Reply to Looking for a mid-level regional VB club for 15s/16s

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP here.

Regarding the comment " Somebody immediately said that people should be aware of their kids' skills and place them in clinics at their level. As if everyone knows how Metro runs their clinics. "

FWIW - our DD is in her second year of ever playing vb and is on her HS JV team.  We have no experience with Metro's clinics, but we did spend the summer bouncing from club clinic to club clinic to get her skills up for tryouts.  At least in our experience the clubs we worked with (American, Loudoun Elite, X-Factor, Evolution) generally gave equal looks and coaching.  Well worth her time for touches.[/quote]

I believe most clubs (including Metro) want the players to have a good time and learn / practice skills at their clinics. It all comes down to how much they really care. [b]If only a few players show up at a clinic (which is how things turn out at lower tier clubs), the coaches can dedicate more time to each player[/b]. If you have players of all skill levels in a crowded clinic (this was the case at Metro and MOCO clinics), inevitably the best players end up on the top court and the weaker players end up on the other court. Mixing players would result in a frustrating experience for the top players, so the move makes sense. The players on the top court definitely have a great time and practice good skills.  If you know that your player ends up on the top court, a Metro / MOCO clinic is a really good choice, but you are wasting your money if your player ends up on the second court. I was pleasantly surprised by the MVSA clinics: even though they were at capacity, they gave everyone equal opportunities. They all participated in the same drills and the coaches offered advice to all the players who struggled with specific skills. The downside was that playing consisted in queens only. [/quote]
The different experiences because of the number of players at a clinic is a good observation. If a club's clinics are sold out in a few days, it's probably a good sign that demand is high and the clinic will be crowded and that individualized attention will be limited, although it sounds like MVSA has figured it out. Also, to the extent that clinics are where a lot of the evaluation for players happens ahead of club tryouts, expect more gameplay and less drills in fall clinics than you might in a summer clinic/camp or clinics others times of the year.[/quote]

The clubs that are known to be good talent developers are also usually pretty good a limiting clinic sizes.  They also tend to emphasize fundamental skill development much more, rather than using beginner/intermediate clinics solely for identifying potential future club players and/or maximizing revenue.  You can have more players in the gym at these levels because there are a lot of partner/small group drills that can be done off-net.

These clubs do tend to be very hard to get into for clinics, and will sell out quickly.  Make sure you are on their email list, they usually announce the details of when the registration opens in advance, so you have a chance to get in.

If a clinic registration stays open a long time, either it doesn’t have much demand or the club is allowing a large number of players into the clinic.

How to tell the difference?  Depends on the club/geography, but where we are the best clinics tend to fill up within 24-48 hours.

This only applies to skill clinics, not to the pre-tryout club clinics most of the top clubs run.  Those are almost always gameplay focused.  There are some clubs that have 2-3 courts available during these clinics that will separate the courts into play and skill development, especially if they are running more than 1 team at an age group.  If the club is only running 1 team, it’s highly unlikely you’re less experienced player will get much attention at a pre-tryout clinic—-might be better to look for something different.[/quote]

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