Gregor's blog

The ultimate volleyball player ?

gregor@volleybook.com — Sun, 26 Oct 2008 12:35:58 GMT

Here's a short video demoing a Japanese robot playing volleyball. Quite amazing !

Don't vote !

gregor@volleybook.com — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 07:25:54 GMT

If you are not a US citizen, you can disregard this post as you can't vote for Obama or McCain anyway. But if you ARE a US citizen, please do us all a favor; DON'T VOTE !

<\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/div>";" alt="">

People online are real people

gregor@volleybook.com — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 10:50:40 GMT

Megan Casey over at SquidBlog gives us a nice reminder of how to behave online.

If you send a nasty email, there’s a real human being on the other end who gets it.
If you flame in a forum, you’re wasting real people’s time.
If you spam someone, you’re really only making yourself look bad.
If you write IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS it sounds like shouting.
If you want something to happen your way, try asking instead of demanding.
If you give, you’ll probably wind up getting, too.
If you blog just to pick fights, don’t be surprised when people don’t trust you.
If you collaborate, say thanks.
If you’re independent, say no thanks.
If you like someone, tell them.
If you don’t, walk away from the computer.
If you’re giving feedback, lead with just one good thing.
If you’re getting feedback, realize that the person must care a lot to have sent it.
If you goof, apologize.
If you apologize, mean it.
If you smile, mean that too.
If you don’t like something, don’t do it.
If you do like something, spread it.
But far far more important:
Give people a break.
The break you probably deserve yourself.
People are out to do good, 99% of the time.
You probably are too.
Say thanks out loud and a lot.
Try making someone’s day.
Chances are they’ll make yours in return.

Visit Megan's blog.

Google Chrome cartoon

gregor@volleybook.com — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 11:46:59 GMT

If you haven't heard already, Google has released their own browser, dubbed Chrome. It is very slick, and very fast, and I recommend you to give it a try. It is a great alternative to Internet Explorer, and to a lesser extent, to Firefox. It is of course FREE but only available for windows so far.

Also take a look at this cartoon. It is a fun way to learn more about Google's browser. Here's the first slide (1/38):

Thirst

gregor@volleybook.com — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:09:07 GMT

THIRST

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: design crisis)

The champion's pyramid

gregor@volleybook.com — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 12:29:53 GMT

Following my latest post, I have found this great interview of Andre Patin, the mythical coach of Asnieres Volley 92 (Paris, France). The video (below) is in french but here's a translation:

"What makes the difference, right at the top [of the pyramid], is the emotional stability. It's all there, that's what makes the difference.
Mental skill is central.
Physical skills, technical skills etc... are only accessory.
Physical skills without technical skills are only the ruin of efficiency.
Technical skills without mental skills are only the ruin of performance.
Quote from Claude Sarrazin, former prof. University of Montreal: "Excellence comes with time, effort, discernment, and tenacity.
So is the excellence of the authentic champion".

Now I assume that what Andre Patin means when he says "Mental skill is central" could be tied to Andrea Zorzi's concept of chunks, the cognitive ability to use memory structures as units of perception and meaning, and the learning mechanisms leading to the acquisition of these memory structures(chuncks).

Mental skills allow the player to process a huge amount of data: statistical knowledge of the opponent's team combined with information gathered "onsite" (e.g. The pass being off the net usually means no threat from the quick attack but stats from this particular setter show that he/she likes to set in the middle when far from the net). This leads to the creation of information used by the player to make a decision. Mental skills are central.

Where the two experts seem to differ, however, is on what is most important.

Zorzi seems to consider the mental ability as ~~predominant~~ important (see update below) :

[Having a bigger Chunk means to deal with a lot of information as a single unit of perception. Obviously, the victories depend on many other factors, as technical skills, physical conditions, right emotional approach an so on.]

UPDATE: Andrea told me by email he disagreed with the following statement:

"Zorzi seems to consider the mental ability as predominant". He added :"A champion has to be a mix of different ability and you cannot win relying only on the mental ability without physical and technical skills.Then I saw many potentially good athletes wasting their talent due to a small mental ability."

Patin seems to consider emotional stability as predominant. A note next to "emotional stability" on the top right corner of his pyramid's diagram reads:

[Maintains the level of play regardless of the conditions of the game]

Please note that these are my understanding of Patin's and Zorzi's respective theories, based on a couple of blog posts and a short interview. I may be wrong, and perhaps both of them agree on the matter. Anyway, my goal here is not to artificially oppose two volleyball experts (I have the utmost respect for both of them), but instead to try to look at the big picture. What do you need most to become a great volleyball player ? What makes the difference ? What sets the great players apart from the good ones ?

Height ? Speed ? Power ? Vertical jump ? Flexibility ? Technical ability ? Cognitive skills ? Self confidence ? Emotional stability ?...

If you can't have all of them, which one would you pick ? When recruiting for your team, what do you look for ?

In 1999, I decided that I wanted to play in Asnieres Volley 92, lead by Head Coach Andre Patin. He had "made" so many great players, (like Hubert Henno, Mathias Patin (his son), Sebastien Frangolacci etc...) that I, too, wanted to learn from the master . The try-outs lasted 2 weeks, practicing everyday, with 2 other candidates. I didn't make it. He chose Philippe Barca-Cysique instead.

I have been working hard on my emotional stability ever since...

Play Volleyball with your brains

gregor@volleybook.com — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 11:29:03 GMT

After his coverage of the 2007 World Cup, Andrea Zorzi is back this year with more videos interviews and coverage of the 2008 FIVB events (the World Grand Prix 9-13 July in Yokohama (JPN), the World League 23-27 July Rio de Janeiro (BRA) and the Olympic Games 8-24 August in Beijing (CHN)) on his blog.

A matter of Chunks:

In this post, Andrea analyses the 2008 World Grand Prix through the concept of Chunks.

If you are not familiar with this concept, here's a definition Andrea gives:

[the term chunk indicates memory structures that can be used as units of perception and meaning, and chunking is the learning mechanisms leading to the acquisition of these chunks.

*This is the Wikipedia quotation explaining the meaning of chunk in cognitive psychology and mnemonics.

Then Zorzi applies this concept to Volleyball with a fantastic example :

[Try to put yourself in the shoes of a Volleyball middle blocker, while his team-mate is serving.
He’s looking at the opponent side but from the sound of the hand hitting the ball, he can identify the kind of serve. Then, just looking at the position of the opponent passer, he can cut out many possibilities, making his decision easier. The stronger players don’t need to see where the pass will arrive because they anticipate the passing trajectory just by processing the data they quickly recognize.
After that, the middle blocker will focus on the opponent setter’s choice. Dealing with the information available from the previous statistical studies and the present situation, he can clearly identify the remaining possibilities. For instance, if the pass is far from the net, the threats coming from the quick attack suddenly disappear.
Then the middle blocker will focus on the opponent spiker evaluating the setting speed, the ball distance from the net, the spiker approaching, the position of his blocking mate, his own position and so on …
The athletes ceaselessly keep on with this process throughout the match, striving to be in the best position to reduce the effect of their adversaries’ plays.
Obviously, the more possibilities for opponents, the more difficult it is reacting correctly when dealing with these extra options. Volleyball is a continuous challenge in predicting what the opponent is trying to keep unpredictable.]

Make sure to read the entire post here.

Through this lens (concept of Chunks) he then goes on and analyses the 2008 World Grand Prix in this post: The seventh Brazilian victory. It is the first time I hear about this concept, but my guts feeling tells me Andrea is spot on. "Volleyball is a continuous challenge in predicting what the opponent is trying to keep unpredictable".

Volleyball is a sport with an emphasis on information, as opposed to sports with an emphasis on energy (e.g. marathon), therefore the ability to sort through a deluge of information and make sense of it all to take the right decision under the pressure of time is essential. This is often overlooked by coaches who tend to focus on teaching their players technical skills and physical training, keeping the tactical decision making process to themselves. I think that this is a mistake. The ultimate goal of any coach should be to become useless for their team. A coach is a guide, someone who shows you the way. The players have to walk the walk.

Teach your team how to become autonomous and responsible instead of obedient. Quite similar to parenting in a way, but I digress...

Here's Andrea's explanation of his personal ranking:

[ Fisrt of all, I have to make clearer that the only aim of my personal “Chunk Ranking” is to identify the team endowed with the bigger “Chunk”.
Having a bigger Chunk means to deal with a lot of information as a single unit of perception. Obviously, the victories depend on many other factors, as technical skills, physical conditions, right emotional approach an so on.
Lastly, I tried to identify the “Team’s Chunk” and not the “Individual Chunk”, given that the Volleyball performances depend mainly on the level of sharing of individual abilities.]

and his analysis of the Brazilian team chunking:

[BRAZIL is by far the best team. They react correctly almost ever, as dealing with complex options as with plain situations. The Brazilian players seemingly process effortless a huge amount of data. All the players are able to follow highly developed strategies in all the fundamentals and their lowest performance level is pretty high. Therefore, Ze Roberto’s players rarely suffer a long losing streak.]

Here's the official final standing (right picture) and Zorzi's personal Chunk Ranking (picture on the left):

The only difference between the two rankings concerns the Cuban's team, rated last by Zorzi when they actually made the finals. Here's what Andrea thinks about Cuba:

[CUBA placed sixth but they won the second place here, in Yokohama! The coaching autarchy and the unbelievable physical skills inhibited the growth of Cuban chunk. Cuba is a very strong team, but their data processing aptitude is really weak. Since the nineties, when they won three Olympic Games in a row (1992, 1996, 2000) relying on astonishingly talented players, Cuban Volleyball followed the same patterns: serve and spike as powerfully as possible. These athletes aren’t so excellent to win as much as the former Cuban athletes were. At the same time, the good results they achieved, don’t force the coaches to search for new ways.]

For a complete analysis of all teams, click here.

Finally, without undermining the more traditionally well known important aspects of the game (technical skills, physical condition and right emotional approach) Zorzi emphasizes the importance of the ability for the athletes to learn from and adapt to the various situations of the game. If your team doesn't have an overwhelming physical advantage, you'd better start empowering your athletes now with the ability to learn by themselves.

Everything you always wanted to know about Volleyball but were afraid to ask

gregor@volleybook.com — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 19:08:50 GMT

The AFP has released a very cool Volleyball animation with detailed explanations about rules, tactics, number of players, fouls…

Got stats ? Who cares…

gregor@volleybook.com — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 11:36:53 GMT

You take stats of all your games, all your players, all your opponents. Good for you ! But really, who cares ?

That is, unless you do something useful with all that data, just collecting it won’t do you (or your team) any good. I’ve seen too many a coach indulging in this long and painful process of taking note of each pass, each set, spike, block of their players just to find out that all this data stays hidden at the back of their drawer and never gets analyzed, much less divulged to the team.

I’ve always seen that as a CYA (Cover Your Ass) strategy. We’re in sports, we take stats. That’s what we do. That’s part of the game.

Don’t get me wrong, I believe in stats. I believe in analysis. But as a mean to an end. Sometimes showing a player a simple number of their real effectiveness can go a long way in the perception they have of themselves. “I know you think you’re doing good but take a look at your stats: you have an average of 68% of perfect passing. I think you can do a lot better, don’t you agree ? So let’s work on that…” And there you go.

Meaningful info about your opponents can come in the simplest form: “Number 7 hits diagonal 80% of the time when she’s in position 4, and hits line 90% of the time when in position 2.”

Now replace that with: “Number 7 hits most of the time diagonal when in 4 and line when in 2.”

Admittedly not as precise as the first one but does it make such a difference ? If you’re coaching a national team in the Olympics, and your players are advanced enough to make use of that information, it probably will. Because 8 times out of 10 is different from 9 times out of 10, and this single point could cost you a medal.

But for most coaches out there, and (again) for most players, a simple trend expressed in understandable English (or insert_your_language_here) is usually enough. “Look at the setter, every time she lowers her elbows, she sets in the middle.” Your middle blocker doesn’t need to know that it is actually only 94.37 % of the time. Their job is to make a choice (to commit in the middle or to go to the wing) in a very short time. By recognizing this pattern and telling them to commit in the middle every time they see it, you take out of their way a big chunk of the uncertainty that makes it so difficult to block the middle hitter . And if they are right only 95% of the time, well that’s a pretty impressive return on investment.

Taking stats, and analyzing it is a time consuming process. So unless you have enough time and knowledge yourself (or have a committed assistant to help you) to collect that data, to transform that raw data into meaningful information, and then to deliver that information to your players in a way they will understand (as in a way to help them do their job), then by all means do it !

But if you have limited time and resources, don’t take stats because that’s what everybody else does. It’s just a waste of (everybody’s) time. And it probably won’t be enough to save your ass anyway…

Instead take a quick look at the situation and try to recognize trends (we are missing lots of serves / too often our setter is off the net and can’t set in the middle / we dig lots of balls but don’t score on counter-attack etc…). Develop a strategy to make it change. Repeat.

Maybe one day you’ll lead a big team and you’ll have people (and software) helping you figure out when, why, where you lost or won.

Below is an example from the NY Times about the latest big game in the US: Obama Vs. Clinton.

When done the right way, stats really rock !

5 Go of free online storage

gregor@volleybook.com — Tue, 27 May 2008 11:15:32 GMT

I used to play Volleyball, but now I'm a geek. And most of my friends and family aren't as savvy as I am when it comes to Internet or computers, so I often find myself talking about something I think everybody knows about, just to find out that it ain't true. Especially when it comes to software and online services.

So I decided to share this (old) news with you too. You can get 5 Go of free online storage ! Actually you could get more than that if you wanted to... but first thing first.

What is online storage ?

Think of online storage as an additional hard drive located in the cloud, that you access through your Internet browser. It is perfect for backup, sharing your files with others or extending your personal storage capacity.

Why should I care ?

Well online storage has a lot of advantages:

since it is "in the cloud", it is accessible from anywhere (Home, office, School, hotel...). You don't need to carry your USB stick with you anywhere you go, your data is always accessible.
Your data is secured by online storage services providers : backed-up, stored on redundant, highly available array of disks.
Your data is somewhere else, so if anything should happen to your computer (stolen, broken, infected...), your data is safe.
The storage space is extensible to virtually infinite capacity.
Most online storage services providers offer a free plan, or very competitive prices.

There is really no good reason NOT to use it. I personally use two of them: Amazon S3 (Simple Storage Service) and Windows Live SkyDrive.

S3 is a professional solution aimed at businesses and is more scalable, powerful and difficult to use than the customer focused ones. There is no free plan but they charge 0.15 USD per Go plus bandwidth so it makes it a very cheap and reliable solution for businesses, from startups to Fortune 100.

Windows Live SkyDrive is aimed at the average Internet user, comes with as much as 5Go of storage (1Go = 1000 Mo = 1 000 000 Ko) and is totally free. While 5 Go are enough for most people, you should check other solutions, should you need more storage power.

What I like about SkyDrive is its simplicity and effectiveness. You decide who can access the file you want to upload (Only you, your friends, or everybody) and voila!

<\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/div>";" alt="">

This is just one example of many similar services, and you may find out that you need or like another one better, but my point is, if you are not already using online storage, you should start ASAP.