Blocking in Volleyball — Master the Bunch Read System

Blocking is one of the most demanding skills in volleyball, complex, technical, and requiring a level of discipline that takes real time to develop. It's also one of the most worked-on skills at every level of the game.

GMS founder Carl McGown was relentless about blocking. That obsession shaped how GMS teaches it, and it's why the bunch read system, GMS's preferred team blocking approach, has been in the curriculum for over 25 years. Today it's used at every level, from high school programs to top international teams.

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What Is the Bunch Read?

The bunch read is a blocking system built around a simple premise: keep your blockers closer to the middle of the court, then make fast, dynamic moves to the pin when needed.

Rather than starting wide and trying to cover the pins from a static position, blockers start bunched — elbows to elbows on the left, hands to hands on the right, and read the setter before committing. Because they're starting from a more central position with dynamic footwork, they can get two, and often three, blockers in front of most sets.

The system rewards early vision and clean mechanics. When every blocker moves the same way and sees the same things, the system works. When mechanics are inconsistent between players, it breaks down.

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Five Skills That Make It Work

Building an effective bunch read requires your blockers to develop five things, in this order:

• Proper spacing between middle and end blockers
• Efficient footwork patterns, the Q3, x2, and x3 moves
• Armwork that gets blockers up and over the net quickly
• Disciplined eyework, reading the setter early, getting to the hitter before the jump
• Tactical positioning for different pass and set situations

The eyework is the most important of the five. But eyework development is constrained by footwork, if your athletes can't move well, they can't act on what they're seeing. The two have to be trained together.

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The Full System Is Inside GMS+

The concept above is the starting point. Installing the bunch read, teaching the spacing, drilling the footwork patterns, fixing the common armwork breakdowns, and building the tactical reads,m is what the full guide covers.

GMS+ paid members get the complete breakdown:

• Baseline spacing for left-front and right-front blockers and why they're different
• The five footwork patterns every blocker needs, ranked by speed, distance, and jump height
• The seven most common footwork mistakes and how to coach them out
• Armwork requirements: hands-down vs. hands-up starting positions and when to use each
• Eyework training progression, how to build reads from blocked reps to live play
• Tactics: Load, Dedicate, and when to commit block at the high school and club level
• Practice structure, how to get enough blocking reps without sacrificing serve-receive time

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This is a paid membership guide. Start your GMS+ membership to access it.