Fran
I’ve attended three of Coach Donny’s sessions, and have left each one with actionable takeaways to apply on my own. His clinics are structured and well-rounded - each session covers a set of balanced and cohesive topics. His teaching strategy consists of breaking down the movements and actions of each skill into components, and then restitching it back together with immediate feedback and corrections from the coaches. Over the course of the three 2-hour sessions I attended, we covered timing and approach for back-row attacks, right-side hitting, right-side defense, float-serves, jump-floats, blocking, among others. For each topic, Coach Donny described and demoed step-by-step, we replicated the isolated movements, and then we iterated. Each person got a lot of touches and repetitions, during which Donny and his assistant either set for us or took turns observing and correcting. Coach Donny is extremely observant and analytical and is able to pick out the small nuances that make a huge difference in effectiveness. All in, these clinics have been incredibly helpful and I plan on continuing to attend as many as I can!
Camilo
It has been many years since I last played in school with a proper coach-student environment. Having the opportunity with Coach Donny after all this time has been a great chance for me to clean up my skills and to learn new things. Donny's approach of running drills for different positions every clinic has helped me not only to get better at my preferred position (which is middle), but also to work on my weaknesses by training on things like passing and setting.
Additionally, one thing that has stood out to me about Donny's coaching style is that, over the course of multiple clinics, he remembers his students and pays attention to little details in each of their playing styles. He has often noticed mistakes in my technique and given me exercises to correct them. These corrections have included little details like the length of the steps on my approach or corrections to my arm swing to avoid unnecessary strain on my shoulder. Overall, I highly recommend his clinics. Every chance I have to attend a clinic, I'll be there because the feedback I get from Coach Donny is invaluable to me.
Additionally, one thing that has stood out to me about Donny's coaching style is that, over the course of multiple clinics, he remembers his students and pays attention to little details in each of their playing styles. He has often noticed mistakes in my technique and given me exercises to correct them. These corrections have included little details like the length of the steps on my approach or corrections to my arm swing to avoid unnecessary strain on my shoulder. Overall, I highly recommend his clinics. Every chance I have to attend a clinic, I'll be there because the feedback I get from Coach Donny is invaluable to me.
Julie Anne
Coach Donny‘s clinics has helped me with my techniques so much. I have been working with Coach Donny for a long time. Before I went to his clinics, I didn’t play as good as I am right now. His spiking clinics have helped me to hit the ball harder and how I can hit the ball without hurting my arm. His settings clinics have helped me with setting higher, setting without hurting my fingers, wrist, hand and etc. Probably my favorite part of the clinics were the defense practice. I’m a libero and one of the younger players, and it’s fun when he hits the volleyball to me just as hard as he would on the older players because he knows I can handle it and how well I can control the ball. Another “clinic” or camp is Donny’s jump camp. This is my second time going to his jump camp and my jumps have improved so much after the first time I went to his camp. This camp does a lot of work that you can do at home and it will help you for your future if you wanna be a hitter or even a setter for volleyball (this jump camp can also help with basketball especially dunking). This jump camp also does some weight training but it’s fun because it will help you in the future. I’m 13 years old and a tiny person for my age (I think 4’ 9") and I can’t even reach above the volleyball net. After I went to Donny’s jump camp for the first time, I can finally, FINALLY reach above the net. Coach Donny is a great teacher/coach for volleyball. He definitely helped me become a better volleyball player and show how more athletic I am than I thought.
William
The coaching staff at the clinics are always very helpful and provide tips for you to improve on throughout the clinic, no matter your skill level. I remember one clinic, when we were working on blocking, the coaches gave me info on what I should have my hands like during a block and it has helped me block a lot of big hitters
Nicos
I would like to put a few words about experience of my son’s attendance at Elevate Volleyball Camp 1 and 2. For a parent signing up his kid for any camp could be hit or miss. Let alone when your child longs for getting to a new level of his skills, yet you don’t want to take chances wasting time and hopes. Luckily for us it was rather rewarding experience at Coach Donny’s Elevate camp. Serious volleyball as any sport is about skills, awareness of game play and situational positions, and constantly staying focused. Elevate camp addresses all those through: its tiered setup, methodology, and attitude.
Tiered setup.
First week of camp is dedicated to polishing all basic skills. Well, basic enough to be competitive in volleyball, be it at school or in a club, not just recreational. Particular attention is to technique of execution of various elements, starting with quality versus strength and speed, that will come later. Second week is about game play and behavioral aspects, where and how players need to be positioned depending on situational circumstances. With lots of scrimmages and further honing on individual skills - both offense and defense, that have been learned in the first week of the camp.
Methodology.
Kids by far are promising but they are also insecure, partly because lack of confidence in personal skills, lack of knowledge what and when to do in the game, and inability to constantly stay focused, which is quite crucial when you play team game and like in volleyball things happen in fraction of a second. There is so much to cover in short time yet to make sure kids get to really new level. When you have around 40 kids in the camp and so much to cover it can be challenging. Coach Donny and his six to eight assistant coaches do amazing job to evenly focus on all three aspects - individual skills, game play and game discipline. The whole court has two nets and divided in 4 sections x 2 sides, so that there is always 1 assistant coach dedicated to no more than 5 or so players plus Coach Donny observing all of them and giving his additional feedback. All the groups are constantly rotated among assistant coaches to make sure that they get different perspectives from different mentors.
Attitude.
I used several time term “assistant coach” which somewhat makes injustice to quality and level of individual attention that each coach gives during every session. All of them - 6-8 - are great educators and tailor their approach to individual abilities of each camper. Each coach is also accomplished professional or semi-professional volleyball player. Level of their dedication is truly impressive, and, what is no less important, they work in effective cohesion with head coach Donny to make sure 2 hours of every day camp are used as efficiently as possible.
After each session learned aspects are reinforced by carefully prepared reference material, videos, that Coach Donny sends via email to the participants of camp.
In conclusion, I could not recommend high enough attending Coach Donny’s Elevate Volleyball camp if you feel your child needs substantial boost in taking his or her skills and mental preparedness to the next level when attending JV or varsity, or playing in clubs.
Tiered setup.
First week of camp is dedicated to polishing all basic skills. Well, basic enough to be competitive in volleyball, be it at school or in a club, not just recreational. Particular attention is to technique of execution of various elements, starting with quality versus strength and speed, that will come later. Second week is about game play and behavioral aspects, where and how players need to be positioned depending on situational circumstances. With lots of scrimmages and further honing on individual skills - both offense and defense, that have been learned in the first week of the camp.
Methodology.
Kids by far are promising but they are also insecure, partly because lack of confidence in personal skills, lack of knowledge what and when to do in the game, and inability to constantly stay focused, which is quite crucial when you play team game and like in volleyball things happen in fraction of a second. There is so much to cover in short time yet to make sure kids get to really new level. When you have around 40 kids in the camp and so much to cover it can be challenging. Coach Donny and his six to eight assistant coaches do amazing job to evenly focus on all three aspects - individual skills, game play and game discipline. The whole court has two nets and divided in 4 sections x 2 sides, so that there is always 1 assistant coach dedicated to no more than 5 or so players plus Coach Donny observing all of them and giving his additional feedback. All the groups are constantly rotated among assistant coaches to make sure that they get different perspectives from different mentors.
Attitude.
I used several time term “assistant coach” which somewhat makes injustice to quality and level of individual attention that each coach gives during every session. All of them - 6-8 - are great educators and tailor their approach to individual abilities of each camper. Each coach is also accomplished professional or semi-professional volleyball player. Level of their dedication is truly impressive, and, what is no less important, they work in effective cohesion with head coach Donny to make sure 2 hours of every day camp are used as efficiently as possible.
After each session learned aspects are reinforced by carefully prepared reference material, videos, that Coach Donny sends via email to the participants of camp.
In conclusion, I could not recommend high enough attending Coach Donny’s Elevate Volleyball camp if you feel your child needs substantial boost in taking his or her skills and mental preparedness to the next level when attending JV or varsity, or playing in clubs.