The forearm pass
The forearm pass is the contact made with joined forearms, and the technique comes down to four points.
The stance. Feet wider than shoulder-width and slightly staggered, knees bent, weight on the balls of the feet, torso tilted forward with a straight back. Arms held away from the body, not tucked against the chest.
The hands. They come together at the moment of contact, not before: one closed fist wrapped by the other hand, or overlapping palms, with thumbs side-by-side and parallel. Thumbs point downwards, never upwards, otherwise the ball will hit your hands instead of your forearms.
The contact. The ball contacts the flat, inner part of the forearms, just above the wrists. The arms remain straight and still: the forearm pass is not an arm swing, it is an inclined plane that the ball meets.
The push. This comes from the legs extending, and the direction is determined by the angle of the arms and the orientation of the shoulders. A forearm pass goes where the shoulders are pointing, regardless of where you are looking.
Typical mistakes: bending the elbows (the ball shoots forward), thumbs pointing up, hitting with the wrists or hands, swinging the arms from high to low, receiving while on the move.
Receiving the serve
Here, the objective is precise: deliver the ball to the setter, two or three metres from the net. Three criteria.
Dividing the court. With six players, a three-person reception (the two outside hitters and the libero, or whoever is covering that role) is the simplest and most effective setup: each covers a vertical lane and calls for their ball. A two-person reception, typical of advanced play, requires highly mobile players.
Calling. "Mine" out loud before contact. A ball dropping between two players is the primary cause of gifted points in recreational teams, and can only be solved by communicating.
Stopping. The moment the server hits the ball, your feet must be still. From there, you read the trajectory and move with quick steps to get behind the ball rather than to the side.
On specific serves: the float serve changes trajectory, so you must wait for it with arms ready rather than anticipating it; on a deep serve, move backward using crossover steps instead of running backward; on a ball that looks deep, the rule is to leave only those that are clearly out.
Defending the attack
Defence is a forearm pass executed under worse conditions: faster ball, less time, lower trajectories. Priorities shift: precision is not required, what matters is keeping the ball in play and high.
Three rules that are worth more than any technique:
- Still at the moment of the hit. If you are moving when the attacker hits the ball, you cannot react. This is the number one rule of defence, and the most frequently violated.
- Low. The defensive stance is lower than the reception stance: weight forward, hands in front of the knees, ready to drop even lower. From a high stance, you will not reach anything.
- Defend high and to the middle of the court. A dug ball that goes high gives the team time to organise. A dug ball driven flat towards the net is almost always lost.
Where to position yourself
Positioning depends on the block (see the dedicated page): the block takes away one zone, the defence covers the other. Two guidelines that always apply in recreational play:
- Someone must cover the tip behind the block. It is the most frequent and most ignored ball. It must be assigned to a specific person.
- No one directly behind the block on the same line. Anyone standing directly behind the hands of the block cannot see the ball and will catch almost nothing: it is better to take a step to the side.
Floor play techniques
In recreational play, three types of recovery are useful, in order of utility:
- The lunging forearm pass, with a wide side step and bent knee: this is the recovery that covers the most balls and does not require going to the floor.
- The lateral roll: you drop to your side and roll onto your back. This is the safe way to end up on the floor on a wooden court.
- The dive: to be used only if you have trained for it. Landing on your knees or with stiff wrists is the most effective way to get injured.
On a hard surface like a wooden court, kneepads are not an accessory: they are the only reason you will still be able to defend at fifty.
Covering the attack
The most forgotten defence of all. When your team attacks, three or four players must be low and close to the hitter, ready to pick up the ball rebounded by the block. In recreational play, the block often returns short, recoverable balls: a team that covers turns a lost point into a kept-alive rally, and does so many times per set.
The rule of thumb: when a teammate jumps to attack, do not watch them. You go under them, low, with hands ready.
Training the forearm pass and defence
- Forearm pass in pairs at a fixed distance, counting consecutive repetitions without losing control. Fifty is a good target.
- Forearm pass against the wall, continuously, at a distance of two metres: this trains still arms and feet.
- Targeted reception: a hoop or cone where the setter sets. You count how many passes reach the target, not just how many do not hit the floor.
- Defence against soft attacks, with a teammate hitting from a platform towards different zones: work on a low stance and still feet.
- Sets of ten consecutive balls, where you must keep ten in play in a row. This is the drill that teaches you not to give up on difficult balls.
One last thing, the most important and least technical: in a recreational team, the difference between those who defend well and those who defend poorly is almost always the willingness to try. Technique helps, but the ball that no one attempts to get is lost regardless.