In Taiwan there is no shortage of people playing volleyball in high school and university, but opportunities for development drop off sharply after graduation. Although the Taiwan Enterprise Volleyball League welcomed the largest number of teams in its history for the first time in its 18th season in the second half of 2022 (6 men's teams and 5 women's teams), players' options after graduation still leave much to be desired on the road toward professional volleyball, and those who want to keep developing choose to play overseas, which is a great pity for the development of Taiwanese players and the cultivation of national athletes.

The East Power Volleyball Club is not only promoting volleyball; it also wants to give active players a stage of their own. In recent years the careers of retired athletes have drawn growing attention, but if full career planning begins while they are still competing, they have a better chance of putting their expertise to work for the wider community.

Although East Power Volleyball Club has only just been founded, its curriculum and coaching staff are anything but casual. Head coach LEE Kuo-Yuan has led the Chinese Taipei men's national volleyball team, the Taipei City team at the National Games, and Tung Fang Vocational High School, and combines that experience with sports science in a training system of his own design. The current coaches are all active players, including CHUAN Chia-Kai and CHEN Kuan-Ming.

Volleyball practice needs a number of people and lacks fun, easy-to-pick-up approaches, so the club wants to lower the barrier to entry and make it easier for more interested people to get into volleyball.

LEE Kuo-Yuan explains: "Back at Tung Fang Vocational High School, I started designing drills like these so our players could warm up in a more enjoyable way. These movements also make the attack footwork smoother, so that after the approach, arm swing and jump, players build a good relationship with the ball. Whether it is an underhand or overhand pass or a spike after moving, they can hit with greater accuracy and better control, without losing their sense of space and direction once they move."

EAST POWER volleyball values fun and lets one person with one ball and a suitable space train on their own, overturning the old impression that a team has to practice together and making it suitable for practice during the pandemic. The model adjusts its difficulty and techniques for higher-level teams, but the principle stays the same. LEE Kuo-Yuan stressed: "This training model can effectively improve hitting after movement, which is a very important part of competitive volleyball!"

Beyond fun and convenience, EAST POWER volleyball also brings sports science into its training curriculum. Uni-Magazine once interviewed Professor SHIANG Tzyy-Yuang, a leading figure in Taiwan's sports science community, who said that sports science can be used not only to train athletes for international competition but also at the grassroots level, where the focus is on preventing sports injuries. Because volleyball players are prone to jumper's knee, LEE Kuo-Yuan, who holds a master's degree in sports science, said: "You cannot train only the quadriceps; you also have to work on the antagonist muscle group, the hamstrings, which effectively reduces patellar tendon injuries caused by excessive strain. The players who have graduated from my program rarely carry injuries with them."

Volleyball players are expected to have natural advantages such as height, reach, spring and spatial awareness, but anyone who is interested can still enjoy the sport. Coach LEE Kuo-Yuan says: "The classes lean toward aerobic training, which effectively lowers body fat and improves cardiovascular endurance, a real help for people today. Volleyball is also a team sport that builds cohesion and teamwork, and in practice you meet all kinds of people and work together to win a match. I think for ordinary working adults it will be a truly exciting experience!"

After Taiwan's volleyball team won bronze at the 1998 Asian Games in Bangkok, it went more than a decade without a place on the international stage, yet a group of people kept working quietly and their light suddenly broke through: in 2015 they won their first title at the Asian Men's Club Volleyball Championship, amazing spectators and inspiring everyone. In Taiwan there have always been many people devoting themselves to promoting all kinds of sports, and as many athletes say, "sport depends on passionate people to give back." That is exactly the value the East Power Volleyball Club wants to create. They want to make sure that "those who want to play have somewhere to play, those who want to take on the path of a competitive athlete have somewhere to test themselves, and those who want to learn volleyball have people who truly understand volleyball and training to teach them." The efforts of many sports promoters are not only about outstanding results in competition; they also hope the sports they champion can grow strong and last in their own communities.

This article is reprinted from Unistar (originally published June 20, 2022); photos courtesy of Unistar. Original article: East Power Volleyball Club Launches a Grassroots Volleyball Drive