Recognizing defenses
 

I recently saw a YouTube coaching video explaining some common defensive strategies and positioning (perimeter, man up, middle-middle). Do you find it helpful as an official to be able to recognize the type of defense that a team is playing? I have put zero effort into learning this. Should I?

Honestly, I never thought about it.

As a player back in the day - yes, at least I was supposed to.
As a ref - no. As long as I can quickly figure out how are they stacking on serve receive - I’m fine, don’t need to know their game plan at depth.

No. It's useful to think like a coach sometimes, but to this level, not necessary. Learn their serve receive patters, and at higher levels, who is hitting out of the back row (especially when running a bick when you don't have much time to know who is where).