What are some of the differences between playing club indoor & club beach volleyball?

- One of the biggest differences in the two sports is your role on a team. For indoor, you have a specialized position and your team needs you at practices and tournaments for the team to function well. For beach, everybody plays every position and partners switch regularly between tournaments. So if you miss a practice or you miss a tournament, everything still functions well for everybody else. So, as you consider playing for us, consider that you aren't required to play in or travel to every tournament that's on our schedule. The rest of the team will still function at a high level despite your absence! 

- In beach, you don't have to worry about playing time. It's 2 v 2. You can't get subbed out! However, you also can't hide. The mental side of beach volleyball is completely different. If you're struggling, you've got to power through. The beach journey is much more independent than indoor.

- Another example of beach's independence is your ability to play in additional tournaments beyond what our club is playing in. Many of our top players play in over 20 tournaments a year, but they may only play in 8-10 tournaments that are on our competition schedule. As long as you have a membership with the tournament's sanctioning body (AVP, p1440, AAU, etc.) you can grab a partner and go play! The tournaments on our competition schedule will have Sinjin coaches providing assistance, but you don't have a to have a coach to go play in a tournament. Sign up, and go play!

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How long can I balance playing both indoor & beach?

The answer to this question depends so much on what your specific goals are. If your goal is simply to enjoy playing both sports, then keep playing both sports. Usually, the question on when to specialize in beach or indoor revolves around college recruiting. The most common situation we run into is: "I want to play beach in college, but I don't want to stop playing indoor yet." If you are wanting to play beach in college, the absolute latest that we recommend making the switch to full time beach is by your freshman year in high school. Switching to full-time beach your sophomore year and still getting recruited can be done, but it drastically slows down the recruiting timeline and often pushes the recruiting journey into your senior year of high school. We tend to see that the players who switch to full-time beach later often have less access to available scholarship money from beach programs. The players who specialize early tend to be more polished recruits earlier and garner larger scholarships. You can start talking to college coaches and receiving offers on June 15 after your sophomore year, so ideally, you're a decently polished beach player when you're playing in front of colleges at camps and showcases during your sophomore year. Switching to full-time beach your sophomore year doesn't make a lot of sense with that timeline.

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Does playing indoor help me with beach volleyball?

Once you get past the general fundamentals of engaging with a volleyball, no. After the first couple years of playing indoor, we do not see much crossover between the indoor and beach game. Beach is VERY different. Your fundamentals are held to a different standard because you always have a next job; you have to be a jack of all trades. Indoor volleyball allows you to specialize in one specific skill set. In indoor, if you're a bad setter, no problem. Somebody else can handle the setting. In the sand, if you're a bad setter, you're going to struggle because the other team can serve your partner and force you to set. If you're a bad passer, they'll just serve you. After you get through the passing and setting, you need to learn all of the various shots and swings on a smaller court so you can score. Generally, 2 man defense in the sand doesn't compare to 6 man defense indoors. While the indoor game is incredibly fun, the system of the indoor game does not translate to the system of beach volleyball.

 

Will playing beach volleyball hurt my indoor game?

Usually, beach players usually have very little trouble when they switch back to the indoor game. Most of our full time beach players are standout indoor players on their high school teams and don't skip a beat when they switch back to the hard court. They usually have a couple of habits from the sand that are a little different than what indoor coaches prefer, but they've been forced to become very versatile players. The flip side is not true. When those players come back out to the sand after having not set or not passed for 3 months, they are incredibly rusty! If you want to get good at beach volleyball, the fastest way to do it is to play a bunch of beach volleyball in deep sand and plenty of wind!