how hinata shoyo improved his receives, from a physics point of view (thread)

disclaimer:
i am not a volleyball player or physics professor. however i have a basic understanding of how these things work with each other and i will try to explain it in a way that is easy to understand. the first part explains the physics and the second relates it to haikyuu.

well, first of all lets review 2 important concepts.
first we have the center of mass. this is an imaginary point in which all the weight in the body balances out to 0. for human beigns its around the belly button when we are standing normally, but it moves around when we move.

the second concept is that of the support polygon. this is an imaginary surface created by all of our contacts to the ground, walls or objects. we can alter it's size and shape by moving our feet or putting our hand against a wall for support, etc.

mantaining balance is all about keeping the center of mass inside of the support polygon. when we lose balance and fall or have to take a knee, its because the center of mass strayed outside of that polygon.

to mantain balance then, we must either (1) make the support polygon bigger (widen our stance) so it can fit the center of mass, or (2) bring the center of mass back inside the support polygon by blancing our body without moving our feet

try standing up and leaning forward until you feel like you're gonna fall over. you will either proceed to lean back a bit to compensate and bring the center of mass back (2), or put your feet forward to make the polygon bigger and regain control (1)

with all the physics stuff out of the way, lets move on to how this relates to shoyo's receives

the trick to hinata shoyo's post timeskip perfect receives is that he's learned to use both techniques. during the ball boy arc, hinata gets to see and analyze all kinds of spectacular volleyball players, which is extremely important to his development.

the first of these two techniques he learns is the first one. with the split step, he avoids having to move his center of mass first, and risking it going out of his polygon, by moving his feet first, and thus, moving the polygon at the same time as his center of mass.

this gives him a great stance, which gives him balance. this also works because he is reading the movement of his opponents, the ball, and his teammates, which allows him to think ahead.

this is the first lesson shoyo learns, which gives him stability to begin with. but he knows that for certain kinds of plays, it is impossible for him to mantain that kind of stability, which is why he needs to know how to be stable even with a bad stance

and this is what he learns in brazil. sand is a much less stable surface compared to a volleyball court's floor, which means maintaining balance is harder, no matter how wide or perfect your stance is. this is where the second technique comes in.

to mantain balance, shoyo has to do a lot of work to bring his center of balance back inside the polygon after he's received, and this takes immense core strength.
this is what he gains in brazil. this is what gives him balance.

so in the end, during the jackadlers match, hinata can both find the perfect stance for hard receives, or be perfectly balanced in difficult stances. on top of that, he is incredibly aware of everything happening on the court and he can react quickly.

all of this makes him a perfect receiver.

(end of thread)