What actually happens at a beach volleyball camp

Twenty people flew to Ibiza in May. Most of them had never met. [Roughly half] had never played beach volleyball in their lives.

We keep getting the same question in the DMs, phrased about ten different ways. What do you actually do all day? Is it drills from morning to night? Will I be the worst one there? Do I have to be social?

Fair questions. Most camp websites answer them with photographs of people mid-jump and the word “unforgettable”. So here is the Ibiza week instead, in order, including the parts that were awkward.

The first evening is the whole camp in miniature

People arrive on their own schedules, which means the first evening is a slow trickle of strangers with luggage. This is the part everyone is quietly nervous about, us included.

What fixes it is not an icebreaker game. It is dinner and a sand visit.

We eat together the first night, one long table or tapas setting with a view, no seating plan. Then whoever still has energy goes down to the sand and plays badly in the dark, as sort of get-to-know each other. By the time the last flight lands, the group has already made its first inside joke, and the person arriving late gets told the joke within four minutes, we hunted down the first sunset. That is the dynamic.
By day two, nobody introduces themselves anymore. They just start talking.

A day, in the order it happens

Morning: stretch and breathwork. Half an hour on the sand before the heat arrives. Not a yoga class, not a performance. It exists because it puts twenty+ people in the same place, quietly, before anyone has to be charming.

Late morning: beach volleyball, split by level. Certified coaching, groups by ability, and the beginners are their own group with their own coach. This matters more than any other sentence on this page. Beginners do not get folded into a game they cannot follow. They spend the first two days learning to pass and serve properly, and by day four they are playing actual points against each other, badly and loudly.

The players who came for the level get the level. Real games, real coaching, and by midweek the competitive ones have found each other and the games get quiet in that way competitive games do.

We like to underline that beachvolley coaching session is going to do so much good to your body (and soul!). It’s a full calistenic type of a body work-out with your coach focused on your moves, while giving you space to enjoy the view (sea-first row always!) and get more comfortable within the group of Sand-people. 

Afternoon: siesta and focus time. This is the block that surprises people, so it deserves the honesty. It is genuinely open. Some people sleep. Some swim. Some open a laptop, because they took the week without taking the week off, and the wifi at the house works. We built the afternoon this way on purpose. A camp that fills all fourteen waking hours is a camp you need a holiday from.

Golden hour: the second session. The good one. Cooler sand, better light, the session everyone films.

Evening: dinner, then whatever the group decides. Skills sharing and pitch sessions on two nights, where people talk about what they actually do, what keeps them busy/happy/inspired. [In Ibiza, someone ended up with a collaboration out of a conversation that started on a court. Sunset party on another night. Dancing, because the founders are Balkan and this is not optional.

Somewhere in the week there is a hike and a visit to something local that is not the beach. You do not travel to an island to see only the four hundred metres of it that has a net on it.

The part that is different from a training camp

A training camp is built to improve your game. That is a good product and there are many of them, some run by people with better credentials than ours.

This is built differently. The sport is real, the coaching is certified, and the week is not about the sport. It is about the fact that adults do not lack fitness and do not lack holidays. They lack right people to do things with. Everything on the agenda is a reason for group of twenty people from Ibiza to be in the same place long enough to stop being strangers.

Which is why the agenda is optional. All of it. Skip the morning stretch, sleep through the hike, take the afternoon call. Nobody chases you. The one thing we ask is that you eat with everyone.

The first evening is the whole camp in miniature

The number that tells the truth better than any quote: half of the twenty have already booked Crete/Brazil or asked to be told about the next one. The WhatsApp group from Ibiza is still going in August. That was never a feature we designed. It just kept going.

Ibiza left me completely recharged. ☀️🌅🌊

Sun, beach, sports, dancing, sunsets and deep conversations with an incredible crew. The organization was perfect — a beachfront hotel, great volleyball coaching, and a lineup of activities that still left room to breathe and just be.That’s the magic of it: enough structure to bring people together, enough flexibility to let things unfold naturally.

Already counting down to the next one. 🎉

Nina Maricic

The best beach volleyball camps ever with the most friendly people!
 

Milos Milic

This was one of the best and the most fun experiences of my life!

It was filled with sun, beach, really smart, and fun people, deep, supportive and meaningful conversations, sports, hikes and adventures, dancing on the street, sunsets, long walks, tears from laughing with other members od the crew, amazing food and love ❤️

I loved the organization – having a hotel right on the beach, amazing volleyball trainers, and unexpected and meaningful experiences organized by the team. I especially loved the skill sharing session where each participant shared a unique talent, skill or a storie. This was an event organized on the beach, under the stars, with lots of candles and sangria, and the session quickly turned into emotional sharing and bonding sessions that brought all of us even closer.

My feeling is that even people who joined this event on their own were quickly embraced by the crew and it was beautiful to witness how friendships can quickly flourish when they are fed with so much care and good intentions.

I can’t thank the organizers enough for the joy I felt during this entire trip and I can’t wait to join the next events ☀️🎉

Tijana Gajic

So, will you be the worst one there?

Possibly. Somebody has to be, and in Ibiza that person was a complete beginner who by Friday was serving overhand now has bought its own ball to keep on practicing at home.

The more useful answer: the level range at the camp is so wide that “worst” stops meaning anything by day two. You are in a group of four or five people at your level, coached, and the ex-players are on the next court dealing with their own humbling.

The thing to actually worry about is whether you will find your people. Everyone worries about that one and nobody says it out loud.

If you want the longer story of that week rather than the walkthrough, it is here → 

Benidorm was nine people. Ibiza was twenty. Crete in September is built for forty, we purposefully build places small/big enough that you meet all of them.

Crete, 27 September to 3 October. From 550 for camp only, with a 150EUR deposit.

Come alone. Leave with a crew.

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