Receiving vs Digging

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For any team to win the game, the defence is definitely a crucial part of the game, before they are able to conduct an offence. At some in the game, every player will definitely be digging a ball, but not necessarily receiving the ball, especially for the setter and the subset. Although both movements are technically the same, there are some minor differences in the way you receive a float ball and dig a spike ball.

The ready positions for both receiving and digging are the picture that is shown above, not bending down too low to prevent you from moving quickly to another position and not standing up too high to prevent you from being in a right angle to receive the ball. If you are trying out the stance now, basically your palms should be facing forward while you naturally arch your back forward, as if you are in a resting position, after maybe running a 2.4km. Next, your feet should be spaced at around shoulder width apart and one foot in front of the other. This is your starting position for both receiving and digging. When receiving or digging, the platform which you are receiving should be as wide as possible, therefore if you were to open up both of your palms and place them together, this is the ideal way to receive a ball, however with a strong spike or serve, it is generally not practised since the surface would be unstable. Therefore most people would rather clench both of their hands together to create that stability.

Take note that when the ball is being served or spiked at you, at the moment of contact by the opponent, you should already be at the place where you want to be and not moving. Even if you are not in the correct position, there is a higher chance to receive the ball up if you first read the ball instead of trying to rush to that ‘ideal’ position. Keep in mind when receiving or digging a ball, the ball will go where you angle your hands to be. This idea may sound simple or even common sense, but most people still do not understand what this really means.

The key difference between receiving and digging would be the type of ball that is being thrown at you. A float serve is a rather clean serve which floats in a straight direction and sometimes may even drop in front of you while a spike or spike serve is one which has a topspin characteristic to it. In order to receive a float serve, you must be able to read where the ball is going in terms of the front-back distance and left-right distance between where the ball is going to land and where you are currently standing at. A general guideline would be to face the server when he is about to serve and when the ball leaves the servers hand, upon contact you should already know which direction the ball is going to go and when the ball reaches the halfway mark of the opponents’ court, you should already know where the ball should be landing. Knowing that the ball is rather clean and usually not rotating, to receive this kind of balls, we need to be low enough when we are at the correct position and try to provide a base stable enough to return the ball in a comfortable manner to the setter, preferably away from the net. Usually, the point where you receive the ball should be between both of your legs and at the 7-8 o’clock position if you were to draw a clock over your head, with 12 pointing towards the ceiling and 6 pointing towards the ground.

• courtesy of ThoughtCo

As for digging a ball if you think about it, in open competitions such as the Series 1, the height of the net set is 243cm and this is the same height that international players are playing. But the difference between us and them would be the fact that they are generally taller than us and sometimes they even jump higher than us. Therefore, 1 important rule that we need to know is that we should always stay low. Generally, if we are at the positions where we should be which I’ll cover in my later posts, we should be able to receive the balls up. Even if it is not a perfect receive, as long as the ball is high up, the chance of winning a point is always there for your taking.

To receive a dig, apart from the position when we should stand and stay low, we should take note of the strength of the spike. As a spiker, we should all know that we have different weapons in our inventory, a hard spike, a roll shot, a tip, a long spike, etc…. The list goes on. As always, we should prepare for a hard spike by staying low and trying to bring your hips lower than the point where you dig the ball. If you look at the picture above his right knee is almost touching the floor, sometimes you may even be squatting at a height which is lower than that. But what really matters is the position of his hands, they are straight and stable and pointing towards the setter #11. Sometimes, you may even need to absorb the ball by falling backwards, thereby bringing your hips lower than the point where you receive the ball.

In all, receiving a volleyball generally receives less ‘glory’ than spiking a ball, however, all of us ought to learn how to do it properly so that we can conduct our offence more efficiently and more frequently. If we are able to do so, the competitiveness of Volleyball would be raised up higher here in Singapore.

The ready positions for both receiving and digging is the picture that is shown above, not bending down too low to prevent you from moving quickly to another position and not standing up too high to prevent you from being in a right angle to receive the ball. If you are trying out the stance now, basically your palms should be facing forward while you naturally arch your back forward, as if you are in a resting position, after maybe running a 2.4km. Next your feet should be spaced at around shoulder width apart and one foot in front of the other. This is your starting position for both receiving and digging. When receiving or digging, the platform which you are receiving should be as wide as possible, therefore if you were to open up both of your palms and place them together, this is the ideal way to receive a ball, however with a strong spike or serve, it is generally not practiced since the surface would be unstable. Therefore most people would rather clench both of their hands together to create that stability.

Take note that when the ball is being served or spiked at you, at the moment of contact by the opponent, you should already be at the place where you want to be and not moving. Even if you are not in the correct position, there is a higher chance receive the ball up if you first read the ball instead of trying to rush to that ‘ideal’ position. Keep in mind when receiving or digging a ball, the ball will go where you angle your hands to be. This idea may sound simple or even common sense, but most people still do not understand what this really means.

The key difference between receiving and digging would be the type of ball that is being thrown at you. A float serve is a rather clean serve which floats in a straight direction and sometimes may even drop infront of you while a spike or spike serve is one which has a top spin characteristic to it. In order to receive a float serve, you must be able to read where the ball is going in terms of the front-back distance and left-right distance between where the ball is going to land and where you are currently standing at. A general guideline would be to face the server when he is about to serve and when the ball leaves the servers hand, upon contact you should already know which direction the ball is going to go and when the ball reaches the half way mark of the opponents’ court, you should already know where the ball should be landing. Knowing that the ball is rather clean and usually not rotating, to receive this kind of balls, we need to be low enough when we are at the correct position and try to provide a base stable enough to return the ball in a comfortable manner to the setter, preferably away from the net. Usually, the point where you receive the ball should be between both of your legs and at the 7-8 o’clock position if you were to draw a clock over your head, with 12 pointing towards the ceiling and 6 pointing towards the ground.

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As for digging a ball if you think about it, in open competitions such as the Series 1, the height of the net set is 243cm and this is the same height that international players are playing. But the difference between us and them would be the fact that they are generally taller than us and soemtimes they even jump higher than us. Therefore, 1 important rule that we need to know is that we should always stay low. Generally, if we are at the positions where we should be which I’ll cover in my later posts, we should be able to receive the balls up. Even if it is not a perfect receive, as long as the ball is high up, the chance of winning a point is always there for your taking.

To receive a dig, apart from the position when we should stand and staying low, we should take note of the strength of the spike. As a spiker, we should all know that we have different weapons in our inventory, a hard spike, a roll shot, a tip, a long spike, etc.. . The list goes on. As always, we should prepare for a hard spike by staying low and trying to bring your hips lower than the point where you dig the ball. If you look at the picture above his right knee is almost touching the floor, sometimes you may even be squating at a height which is lower than that. But what really matters is the position of his hands, they are straight and stable and pointing towards the setter #11. Sometimes, you may even need to absorb the ball by falling backwards, thereby bringing your hips lower than the point where you receive the ball.

In all, receiving a volleyball generally receives less ‘glory’ than spiking a ball, however all of us ought to learn how to do it properly so that we can conduct our offence more efficiently and more frequently. If we are able to do so, the competitiveness of Volleyball would be raised up higher here in Singapore.