I am new to coaching and we have a team of 13 girls 6th -8th grade (mainly 6th graders). We are a small school and this is our first team. None of the girls have ever played volleyball. We have had 6 practices and we are really struggling with serving underhand, let alone overhand. The girls want to toss the ball when serving underhand....and just "swing at it". We have tried demonstrating using our legs/shoulders/arms....the whole body to add power to help get it over the net, but it's not working yet. We have had them just practice tapping the ball out of their hand....focusing on not moving the "shelf" hand / not tossing the ball to serve. They can do that, but when they try to serve, they revert back to tossing the ball....every time they try to add some power, they automatically toss the ball. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get them to "not toss" the ball for the underhand serve, and to not just "swing" wild at it? We have a game in one week....and we have to play regulation for middle school. Adding to this, we only have the gym for practice 1 hour at a time, but 4x a week. Hard to get a lot done in an hour, so we are trying to be effective with our time. Any help is appreciated!
