MOJO or St. James for Volleyball

[Anonymous]

Which program would you suggest for a new(ish) volleyball player who wants to play in HS but got started late? They have one year to get exponentially better.

[Anonymous]

Are you asking about a year of club? Or just clinics? If a year of club- send her to clinics at both, particularly in the fall. See which club/coaches she feels more comfortable with. Honestly- the best way to get better is to make sure you get as much play time as you can at tournaments- so you want to be one of the better players, and get private lessons to actually learn good form. You won’t get that during practices at most clubs, at least not team practices. Perhaps at positional practices - which not all clubs offer. I am pretty sure mojo does but STJ does not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are you asking about a year of club? Or just clinics? If a year of club- send her to clinics at both, particularly in the fall. See which club/coaches she feels more comfortable with. Honestly- the best way to get better is to make sure you get as much play time as you can at tournaments- so you want to be one of the better players, and get private lessons to actually learn good form. You won’t get that during practices at most clubs, at least not team practices. Perhaps at positional practices - which not all clubs offer. I am pretty sure mojo does but STJ does not.

The original question definitely needs some clarification. What do you mean by has a year to get better? Are they entering 8th grade soon and you are wondering what to do between now and next year?

The most obvious way to get "exponentially better" in a year is to play club volleyball. If you are totally new to volleyball, what is referred to as "club" volleyball is similar to travel teams in other sports. Club tryouts in the Chesapeake Region (CHRVA https://www.chrva.org/page/show/3927262-chrva-girls-volleyball) are in early November and tournaments start in January and the season can go all the way until the USA Volleyball National Championships which are in early July. Teams that don't go to Nationals often end their season at a Memorial Day weekend tournament. Teams usually practice a minimum of two days per week but more competitive teams practice more often. There are lots of different levels of club volleyball teams so don't worry if your DD is not an aspiring collegiate volleyball player. Just make sure you educate yourself about the various clubs ahead of tryouts so she is trying out at clubs where she has a realistic shot at making a team.

Playing club volleyball is a huge commitment of time and money. For many families, club volleyball ends up becoming a central part of their life from November through July for many years. If you are looking for that kind of thing, then club volleyball is the answer and the advice to do some clinics with both Mojo and St James ahead of tryouts in November is the right answer. If club volleyball isn't appealing to you then find as many camps, clinics, rec leagues, private lessons, etc and get as much training as you can. Hopefully those would give your DD enough skills to make the HS team, but it's hard to compete with the amount of touches that come from playing club volleyball.

[Anonymous]

The PP captured most of what I would offer as advice and more. You want your DC to end up on the most competitive team possible, but not on a team where they would not have play time. Since your DC is a beginner, consider that they would not make the top team. You can go to as many clinics as you want and you may not gain any experience with the coach of the team you will end up in. Hell, they might not even know who will coach their bottom teams yet. They might still struggle to attract a coach the days before the club season starts. The worst case scenario is where they end up with a mediocre coach because the best coaches will always prefer to coach the top teams. They may tell you a lot about the club philosophy, but that is pretty much useless when you don't have a good coach.