Tip by Jen Hernandez in California.
"Mistake" is what we call this drill. This is a fast pace drill with continuous play. And lots of touches on the ball.
6 v 6 with players in their normal positions. Play starts with coach initiating the ball. From there the ball is constantly live. If a player makes a mistake (hits in the net, misses the dig, hits out, misses the block so ball falls on own side/blocks out, miss sets, doesn't cover block/hitter resulting in ball hitting the ground, etc. ) they immediately get another ball tossed at them by the coach that they (the player who made the mistake or made the play) need to play.
The ball tossed in by the coach automatically resets the touch count so the team has 3 touches again to get the ball over. If a player misses the dig and is on the ground we often toss the ball back at them while they are trying to get up.
Purpose of the drill is to work on response time and to not allow players time to think about their mistake- getting the ball immediately after the mistake does not allow time for them to get in their head and worry about their mistake they are forced to shake it off and make the next play. The only time we slow or pause the drill is to allow us to clear a ball that might be a hazard to jumping. Speed of drill could be adjusted by the coach by allowing more time before tossing the "mistake ball" in to the player. Because there is constantly a live ball it is essentially simulating a very long rally. So coaches need to be aware energy levels/need for water. Our drill usually ends when we run out of balls. We shag and reset and flip front/back row if we have hitters that were in the back row that need to play front row.