Basic Guidelines For A Pick-Up Volleyball Game

By Christy Flom on May 31, 2015

Bring out the rusty outdoors basketballs, the dust covered baseball bats and whiffle balls, and the clumped up nets: it is summertime.

It is time for cross-country trips, cabin visits, and reminiscing as younger siblings head off to summer camp for a week or so.

Time to forget about those finals grades, the annoying professors who test you on everything except what was taught, and those graduate student instructors or teaching assistants who did nothing but inflate the size of their already large egos.

It is time to start a bonfire and make s’mores while burning those textbooks that cost hundreds of dollars that are worthless to resell on campus.

And finally, it is time to run around with your friends in the sun without a care in the world. That is, unless you have a job, internship, apprenticeship or one of those other things that us college kids freak out about during the summer to put on our resumes.

Anyways, whether you get to spend the summer relaxing on a lake or dealing with long hours at the office doing the grunt work of a corporation, summer is still a time to hang out with friends and make some memories. A great way to do this is through pick-up games. My absolute favorite pick-up game to play outside with my friends is volleyball.

Image by Nan Palmero via flickr.com

You don’t need a net (although it is always helpful) and only a couple of friends are necessary to get a small game going. What you do need, however, is a volleyball.

After that, there are only a couple of guidelines that really matter to ensure that everyone is actually playing volleyball and not some other type of made-up game.

First, do not catch the ball. I know it is a simple and obvious rule but there are many games you can play that do involve catching the ball, like newcomb.

To get a laid back game of volleyball going in your backyard, split into teams and either set up a net or determine a line that separates the two teams. From there, remember that there are three hits per side and one hit in a row per person. This means you cannot bobble the ball like in four square or Spikeball.

The next aspect of the game is pass, set, spike. I would normally say “bump” but my friend who plays collegiate volleyball recently informed me that it is called a “pass” or a “dig” and not a bump. So, alas, here I am using the word pass. Hopefully the other team can repeat this sequence and a rally will eventually occur making the game even more fun!

The majority of us are not college or professional volleyball players, so just try to keep the ball alive and keep sending it back over to the other team. When players get down the basics, a small pick-up game of volleyball is all you need to relax your mind and get in some exercise.

Girl at the Beach by makelessnoise via flickr.com

The best way to play a game of pick-up volleyball is at the beach on the sand. Then, other groups of friends passing by or couples hanging out can join in too and a big game can end up taking place. In pick-up games, the saying the more the merrier is the number one rule.

I remember going to Mexico for my senior spring break in high school and the best part of the trip was playing volleyball. Almost every day my friends and I would just start bumping the ball around and within 10 or so minutes, a dozen other vacationers would be up and asking if they could join us.

Not only did we have to put our mediocre Spanish skills to use to play with locals and other travelers, but we also met a ton of other people around our age, which only made the trip more fun.

So, wherever you are this summer, grab a volleyball from a local Walmart and go outside in the sun. Play with your best friends or play with new friends, but the bottom line is to just play! Volleyball is a common pick-up game so it doesn’t matter if you or your friends have never played before. Chances are that at least one of your friends, coworkers or neighborhood buddies knows at least the general rules to get a game going.

And, if not, then it’s a good thing you read this article!

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