree with everything he mentions as being important to the position and team as a whole.

Part Two: Instruction

Coach Dunning uses the method of “Single Item Focus Training”. What this means is that most of the training in this video includes the entire repetition of the act of setting, but the player is told to focus on only one thing. Once the player understands the focal point, the coach then moves on to another. The focal points can be similar to the following:

• Foot position
• Hand position
• Body rhythm
• Arm extension
• Follow through, etc.

Once the form is correct in each case, Coach Dunning moves on to training for special situations including; look away sets, jump sets, one foot jump sets, dumping (to each zone), quick sets and one hand sets. The “Fan drill” is used to ensure that the setter is receiving tosses from every location on the court as well. This drill is used throughout to help the setter understand how to adjust to out of system plays in match.

Conclusion:

This DVD instruction has a great coach in John Dunning and is aimed at the intermediate setter that wants to be better, or the advanced setter that needs to retrain their technique. As a coach, I would recommend this DVD highly as I learned a lot about drilling setters independently and encouraging muscle memory. The price isn’t too bad either.

If you are interested in purchasing this DVD, go get it at http://www.championshipproductions.com. BWSHGWWJ3CZ4