Posted by 
While digging up my old VHS tapes to convert to digital I came across an old scouting tape I made of Dutch master (witty, eh!) setter Peter Blange. At the time I was looking at how setter’s decisions were influenced by their position on the court. I don’t know if Data Video existed at that time, but if it did I didn’t use it. I had a friend (thanks, Clarky, wherever you are) who had an Apple editing suite and did all the edits by hand. It took forever!! If I had my time again, I would have a longer lead in time to each set to watch his movement better.
The matches are semi final and final of the 1997 European Championships played in Eindhoven.
A second video is here.
Tagged Peter Blange, Setting Tactics, Setting Technique
The total of 82 practical Coaching Tips can be found here and here.
Read about the great new Vyacheslav Platonov coaching book here.
At Home On The Court 
nostalgic and cool. I’m trying to work out what what the zones are? There’s 11 of them?
LikeLike
I didn’t have Data Volley to prescribe what the zones should be. I was working with 1.5m squares, probably because that is the width of a strip of Taraflex and it divides nearly into 3, 6 and 9. There were 18 zones, of which Blange only used 11 in those two matches. I forget how I numbered them, I’m confident you can figure it out ;).
LikeLike
In hindsight could players remember the 11 zones and what they were supposed to do if he set from any of them?
LikeLike
You’ll like this story, Huy…
I didn’t have a job at the time. I did the exercise just for my own personal amusement. At the time noone in Australia considered anything other than rotational analysis in scouting. For me this exercise was a huge leap forward in my understanding of the game.
LikeLike
It’s definitely these personal projects that teach you the most… I had very little to do at Asian Junior Championships, so late in the tournament just got data volley practice coding the best teams… i learned a LOT from just analysing and watching what they did. I write all about it in the blog 😉
LikeLike
If I recall correctly I ended up designing an input form in Access based on the setting zones. I’m sure I still have it somewhere.
LikeLike
Yes. We used it during World League in 1999. During which I was asked with what seemed like pity in the eyes whether I really thought that rotational analysis wasn’t the most important scouting information.
LikeLike