Episode #17 - Serving

In this episode we discuss the different ways you can “weaponize” your serve to gain an edge over your opponents. We reminisce about some of our best serving memories and what we were feeling, seeing and doing in those moments. Serving is a difficult and crucially important skill and we hope the tips and tricks we provide in this episode can help you become more efficient and consistent servers.

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Transcript

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Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the Pit to Pro podcast. This is the second episode in a five part series on skill specifics. This week, we're going to cover serving. Expect to learn the tips and tricks that have helped me and my brothers become consistent and efficient servers. The importance of serving variations, such as rolls and hybrid floats, as well as our thought process for serving under pressure and some of our personal favorite serving stories. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 17. Hello and welcome to the Pit the Pro podcast. Jesse, Matthias, and Aaron Elson. This podcast is meant to guide young athletes on their journey to high performance. Join us as we share our first hand experiences in an effort to help you reach your own valuable goals. And we're live. We're live. Well, today we're talking about serving And, uh, I want to start this thing off by talking to you, T. I want to know, because in eSports, you're a good server, good server, not a, not a like world class server, but you were a good server. But then you went to France and you were An incredible server. You're averaging like three, the three aces a match and the passing level is way better than a new sports. So I want to know what changed. What did you change? Did you make a change? Was it a cognizant change? Or did you just get lucky? Yeah, that's a good question. Probably. I don't know if it was super intentional what I was doing, but where my mind goes is that I would have had a national team season in between you sports and France. And I remember. My first year playing VNL, I was just shocked at the lack of results that I was getting on my serve. Um, in eSports, I would, if I didn't get two or three aces a game, it was kind of disappointing. And then in my first year in VNL, I went the entire summer without a single ace. Really? Yeah, yeah. And so, um, what I realized from that and from also my second summer before I went to France is I needed a lot more variation in my serve. So adding in a lot more rolls and cuts and floats because I didn't have the speed that's required, um, to just be a straight killer from the, from the baseline with just a fastball. So I really worked hard that summer, um, especially developing my float and my rolly and my cut serves. And I think that's probably a reason why when I got to France, I was, I was more effective. I wasn't just hitting the ball straight and hard, I was hitting in more, more tactical variations. Interesting. That's interesting because from what I remember when I was watching your games, most of your aces were hard serves though, correct? But the fact that they knew that you had potentially three or four different serves coming at them, it probably gained you an extra second of advantage, if that makes sense. Yeah, for sure. I think that's probably true. I feel that as a passer, if I know that the guy only has a hard spin serve, and I feel a lot more comfortable than if he could roll, or he could float, or he could hit a cutter, um, I think that that's a, It sets you up nice for hitting a faster ball, too, because they're just on edge a little bit. For sure. Yeah, I 100 percent agree. Ugo, what do you think is the hardest serve to pass at the esports level? I think all those, like it's, it's all those serves that are variations of your hard serve. Like, we've all, we've all had guys like, I don't know, Chris Byam, who's gonna blast 120 at your chest, and like, that's hard to pass. The guys that are hitting 105 with like, a hard tail, or like, that are hitting 105 in the seams, and then, and then pop a rollie, or then pop a float. Like, like Tia said, it is that, like, unknown, that is what's so hard. And like, Yeah, I can think of a lot of examples of guys like that that aren't bombers by any, like, international standards, but just incredible at manipulating the ball and where they want to put it. And I think having that many different options is really what makes your, your passing break down. Oh, Jesse, how did, how did you feel serving at the various levels, even, even going back to let's say club volleyball and then through university, through national team, through pro, what's been the evolution of how you feel or think about serving? Yeah, that's a good question. Well, I would say I pride myself and I've always prided myself on being consistent. Like at least putting the ball in the court, because I've not, I've never been the hardest serving guy, but I'm usually, if not always over 80 percent in the court in a game. Um, and I think that is very important as a server. In club, I remember my 17 year, we were in the third set against Pac Man and I think I served four balls in a row to win the third set. And they, I thought I was serving bombs, but I looked, I watched the video a couple of years ago and they were like roll shots, but just like being able to apply that constant pressure and like knowing, like if you're a receiver and you know, that server is not going to miss. The server already has the edge, I think. So I just like, I would say that has always, that has not been a progression, but that's been my, my serving identity for a long time. But in club, I was playing a high toss. Actually, no, I floated until you 17. Then I started spin serving university. First day of training camp, my first year, Ben's like, everyone's playing a runner. We're going to see who can do it. And that, uh, really worked for me and my arm swing and my. My body characteristics. And then we started mixing in the floats, mixing in the roles. And ever since then, I haven't changed really a single thing. I'm always in the same, I was served from the same spot. That's not true. In my second or third year, I was playing around where I was serving from all across the baseline. But then I realized that it wasn't actually that advantageous. I thought it was cool. Like, Oh, I'll do a full from here. It's been from here. I roll from there. But I think just like really honing in, serving from the same spot. Yeah. And then being able to have seven or eight different serves that you can deliver from that spot is super, super, uh, important. And then now I've just gotten way more consistent, been able to hit my float and my hybrid at a much higher speed, been able to drop it short, drop it long. I can, I'm working on a spin, uh, sorry, a roll to four, which is quite hard if you serve from one, I find. Um, but other than that, I've just been, again, working on my consistency and then my power serve. That's always been the one that's kind of been lacking. So right now I'm hitting 109 to 113, like consistently in the court, 80%. Yeah, that's sweet. I like the point you made about you've always prioritized having the ball in the court. And I think that's a, that's a, some that I really pride myself on as well. I hate missing serves and I think that it gives you a massive, massive advantage too. Because let's say that you're, you're, you're getting an ace on two out of 10 balls that you put in the court. But it takes you 15 serves to get 10 in the court, then you're just reducing that number over time. But if you put 10 in a row in the court, then you're going to have two aces. So the best way to make your serve more dangerous is to put it in the court more often. Yeah. Yeah. We talked like about weaponizing your serve. And I think that's kind of an overlooked weapon is just consistency. Like we always talked about speed or being able to hit the sidelines, dropping a rollie, adding in a float. Those are all weapons, but I think consistency is another weapon that is probably the most important weapon. Like you said, I, yeah, I 100 percent agree. That's interesting. What about this, I like this question a lot. Is serving a team skill? No, I think it's a team. I don't think it's a team skill at all because it's the only skill where you're truly alone There's no one else back there with like it's it's a as a team I think you need to be able to to execute your serving plan. So it is a team skill No, the skill itself is in the way. Yeah, obviously the skill is individual, but yeah, but that's you think about serving as a collective Yeah, like if the guy in front of me misses, then I have to put it in, or Do you TS? Are you saying yes, it's a team skill? I'm saying no. Okay, continue. Because like you said, like yeah, if we're looking at it as a collective, if the guy in front of me misses, it's like, ooh, I have to put it in. Like, that's not a good serving philosophy. Okay, no, keep going. But this is interesting, because I think it's horse dookie. Yeah, it's, absolutely, because it's not a good serving philosophy. But I think if you look at the match as a whole, If you're all trying to work towards the same goal, but be a little bit more individual, I think that's when you're serving strategy comes together. You have to be somewhat confident in yourself that you can make a serve that will benefit the team. But then when you take it to that, like it's a team skill, if someone misses and everyone becomes like tentative. And I think that fully degrades your, your, yeah, your serving strategy. Yeah. Tiaz, what do you think? I think there should be probably team goals, like that 80 percent number kind of by the end of the match, each one of our individuals has to be at 80 percent in, I really don't like it. And I also don't really ever think about what's happened before me, because each serve is its own action. It has nothing to do with What happened before even if I missed my first serve and I go back there I don't really change much because I believe that I know how to serve and I know that I don't miss too much So the odds of this one going in are significantly higher mm hmm and Along with that, I think that thinking about not missing is you're in a, in a poor mindset right off the bat, if that's how your servers are going back there. And so I think that team serving mindset kind of, kind of just instills that naturally. I want to, I want to talk about the not missing thing in a sec, but this team thing is really interesting to me. Because I think you need to find kind of like Luke said, you need to find your identity as a team. Like maybe you're an incredible block defense team and you have four of the six starters or float servers. Then your identity is take out an option with a float serve and block D then you have, Identity team identities, where you have three guys, maybe that have the green light because they have incredible serves, incredible variation, incredible weapons, and then you have three guys that make them play like that was kind of our, our, uh, our identity and our final year at Trinity with you, me, TS Hank, or you, me, Brody and Hank. And then we had our middles float serving. I was somewhere in the middle, but then I think where teams get in trouble is when they try and repeat. But they try and fabricate an identity, but they don't actually look at the weapons they have. For instance, 2018 UBC. I would like to get confirmation on this from a player or a coach, but I think they were, they believed that they could serve as hard as they could and miss as much as they want and they would get enough aces and enough knockouts to win the game and that's what happened. They won the youth world championship and they had like Keith West, Irvin And then Jordan DeShane had nasty flow. Like those are all five, six guys that could pummel the court with serves. But then I think future teams in that program, I don't know this for sure, tried to replicate that, but they didn't have the weapons to do so. And I don't think they had their own identity. Does that make sense? Yeah, I think it all comes down to personnel. And I think also, like on an individual level, you, it's your responsibility as the individual serving, um, To know what your serving identity is. And I know it's really easy to like, to go back and you're behind whatever, the big bomber on your team and think, Oh yeah, like I'm going to hammer this ball because I need to prove something. But I think it's much more, uh, like almost noble. I don't know what the word is. I know that's a good word is noble. It's like to be able to just do your job, like do your job. Well, And not try and be someone who you're not, especially in the serving realm. Yeah, having self awareness of your serve and how it's most effective is super important. That's where I think serving is a team skill. Yeah. But only because it's self awareness. I think basing your serve off of the person before you is ridiculous. Yeah. Well, and that's the thing is like you're saying with the teams that won't really shift their identity. I think if you're hesitant to shift your identity or you, I think your identity is different than what your coach thinks your identity is, you might just put your whole serving strategy kind of in jeopardy, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Or if you don't like the role that you're given or that you've earned, then work harder to create, to weaponize your serve. Yeah, I think that's cool. KTS, let's talk about this not missing thing because I've had coaches. I'm sure lots of you have had coaches where in practice or even in games, I've had a coach where you're walking back and they're like, don't miss. Or, just put it in, talk to me about that. Yeah, I think in a lot of different areas in volleyball, I've tried to frame things always as a positive, or what I'm trying to do, rather than what I'm trying not to do. Which I don't think is revolutionary, but I think it really does help. Um, there's the example that I've talked about a bunch of times with being nervous before games. It's like, I'm, I'm nervous because I might lose, but today I have an opportunity to win a championship and it's the same thing when I'm serving. It's like, maybe, maybe I don't want to miss or can't miss. Maybe the game's on the line. I have an opportunity to do something sweet here to put in a good serve. To put them in trouble and give us the opportunity to win a point. And so really trying to frame, frame every serve as an opportunity to do something well, rather than a threat of potential failure. I think that helps me a lot. And so can you walk us through that? Like what, what are you thinking? You go back to the service line. What is going through your mind? I pick a serve, whichever serve. I'm feeling at the moment, probably. How do you think? Yeah, probably if I'm under pressure and it's one of those moments where I can't miss, it would just be my best serve, which is probably just a 106 with cut. Yeah. Something, something low 100s, bunches, bunch of cut right to left to the one person one. I think that's really important though, is, is you have to have a serve that you're going to make 98 percent of the time. And it's not your, I'm not going to miss serve. It's my. Default serve, but I think that's kind of how people could reframe it is I'm not serving to not miss. I'm serving my best serve that I know is going to go in. I think something on that point is like, there's a difference between wanting to hit a certain serve and pre choosing. I feel like with, especially with the runner, like when you're going, there's so much variability in where you're, the ball can end up in your toss window. And I think. Like if you, if you accidentally lead yourself a little too much and you pre chose, Oh, I'm going to like, I'm going to try and go hard to the, to the three seam. I don't think that that's going to work out very well. If you're, if you accidentally led yourself too much or same thing, if you're, if you're a little bit behind yourself and you're like, okay, hard to the three seam. And really it could be a rollie. Like, I think I see what you're saying. I kind of disagree a little bit, but I do agree. I think you should have a bailout serve. If the cost isn't there. Yeah. You need a secondary serve, but I think you should have an idea of where you're going to serve and, and who, or like what option can be taken out, that kind of thing, but I would say, yeah, your bailout serve is, is a necessary kind of, a necessary step, if you will. And like, A bailout serve is not a muffin, it's just an alternative to any variable. I agree. Um, but Tia, so you were saying about your process, what's next? Now you've picked your serve. I've picked my serve. I'm just, I'm just going to go hit it. I think that the less going on in your mind, the better in game, leave all of the technical feedback and thoughts and all of that in for practice so you can get better. And then in game, when I'm serving my absolute best. I'm just laser focused on the ball. Like it almost, it almost looks like I'm in a, like I got tunnel vision. And the only thing I can see in the whole world is just the ball rotating above me. And then I'm staring at that ball until it's gone. That's cool. I'm kind of the opposite. I do think a little bit technically, but because when I'm serving my best. I am thinking a little bit technically, but I do it every single time in practice and in games. So it's, I've created that routine in my mind. But for me, like when I go back, I'll say two things. Sometimes I'll mutter it out loud, but I'll say, give yourself a toss kid. Because I think I've said this on the pod before. Like that's something that Joel used to say. And I can hear his voice perfectly in my mind. And it's just something that reminds me like, yeah, give yourself a toss. Really give yourself some lead. And then the second thing I say is. Let your arm go to work because there was an analogy. I don't remember if it was Ben or Joel that told me about this, but it's a golf analogy. Again, another golf analogy that's, that's saying, let the club do the work, or you just have to generate the power to move the club. And then once the club is going, the club will do what the club is supposed to do. If you're trying to fight against the club and muscle the club, you're probably going to miss hit it. So I just give myself a toss. And I let my arm do the work. And I've done this pattern so many times and my shoulder knows what to do. My hand knows what to do. And I just try and let my arm, so as I just try and generate as much whip as possible and get my hand as high as possible. And I know if I do those two things, the ball's going in the court. Um, I want to talk to you is how do you decide when to roll or float? I think on the roll, I think it's pretty easy to identify when your fast serve is Becoming intimidating, I think, after a couple and you see them like, really, I don't know, lowering their body, talking to each other, really aware of seams and they're all, you just feel a little bit of intensity. That's my favorite, when you can tell they're like, taking an extra second to talk and be like, you gotta get this ball. You know you got him, yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think you, there's a bunch of signs that you're starting to be a, A scary server with your fastball, and I think that's a really good time to toss in a rollie. I honestly don't think there's a bad time either, because even if it's not an ace, you're probably putting someone to ground, and it's just a really hard ball to pass anyways. Yeah, for sure. I 100 percent agree. Hold on, I've got a second question. If you get an ace, how often do you do the same serve again? And why? Because for me, I've noticed that I don't. I always do a different serve. And I don't know why I do that. Because I remember I had a coach that said like, why change something that's working? But I always go for a different serve. And I don't have a clear answer for you for why. But I'm wondering what you do. I think I'll try to hit the same guy, same passive for sure, but I don't think I always hit the same serve, or at least not consciously, I don't, I don't have a process for that necessarily, but I think definitely hitting the same guy, because you know how it feels to get aced. And like, no matter how well you've been passing that day, there's a crack in your armor at that point. I want to, I want to talk about the, when to float also. And that one is more for me, I think. So if. I'm not feeling very good with my serve, or if I'm getting tired is another big one. I'll often toss in a float because I feel confident about putting it in, and it's still a really high quality serve, but it's easier to, easier to put in, maybe. But just to clarify for the listeners, you're talking about a hybrid float, right? Not a stand, like not a jump float. Yeah, a hybrid float. So same toss as my spin serve, but then taking the spin off and hybrid floating it. I think it takes a lot less energy, maybe mentally and physically, so when we're deep in a match and I don't feel like I have the energy to really put the other team under pressure. I think that's a no. That's the time where I use it, that I can still put an effective serve in, um, that's easier on my body and my mind. For me, I've started, start, I've started starting the match with hybrid, like hybrid floats. Like, and sometimes like three or four, five, six, maybe I'll go a whole set just floating. Cause I think it's way harder to pass a spin serve. If you're expecting the float and to pass the float, if you're expecting the spin. So like, I'll, I'll wait a while, like in, in the Dominican. There's a couple of games where I floated my first six or seven serves, and then I would crank them up, they'd take a step back, then I'd roll, and then that's when I know I had them. I think it's way easier to create that chaos consistently. And like Tief, I get what you're saying, if you're tired, it's easier to do that, but for me, if I'm tired, that's my like, 98%, 80 percent swing from one to one, the most core possible, like, see if I can take someone to ground, but I think I've started to weaponize my float way more, because I agree, I used to be like, I'm going to put this in because I missed the last two and I'm getting tired. But now I start the games with floats more than I used to. I also think that for certain passers, a float serve is harder to pass than a spin serve. For sure. Yeah, I mean results, then I'm not, why would I spin serve? Like, especially the guys who lack a bit of ball control. I think it's easier for them to track a spin serve because it moves in generally straight lines. Um, and so sometimes just popping in a float, actually, those are the kind of guys that will often just step up and pass all float serves with their hands. But if you're hitting a hybrid, then they can't. So I think that's a huge advantage. Exactly. That's what I do, man. Float, float, maybe they'll step up, and then that's when you crack a spin serve. And then they back up, and then now you have them. You float, they're gonna mess it up. You roll, they're on their heels. You bomb one, and you're already in their dome. I would encourage everyone listening to work on a hybrid float serve. Even if you are an absolute bomber, it's insanely effective. It's a, it's a cool tool and it doesn't take away from your speed. Think about Eric Lepke, plays his float serve a lot of the time, maybe 30 to 50 percent of the time he's hitting a float serve and he's 120 kilometer an hour guy. Same thing with Nick Hogue. Nick, Nick might be our, our best server. He's got, again, insane speed, uh, amazing hybrid float and rollies to every spot in the court. So I think no matter how hard you hit it, having those tools is so valuable. Yeah. Can you, can you walk us through how to do it a little bit? Cause it's difficult. Yeah. Cause I've tried to teach younger athletes and it's hard because either you hit it way too hard and it sails out the back or you hit. It like not hard enough and it's a muffin to six, you know, like it's hard to create that downward trajectory without the spin and the float and where you want it to go. And I, I actually got a neat piece of like visual, not visual, but like to try and reverse the spin. I think that was the best way that like, I've seen someone try and teach it to younger athletes was when you're like, and I think another common mistake is like, Not jumping full like predetermining that your float serve is going to be like a less lesser of the two. That's a really good point. That's a really good point. I think you gotta, you gotta make it look and make it feel like you're gonna hit up like a fast spin serve. And then try and reverse the spin. And I think that, but like locked out arm. Yeah. The hard part is doing it with an extended arm. Yeah. It's easy to go like, like this, but that's a really good point is all, well, let's say you have nine serves. All nine should look the same until the last possible moment. Yeah. Or, yeah. Or at least like extremely similar, like it's gotta be, but that reversing the spin, I think teaches. Younger kids to kind of almost down through the ball, which is going to bring that trajectory like lower And then that's when they kind of stop their arm too, because yeah, like you're spinning forward and if you're trying to spin it like almost up and backwards, it just makes it travel in a straighter line, I think. No, I, I do a very similar thing. I try and almost bring my hand, like down on the ball, but at extension, like just down a little bit because it's a difficult skill. Like a float serve only works because the ball is not, Spinning. So it's pushing air and that's why it's moving. Yeah. So if you're not trying to reverse the spin to get it to move flat, it's just going to be a weird mix of like a spinning, falling ball. Yeah. Yeah. So I think, I don't know, TS you probably have a few more. Well, and then here's another good tip, I guess, is we talked about a couple episodes, the, the over. Overcorrection, like try it and actually try and make the ball spin backwards and then try and find a happy medium till you get to the point where you can actually stop the spin, you know, whereas, because if people are just trying to stop the spin, stop the spin, I bet you most of all, they're going to go out the back. But if you actually try and spin it backwards, And in the court, you'll get the feel for the motion, then you slow your hand down just a little bit. And I think you'll be able to kind of find your, find your, your rhythm. Yeah, I think, and that's something that we're working on right now, like in preseason, is just manipulating the ball. And like, putting wonky spin on it, and trying to go with the spin, trying to go against the spin, tossing way left, and trying to hit thumb down, way right, trying to hit, and then. Once you actually get to your serve, and you've been trying all these weird over corrections, if you will, it actually becomes much easier to make your minor corrections. Like, I think that's something that even Nick, like, Nick Delbianco is the wizard at this. Like, he, he showed us, like, yeah, like, left quadrant, right quadrant. If you toss left a little bit, you kind of got to go against your toss. And that keeps you at extension kind of went away from there, but interesting. I want to talk about two things that you made me think of first one. I remember Nick telling us the best way to roll it. You don't change anything about your arm swing or your jump. The only thing you do is get your feet just a little bit in front of the ball. So the ball is set of like, I don't know, let's say eight inches in front of your head, it's like right on top. And then it's really easy to create that, that roll spin. I thought that was a really good visual. Um, and then the second thing is, Last year in Lundberg, we did a similar thing with manipulating the ball. We called it, I actually don't remember some German word, but we would serve from all over the gym, like four meters into the court, eight meters out the right sideline, like behind the bleachers and just like experimenting with getting the ball in the court from wherever, and I thought that was so cool. And like, Your ball is the best or the ball is your best friend and figuring out how to manipulate it and do whatever you want with it and put it exactly where you want. Why are you guys laughing? You want to manipulate your best friend? Yeah, in this, in this case, and only in this case you do now, maybe best friend is the balls, your best friend, the balls, your fault. Yeah. It's my best friend. And. I want, I want to put them exactly where I want. No, all I'm saying is that the ability to manipulate the ball and put it exactly where you want. And not like in a general area, like, I'm not like, Oh, I'm gonna hit this guy. Maybe he goes to seem like be able to put it right in the seam. And you want this guy to take two steps to his left. That is so valuable. I think like so valuable. Talking about rollies. I just had the question. Um, how important is it for you guys to have a screen? cause you can hit hard serves over a screen, whatever. Does the screen play a big role in your guys decision to roll or will you roll no matter what? Good question. For me, I, passer on the other side, if there's like semi, semi screen, semi screen, and then a very intentional screen, you know, it's actually find it easier because I know exactly what's coming. I have played around with being very vocal about like, move the screen over, move the screen over, move the screen over, and then rolling the opposite direction, just as like another weapon, I guess, but honestly, it didn't work all that well. I find just keeping the guys in the middle, because at this level, everyone's so good at passing. And like, you can see around the screen pretty well, unless you've got a monster team, but if you keep the people in the middle of the court all the time, then no one knows where it's going to go. I also think I like that. I also think if you have the screen in the middle and you do need like kind of a bailout rollie, that's the most high traffic area for statistically the worst passer on the team, which is going to be the middle. Like, I think if you're rolling right over the screen, As like a bailout, you're going to hit the middle at least a little bit or take out the pipe or take out the pipe. And I think that's, but yeah, I've been burned on rollies that are wide open. Like I can see the whole, I can see the server from the time he tosses it to the time it's on the floor. Like, you know, it's, I don't know how much of a role it plays, but it would be something interesting to look at. Like, and I don't know, TS internationally, like how much are guys using that to their advantage? Or is it more just. Whatever you're feeling at the time. There's a Medium amount of roles I would say an appropriate amount of roles But I think that for a lot of the best teams and pastors in the world it's less effective because their eyes are so so good and Even this year in France our libero would just pass all the roles pretty much across the whole the whole court He was incredible Making that read and I would barely be moving off my spot towards the ball and he's already there just standing It's a free ball for him. And I think that's that's pretty rare rare skill and rare rare read But I think that's why having the consistency on on your approach and your toss and the speed that everything moves at before the contact because As you move up levels, reading is I think the differentiator a lot of times between, between levels. So if you can make yourself hard to read, um, through those variations, I think that's, that's a huge advantage. I'm just, do we want to talk about roll technique a little bit? Cause we talked about the float technique actually had one thing on the float technique and we kind of touched on it, but the number one important thing, especially hitting a hybrid spin to float. Is just getting the ball to float because your body's moving so fast already that you don't really need to even hit the ball. If you just change that spin from, or you change that ball from spin to float, it's traveling fast enough because of the momentum of your body. Because you're moving faster than you would on a, on a normal float serve. You know, I think that's a really good point. We used to talk about, uh, foot speed equals arm speed, which kind of disagree with a little bit when Ben would say that, but in this, in the floating sense, a hundred percent, the faster you move your feet. And the more aggressive you jump, you, you don't have to hit the ball. Your arm will do the work. Your body will do the work in that sense. And then for rolling technique, what has helped you? Because it is a, I've never been taught really how to roll. It's just like hit the ball short. But then I've developed some things that helped me do that. I think that Nick Delbianco, like especially guys with runners, like Jesse's saying, like, yeah, get your feet under it with, with the runner. I think the roll. Is important. Like if, if you have a miss toss a little bit behind you, it's the same thing. And then it's just your, your last, like the, where, where you contact the ball, it's going to be the difference. Like it's, I think it has to be on top of you. You can't roll out in front of you because otherwise. Yeah, I think you can, but not straight. Like for instance, if I'm serving from one rolling to two is quite easy because you can hit the back and the side of the ball, but where I'm having trouble. Is serving to three and four from one, because to four there's, it's got to be straight and to three, it's pretty straight as well. And there's no room for error, especially to four for me. It's hard, man. Like I try and use, like, you know how, if you look at your hand, the ball of your thumb, is that what it's called? What would you call this area? I try and graze the ball with the pad of my thumb or this, the heel of my hand, but more so on the thumb side and finishing on top of the ball and you almost hit it up, but you're barely touching the ball. So, and with a good toss and fast feet, just like the float, the ball will have enough speed to go over the net. Does that make sense? I think that's similar. That's similar to what I do. And I think a lot of problems that people run into are decelerating when, when hitting a rollie, which is hard not to do because you're moving at a fast pace and you need to slow the ball down. Um, but I like what you said, Jess, about finishing up. Cause that's a big key for me. is I do my exact same arm swing. I accelerate basically straight up to the roof. Yes. Yes. So my hand is moving really fast, but just straight up. It's a weird thing to describe, but my hand's going up and just touching the back of the ball so that I can still, I think we're more accurate when we're accelerating also. So I pick my spot on the back of the ball and then I accelerate through it. And then I think that allows me to find that contact more often. And just because of, like you're saying, it's a weird thing because you're only trying to hit a tiny portion of the ball. Yeah, like you're not slowing down your arm swing at all. That's where people, that's where it's really easy to read. If someone drops their elbow or their weight, their weight, their weight, and then they just, it's really easy to read. Especially like you said, to use in France, you'll have Liberals just standing there, like eating a sandwich, getting ready to pass. But it's the, it's the amount you touch the ball or the, how much of your hand you use, I guess, really is the best way. Well, maybe not the best way. It's a way. Yeah, it's a way. I don't know, I like the shootin to the roof, like that's a, that's a good key, I think that's a great key, like it's not Hey, myth or fact? You can open hand tip a serve. Uh, I don't think you can. Do you think I think you can. I want to double check this, but I think you can. I've seen videos of Kubiak in Korea or Japan, high toss, tips to two on a serve, ace. I That is an absolute weapon, man. I don't know if you can double check the rules because that would be a crazy thing to throw into a game. You could be so accurate, man. I know, but yeah, but, but where's like, you can't set a serve. So I think it has to be one hand. I don't know the rules. We should pull up the rule book, but I've seen this video and they got the point. And it's a viral video. I'm going to look into that. Yeah. I might, I might ask Sean if I can do that. Yeah. Good luck with those Sask refs. Yeah. Um, Jesse, you brought up an interesting point earlier about making the passer move in a certain way. I think that is incredible and next level. I think the more detail you can imagine the serve you want to hit. In before you hit it. I think the closer you'll be to that result, like you're saying, picking a pretty narrow target spot. We talked about Tita green in the last episode, watching that ball flight come back from the spot. You want to hit. Imagine it coming back, seeing the line that the ball's going to travel on, how it's going to feel coming out of your hand. And then I love the part about what will the passer look like when he's attempting to pass this ball because that's what we're after. It's not, not just hitting a serve. It's manipulating the passers, hopefully in a way that is outside of their, their skillset. And then you get an ace, but in the worst case, You manipulate your best friend to manipulate your opponents. Yeah. Yeah. No, but sorry, keep going. That was a bad joke. Yeah, um, that's basically all I had to say. Well, I think it's, it's, it's true because the reality is as soon as that ball leaves your hand, you should be able to say, I did the best I could. And like you said, TS, your, your ability as a server in eSports versus, um, the VNL summer didn't change. The passage just got way better, right? So you have to be able to say, I delivered my best serve at the time, and then it's out of your control. So, even if I want to hit this seam with a float and I want, The left side to take two steps in at the liberal poachers. It does just information for you to gather and be like, okay, he likes that. He likes that. Maybe you try the other way and the liberal doesn't move as much. And then you gain that kind of information. So it's, it's, it's kind of like a cat and mouse game, like seeing how they're going to react, seeing how the game planned against you. Because that's a huge thing, especially at the next level. But the best, the dream scenario is all three passers are dead neutral because they have no idea where you're going to serve. And I love that because then I know that the ball's in my court, figuratively and literally. What's, what's your guys general mentality when you're behind the service line? When you're serving your best, let's say. My general mentality, I don't want to say that I chase aces. Because that makes it sound like I'm recklessly serving, but I would say that I go for aces quite a bit, because I'm giving my best serve and I know that my best serve can catch passers off guard. And if they pass it, great, which happens a lot. But I know, because that's the reality of it, they're going to pass the ball. That's their job. But I know if I hit my best serve, the chances of a result, let's not say ace, but the result. Is quite high. Like when I'm rolling, I'm rolling to score when I'm bombing, I'm bombing to blow them up when I'm floating, I'm floating to try and catch them too high or too deep, you know, like I'm so I'm, yeah, I would say I'm chasing aces, but not in a bad way, like I'm not ace or miss. I'm consistently putting in my hardest serve. And hard doesn't mean power, hard means a small portion of the court, or a small depth of the court, or hard meaning speed. What about you? Me? Um, I'd say I'm similar. The, my mentality is play my toss. So like I'm always trying to hit my best serve. If my toss isn't allowing me to hit my best serve, and I'm not saying my float is a worse serve or worse option than my hard cutter, or my rollie is not a good option, but I think, like, I'm always trying to hit my hard serve, and then if it, if the situation isn't allowing me to, then that's where I go to my, my hard float, or if I'm a little bit, like, if I toss a little bit behind me, that's when I go to my rollie. Interesting. Like, I wouldn't say that I'm predetermining a roll before I'm in the air. And I think that allows me to kind of disguise it a little bit more. You know? Cause you're, you surprise yourself. Yeah. I'm like, Oh, okay. Rolling. Dude, I'm the complete opposite. But I've also gotten to the point where I can toss very consistently. I would say I miss my toss. Once, maybe twice a practice. And I think that there's even high, there's places where I'm like, okay, I'm going to leave myself a little more and hit a nice float, you know, like my, that's like game situational, but I think for me, it's like Kate, every time I'm trying to hit my best serve. And if it's not there, then I'm going to my, my next, my next best serve. I think though you want to get to a point where you can hit speed, float, and roll from the same toss. For sure, and it is the same toss, and I can decide if I want to do that situationally, but I'm always trying to hit my best serve. I get what you're saying. I get what you're saying. Like, I'm, I'm not trying to downplay this, the strength of a roll or a float. Yeah. Because it's not my next best serve, it's just the best serve in that situation, you know? Right, no, 100%. But you're saying it's dependent on your toss. Which is fine. I'm just saying that the goal would be to have the toss the same every time. For sure. And I don't know how to explain this, but the toss, the toss is only different by a matter of like centimeters. You know, and like I can manipulate, like if I want to hit a hard serve and I had a little behind me, I just shorten up my last step, you know, or if I wanted to hit a float, I would just let it fall a little bit more in front of me. Yeah, yeah, that's a really good explanation. Yeah, but using the toss to your advantage. But I'm always going to try and hit my hard serve. And then if it's not there, it's not there, you know, Yeah, no, no, no, that's a, that's a, that, that makes a lot of sense what you just said. It's a good explanation. I also realized. It's impossible to toss too high. Like, have you ever gone to jump and serve and miss the ball because the ball's still too high? I think that's a very common No, not that. The common thing is to miss low. Yeah, exactly. Anyways, what about you, T? What's your mindset? I, I think really, really positively about serving. I love serving. Might be my favorite skill. Because it's your best friend. And I think that helps me because I'm never threatened. Uh, it's not true. Sometimes you're in a slump and it, and it sucks. But most of the time I'm not threatened by serving at all. And I think I already, I already said this, but just framing it as an opportunity. I love going back there because, Hey, maybe this is selfish, but it's me. I'm the only guy that can influence this play and I have an opportunity to do something sweet. So. I like to think of myself as a problem for the other team when I go back there. Like, problem P sucks for these guys. Houston. We got a problem. TS is serving. These guys got to deal with me now. That kind of, that kind of thing. And it's not as aggressive as that. It's just like, I'm going to do some damage kind of thing. And if it's not my day, if it's not my day, then me doing damage is popping in my best serve for the team. And I honestly think serving is like probably 60 percent confidence. I don't know where I pulled that number from, but, you know, like, like the difference between being tentative and serving versus being fully confident in your abilities and serving could be the difference between aces and knockouts versus misses and free balls, you know? Well, yeah, you can put a, a, a tentative serve in meaning a less risky serve, but you have to have full confidence in that serve. Like tentative is the wrong word, but I'm trying to. Use that word. You know, like your, your tentative serve is your. Your 98 percent serve that you know is going to go in the court, but you have full confidence in that serve. It's not, it's not a changeup because you're scared or you don't think you can put it in the court. It's just, yeah, no, I agree. To end off here. I want to hear both of your. Best serving runs or best serving game? I have two. Or best serve. One moment where you hit a good serve. Anything. Okay. I have four. Okay. Pick, pick, pick. Pick one. Pick two. Pick one or two. Pick one. I wanna, okay. Or just go through them quick. Go through them. Quick pick, go through them. I wanna pick three. My first one was when I tied the. Speed service record in practice, the Trinity record with one 22. And I thought it was so cool and such a special moment because it's an individual serve. It's just me, but everyone celebrated. I like ran around, I'll post, we'll post the video. I ran around like screaming my head off and everyone joined me and everyone was cheering for me. And it was just so fun. And I felt so. Like everyone was rooting for me, you know, it was such a cool feeling. I haven't got anywhere close to one 22 since then, but that was awesome. Then my next one that's compared, I started and ended my U sports career with huge serving games. My very first U sports game was against SASC and I had nine aces. And then in the U sports final in my last year, I had seven aces and Like I said at the beginning, I pride myself in consistency, and I think that was, like, the perfect bookend of consistency. And I said this a couple episodes ago where Ben used to talk about how you serve tells the world a lot about you. And I think I showed the world, showed the eSports world what I was about when I entered the league and when I left the league. And that was, that was selfishly and personally a special memory on both ends of my eSports career. That's sweet. Um, Honestly, I can't really remember many good serving things, but I do remember, I don't know who it was against. It was last season. And I remember just going on like a, probably like a five or six serving run to put us, we were down by three and then we went up three. I don't know. I just think when you're in that like zone or like mentality of like, okay, like I'm hitting good serves It's just such like a feeling of pure like bliss like it's like like yeah, nothing can really hurt me But like having just like all the energy behind you is just such a cool feeling and like all the boys are fired up I don't think I think I probably had like maybe two aces in that run, but even just like the, the knockout to high ball block and, and Schoeners just screaming like a little Charizard, like, ah, you know, it's just, it's just such a sweet feeling. And I don't know, I don't think I've played enough high level games to have more, but that's just, I don't know. That's just, that's a, that's a great point. Actually, some of my longest serving runs, the other team passed. Most of my serves, good or perfect. Yeah, I've had some long serving runs where the team is just dialed on me and I think it's why I actually don't know why but just the consistency Of every time we have the ball, we will get a serve in the court I think that helps the team build that momentum and then our block tee starts Just gaining the rhythm and then I think that's how long runs are created and I actually fall in the court I actually think my favorite part is is the whole team aspect like you put in a good serve You And then someone makes a great block read and you get a block or you get a sweet dig to transition. Like I think that's more fun in itself than getting an ace. And it's way more, for sure, energy building. Yeah, and then that's, that's why they always say never end your own run because you're, You're not giving your team the chance to do all these things that they've dialed in on the setter, they've dialed in on high ball, they've dialed in on defense. If you end your own run, you're also ending the run of the team. You know, it's different if you miss your first or second serve, but if you miss your like fourth or fifth, Those ones sting way more. I hate those ones. I hate those ones. Um, but I want to, I want to tell another story, not me serving, but when you had, when you said when the team's just like fired up and the team's got your back. And do you guys remember one Saturday morning when we were in Kamloops, our bench played TRU bench and it was the third set to 15 and we won 15 zero and Tyson served all 15 balls. Yeah. Yeah, that was, that was incredible. Was awesome. That was one of my most favorite memories. Like we were all so fired up. We got to like four or five. We're like, oh yeah. I go, TEIS. We were all stretch in the corner and then seven or eight rolls around. We're like, okay, te. And then we're like at 13 and we're like, oh my God. Freaking out. Yeah, that was, that was incredible. I love that you got one T Sweet. Yeah, I've got two. My first one was, uh, down in Mexico with the B team for the first time. Um, and I didn't play the first couple games and then finally got on the court. I think probably around that Mexico game and, uh, somehow just found an insane rhythm. And I think I knocked out six aces. In the game where like guys weren't even touching them. They had poor scene management, that's for sure. Um, but that's probably the most confident I've ever been in my serve. I was not thinking an ounce. I was just tossing my serve and hitting as hard as I possibly could and it would just go in the court every time. It was the molten, right? Yeah, the molten. So, that was, that was fun. Um, playing in front of a big crowd there too. Um, and then the second one would be CanWest Finals in my last year at Trinity. We were in a really tight matchup with Alberta in their gym, 3, 200 fans or something like that, people standing all around. It's so loud in there. And the play before there was a ball out the back and I ran after it. Made a big save, slid into the stands, got the ball over and then we block defended them and transitioned and everyone is going crazy. Our fans are going wild. our, our bench is on the court. So the video is hilarious. I'm walking back to serve and I'm like high fiving all the guys cause they're standing at the back of the court. Um, so like energy is just so high. I think we're up like 24, 23 at this point. So much just buzz in the gym. And then I went up there and just hit. Most pure role of my life. Finished, accelerated up through the ball and dropped it in, um, on their passer and five, and we ended up winning the set and just turn and look at the bench and they're all just running at me. And it's just the most exciting moment. Yeah, that is, I remember that perfectly. That was sick. I thought TSC, you were going to say, I have another story for you when you came in and your first year against Brandon can West semifinals. We were down by, I don't know if we were down or we were tied, it was either we were down 24, 23 or 23, 23 and you came in as a serving sub and served back to back aces. Do you remember that? Yeah, yeah, I do remember that. I, that was my most vivid memory of you serving. That was a cool, cool moment. Yeah, that's a good one too. Sweet. Nice stories, boys. Alrighty. Okay, well. I think that wraps up Episode 17 of the Pit to Pro podcast. today was the second episode in a five part series on specific skills. So today we went over serving. Um, I hope you guys learned some things and enjoyed our stories. Thanks everyone for listening. Signing off. Thanks everyone for listening to the Pit to Pro podcast. Give us a follow on Instagram and submit your questions to the link in our bio. 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