Blocking guide
Where the block comes from
On one-wall your blocking position comes from where and how you make your shot: you keep your stance, your lean and your natural follow-through, and you may not hop or step to a new spot afterward. On three-wall, four-wall and 60×30 you play your shot and then clear.
How the courts differ
One-wall is the home of the legal block. The other courts ask the opposite of the player who has just hit.
- One-wall. Rule 4.7 B says that if the opponent, after playing the ball, "was perfectly still in front of or aside the player, it is NOT a hinder. This 'legal' hinder is the essence of the one-wall game." The GAA book's wallball rules have the same idea and call it a legal block.
- Four-wall and three-wall. The four-wall book, which three-wall follows here, makes it the duty of the side that just hit "to yield position so the offensive side will not be required to go around an opponent" (4.7 B). A screen ball, one that comes back so close to a defensive player that the receiver has no clear view, is a replay. A player may not line up directly in front of the shot, on a straight path to the front wall (4.8 A).
- 60×30. The GAA book asks the side that just hit to yield position on its softball and hardball courts too (its rule 4.7 B), and keeps its legal block for wallball. A screen in a rally is a replay here, as on four-wall. The GAA softball and hardball rules have no rally screen ball by name, so this guide treats a 60×30 rally screen as four-wall does. That is a gap in the official rules, still to be resolved.
Three rules hold on every court: you may not move to block, a ball off the wall that touches you is an out on you, and a ball that touches the receiver anywhere but the striking hand is an out on the receiver.
One-wall: the shot sets the block
Watch good one-wall players after a shot. They stand with their feet wide, or stay still leaning at an awkward angle one way or the other, holding the position they finished in. That is the legal hinder: not a position they went to, but one they arrived at by hitting the ball.
The idea is older than any book now in use. The American rules of 1916 put it in one line (Rule 25): "A player may return the ball and block his opponent by a single act, but the blocking part of the act must end when the ball leaves the hand." Today your natural follow-through counts as part of the shot, but the idea is the same.
So the sequence is simple. You pick where to meet the ball. Your feet plant for the shot. You swing, and the arm finishes its natural follow-through. When that stops, you stop. Whatever you are blocking at that moment is your block.
One-wall: legal and illegal, side by side
Figure 18 shows why this has to be a rule. After the same shot, leaning right shuts the left-corner kill and squeezes the cross-court. A 3-foot hop to the right shuts the straight and the cross-court instead, and squeezes the pass. There is plenty of time to do it, too: the ball takes close to 0.9 seconds to reach the receiver. A player allowed to hop could go wherever the block is best on every shot.
Figure 19 puts a size on it. From 8 feet behind, a lean moves the middle of the shadow about 1.5 feet along the wall and a follow-through about 0.3. A hop of 3 feet moves it about 8.3, right off the receiver's line. A stance adjusts the block. A hop replaces it.
- Legal on one-wall: a wide stance you took to make the shot. A lean you are holding. Your arm finishing its natural follow-through.
- Illegal on any court: a hop, a step or a shuffle afterward to a new blocking position. Stepping or sliding back into the line. Sticking an arm out when the swing has ended.
The books protect the whole swing: the stroke "includes the back-swing as well as the follow-through of the arm" (4.8 G). That is the receiver's stroke they are protecting, but the same line tells you where a natural follow-through ends. If your arm stops, or goes on past where your swing would finish, it is no longer a follow-through.
One-wall: which hand you use is a blocking choice
Because the block comes from the shot, you make your choice before you hit. In Figure 20 the same ball is met at the same spot. Take it with the right hand and your feet end up to its left, and only the left-corner kill is squeezed. Take it with the left and your feet end up to its right, about 3.2 feet away, across the receiver's lanes: the cross-court is shut and the straight, the pass and the left-corner kill are squeezed. You did not move after the shot in either case.
The same goes for how early you take the ball, which foot you plant and how far you let it travel. All of it is legal, because all of it happens before the ball leaves your hand.
One-wall: standing your ground, and moving to crowd
You cannot move and crowd your opponent's shot: that is an avoidable hinder on any court. But on one-wall, if you are standing your ground and the ball comes near you, that is your advantage and a difficult return for the receiver. The difference is only who moved.
Being crowded can weaken a shot or make it less accurate, because the swing has less room. In Figure 21, with the hitter still where the shot left them, about 95% of the receiver's sidearm swing has room. If the hitter moves in close, only about 57% does. Both pictures are hard on the receiver. Only the left one is allowed, and the receiver who plays near a still body has to shorten the swing or take a different shot.
One-wall: which way it runs
Standing your ground works in front of the receiver or beside them. A hitter farther from the wall than the receiver has no ground to stand on: it is that player's duty to get out of the way.
Three-wall, four-wall and 60×30: play the shot, then clear
Here the shot does not set a position for you to keep. Everything on this page about what your body covers becomes a list of what you owe the receiver: a fair path to the ball and a clear view of it.
- Play the shot for where it goes, not for what it hides.
- Then clear. Move off the line between the receiver and the ball, and off the straight path to the front wall, so the receiver has a fair path and a clear view.
- Go early. The book's legal spot is at an angle, to the left or right of the ball being hit, taken before the receiver begins the stroke (4.8 A). A late move across the line is a view obstruction.
- Look. When the ball goes behind you, the book expects you to look over your shoulder and move. Not knowing where the receiver was is no excuse.
The book also tells the referee to be liberal in calling hinders, to discourage playing the ball so that an opponent cannot see it or swing at it until it is too late (4.7 B). The receiver has a duty too: to make a reasonable effort to move toward the ball.
How each case is called
On every court
| What happens | The call | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| You move to crowd the receiver, or into a blocking position. | Avoidable hinder. | 4.8 B Blocking |
| You cross the line of sight just before the receiver strikes the ball. | Avoidable hinder. | 4.8 E View obstruction |
| You move into the path of the ball and it hits you. | Avoidable hinder. | 4.8 C Moving into ball |
| The ball, off the wall, touches you, the hitter. | Out on you, still or moving. | 4.6 G Touching the ball |
| The ball, off the wall, touches the receiver anywhere but the hand striking the return. | Out on the receiver. | 4.6 A One hand |
| A return hits a player on its way to the wall. | Usually a replay. | 4.7 A Situations |
| You jam the receiver: a hard ball off the wall, straight at the body. | A legal shot. If it touches them anywhere but the striking hand, it is out on them. | 4.6 A One hand |
| You dodge the ball in a rally. | Not a hinder. Moving away from the ball is not moving to block. | This guide’s ruling. One-wall 4.8 says a player moving as late as possible to avoid the ball is not creating an avoidable hinder. |
| On the serve, the server’s partner moves to get out of the way of the ball. | It can become a screen, if the regular conditions for a screen are met. The one-wall book calls this a hinder serve. | Four-wall 4.3 B and one-wall 4.3 B |
One-wall
| What happens | The call | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| You stand still after your shot, in front of or beside the receiver, and the ball comes near you. | Play on. It is your advantage and a hard return for the receiver. | One-wall 4.7 B |
| You are farther from the wall than the receiver and do not get out of the way. | Avoidable hinder: it is the duty of the player farther from the wall to move. | One-wall 4.8 A |
Three-wall, four-wall and 60×30
| What happens | The call | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| You stay in the receiver’s way after your shot, with time to clear. | Avoidable hinder: failure to move. It is your duty to yield position, even to a spot you would not choose. | 4.7 B and 4.8 A |
| You line up directly in front of the shot, on a straight path to the front wall. | Avoidable hinder. | 4.8 A Failure to move |
| The ball comes back so close to you that the receiver has no clear view of it. | Screen ball: a dead-ball hinder, and the rally is replayed. | 4.7 A Situations |
| The ball comes back close to you, but the receiver still has a good shot at it. | The referee may let it go: the book says the referee "should be careful not to make the screen call so quickly that it takes away an offensive advantage". The offensive player here is the receiver. | 4.7 A Situations |
| You are clearing and still get in the way, through no fault of your own. | Dead-ball hinder: the rally is replayed. | 4.7 A Situations |
| You shoot a kill in front of yourself and your position gets in the way of the retrieve. | Any doubt about whether the ball could be reached goes to the player chasing it. | 4.7 B Yielding fair access |
Dodging is not the same as hopping to a block. If the ball is coming at you, get out of its way: it is an out on you if it touches you, and dodging the ball in a rally is not a hinder. The test is the direction. A dodge moves you away from the ball. A hop moves you into the receiver's lanes.
One timing point for the serve, on every court: the server stays in the zone until the serve rebounds past the short line. Until then your feet are decided for you.
Next: shot choice, how to use all this in a rally.