Originally posted by Nilsen
(Image removed from quote.)
I now present an Olympic moment for the unwashed Aces High masses.
What you see above is a crazy Norwegian beach volleyball player signalling to her partner that she is going to block line on the left and line on the right. This is to inform the back court player that she should cover the hitter's angle shots. What this means is that the crazy Norwegian blocker is going to make the back court player run back and forth across the back row to cover her positions depending on which side the opponent is hitting from. This can be very tiring for the back court player, as you might imagine.
This also means that the blocker will be blocking the hitter's weakest shots. Hitters can hit harder across the court because (a) its a better bio-mechanical arm swing and (b) its a longer distance to the out-of-bounds in the corner so the hitter has a better chance of hitting the ball in, and therefore doesn't have to worry about making sure of ball control. Swing away!
The reason a blocker would call two line blocks is because she is either a weak blocker or plans to confuse the hitter by faking the angle block and moving her hands over to block the line, which is a good way to get tooled by the hitter unless you're very, very good. A "tool" is when the hitter spikes the ball off the blockers hands and causes the ball to go out of bounds. Normally, the fake block is performed by standing on the hitter's line and then move the hands to the angle. This way, if the ball is deflected off the blocker's hands then there is a good chance that it will still land inbounds on the opponent's side of the court.
There are essentially 3 signals in beach volleyball.
1 finger = blocking line
2 fingers = blocking angle
fist or no fingers = dropping back into backrow coverage.
You might also see the front row player wave their hands or their fingers twice on one side or the other. This tells the serving partner to serve to that side of the court. Teams will typically want to serve the weaker hitter on the other team (or the weaker passer, whichever the case may be).
Ok, now go watch that Olympic women's beach volleyball as an educated spectator! Just tell the wife that you now have an appreciation of the sport (that you are not just staring at women in bikinis) and you can impress her with your knowledge.
