Read the Shoulder

Steps

1. 01Set up in defence behind a blocker who is taking a called shot.
2. 02Watch the hitter's hitting shoulder through their approach and call out loud what you expect: hard, cut, or deep.
3. 03Move to it before contact, accepting that you will sometimes be wrong.
4. 04Score the rep on whether your call matched what they actually hit, separately from whether you dug it.
5. 05Run 20 reps, then have the hitter deliberately disguise two of every five.

Common mistakes

• Watching the ball rather than the hitter, which means moving after contact.
• Committing so early the hitter simply hits the space you left.
• Standing still because the last guess was wrong, which is guessing without the upside.