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Q: I'm looking for some fundamental mechanics for accurate serving. Specifically, correcting weak serves based on incorrect fundamentals: throwing the ball too high, twisting, following through incorrectly, etc. Can poor fundamentals be corrected?

Kids pick up detrimental overhand serving habits when they're young. They often learn a stroll, a lean, a twist or an across-the-body follow through -- otherwise knows as "softballing."

All of these habits are merely efforts to try to get the ball over the net. But as the player becomes older, these habits become useless and must be eliminated. The analogy I use at camps is, "When you first started shooting a basketball, didn't you invent a shot that was just an effort to get the ball to the rim? Then as you got older and stronger, you had to change your shot." Serving is the same way.

As the player gets older, she needs to rid her serve of all the extra movement that will promote inconsistency. The stroll is useless. The lean/twist/softball will lead to an occasional "grandma serve" -- that's the one that rifles into the bleachers, making the surprised grandmas duck for cover. This occurs when your shoulders move away from the ball, taking the hand with them, thus making it more difficult to keep the center of the hand contacting the center of the ball.

Softballing a serve will create an occasional pulled serve -- like a "pull" hitter in baseball -- or a shanked serve as the ball hits the outside of the server's hand. From my experience, these habits increase a player's errors by five to 10 percent, and that's more than enough to require a sub each time it's her turn to serve.

Now, if a player eliminates all of the above habits, she will lose some power at first. And that's fine. I ask my kids, "You want 20 mph in the court, or 30 mph out?" Young players have a tough decision to make: overhand serve correctly and only get 50% in the court, overhand serve incorrectly and get 70% in the court or learn an underhand serve that'll be 90% accurate?

Many kids think that serving underhand means you're a weaker player. But I tell them, "I want you to serve 90% in the court, I don't care how you do it. If you can't, you will most likely lose the privilege of serving in a match."

Some players have a toss that's way too high. And a lower toss often times makes the serve more difficult to execute. But if a player were to simply "toss, prepare, step, hit," then the toss could be much lower. One tip to remember is not to drop your serving hand after the ball is tossed. This will save you the crucial time needed to execute a proper serve based on a low toss.

With a low toss, the ball is only traveling about 1 mph when a player contacts it. But if the toss is higher, the dropping speed increases, thus increasing error.

If the server wants the ball to go higher, then she uses the same serving motion, but tosses the ball closer to her or even over her head. If the server wants the ball to travel lower, then she should toss the ball more in front of her. An out-in-front toss is risky, though. It requires more arm speed to hit the ball so that gravity doesn't pull the serve down into the net. A low toss may increase serving errors, so be careful.

The mantra is "Toss, prepare, step, hit". That's it. No lean, no twist. A follow-through isn't even necessary. "Toss, prepare, step, hit." Shoulders parallel to both the floor and to the wall behind the server. The server hits the center of the ball with the center of her hand. If done properly, she will notice an added benefit: The ball will float.

Recently, my team finished the season tied for first place in the conference and we had a one-game playoff; best two of three to 15, old side-out scoring. Well, my team missed eight serves in the first game -- my seniors were so anxious their serving was out of control.

The second game started the same way. I think we missed five of our first 10 serves. One of the seniors even asked me to put in someone to serve for her. So we finished the night with two freshmen serving underhand in place of two of our star players. They had 11 service points and four aces! We ended up winning the match, and no one thought less of the player with the underhand serve.

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Q: Any hints on teaching spike approach to new players? The toughest part seems to get them to incorporate swinging their arms properly.

Teaching your rookies a correct spike approach has to be done! I have no patience with coaches who say, “I tried, but my girls refused.” Girls can't be allowed to leave middle school ball without knowing it. They know the names of their teammates; they know the name of their school; they should also know a proper spike approach. It’s absolutely fundamental.

Let’s talk about arms for a moment. For right handed players, their arms will follow their left foot. In other words, if the left foot is forward, both arms are forward. When the right foot comes forward, both arms should go back, following the left foot.

Some other arm hints:
• Both arms come up before the hit. Remind your girls to avoid the "lazy left arm" syndrome.

• When the arms are back, they should be back until they can't go back any more! If a girl’s arms will go back so far that they’re parallel to the floor, then that’s what I want to see every time; unless the set is too low and she’s in a hurry.

• Remind your girls to avoid the "bird wings" arm swing. This is when the arms don't go straight back and straight forward, but flap to the side like a bird.

How do you reinforce this? I have created drills where I only award players when I see certain skills performed. You can run such a reward drill with arm swing.

Here's an example: If I’m coaching a middle school team, I may say, "I'm splitting the team into two mini-teams. Coach Jones and Coach Smith will be tossing balls to both mini-teams to spike. Coach Johnson and I are going to count how many proper arm swings I see from both lines. When we get to 100 we'll change the drill."

Or you could say, "The first mini-team that gets to 50 will win."

If you do not have four adults at practice, alter the drill to this: “Jennifer and Samantha will start as the first to toss. When their team gets to 10 correct arm swings, I want a new player to toss.” Of course, one of your players is bound to say, “But coach, I can’t toss well.” You will answer, “Not yet. Go ahead and do it. You’ll be tossing balls for as long as you play volleyball, so let’s practice it now.”

Suppose you want to convert the drill into something different? "How many correct arm swings can we all get together in just three minutes? Each time we do this drill, we’re going to beat the time before!" It won’t take long for all of your players to be doing their arm swing perfectly.

Just like kids learn Algebra in many different ways, so can kids learn their arm swing and spike approach in many different ways. If your kids are still having problems, partner them with someone who has mastered it. You can also bring in video of the high school team and let the girls see more experienced players on video.

When I’m in charge of a high school program, all the JVs know their spike approach. It's a point of pride for us. We want to look good. We want to look trained. We want other teams' parents & players to say, "They all do their spike approach the same way. That looks GOOD."

But more than that, if a girl doesn’t know a proper spike approach, then she will never be able to reach her potential. It’s a curse that we can put on our players or we can avoid. But it’s up to us as coaches. And a spike approach must be learned in middle school, or in a player’s first year with a team.