Reëls

General Volleyball Rules:

The complete rules are extensive. But simply, play proceeds as follows: A player on one of the teams begins a 'rally' by serving the ball (tossing or releasing it and then hitting it with a hand or arm), from behind the back boundary line of the court, over the net, and into the receiving team's court. The receiving team must not let the ball be grounded within their court. They may touch the ball as many as three times. Typically, the first two touches are to set up for an attack, an attempt to direct the ball back over the net in such a way that the serving team is unable to prevent it from being grounded in their court.

The rally continues, with each team allowed as many as three consecutive touches, until either (1): a team makes a kill, grounding the ball on the opponent's court and winning the rally; or (2): a team commits a fault and loses the rally. The team that wins the rally is awarded a point, and serves the ball to start the next rally. A few of the most common faults include:

• causing the ball to touch the ground outside the opponents' court or without first passing over the net;
• catching and throwing the ball;
• double hit: two consecutive contacts with the ball made by the same player;
• four consecutive contacts with the ball made by the same team.
• net foul: touching the net during play.

Other rules:

• If ball touches the outer line it is counted as in.
• If the same player hits ball 2 consecutive times, except if it comes back from the net its an error.
• When the ball catches the net and goes back in the same side of the court without touching the ground the same player is allowed to strike it again but the net counts as one strike as well.
• After a serve the first strike by the opposing team is not allowed to go over the net back to the serving team except if its an underarm action, over the top is not allowed as the first strike.

The ball is usually played with the hands or arms, but players can legally strike or push (short contact) the ball with any part of the body.

After a team gains the serve (also known as siding out), its members must rotate in a clockwise direction.