For those who were unaware, Libby decided to join us up for the Australian University Games in the Mixed 4's Beach Volleyball league. The Australian University Games is equivalent to the Olympic games of all the Uni's. It is a huge deal in Australia and there are only 3 Americans going from Bond for sure, and possibly in the whole tournament. Considering I only playing intermurals last year with the Crib Clubbers, my technique and skills were limited to being hungover and not very good. We would start training twice a week immediately and hopefully improve by the time Perth came along.
The first training session we had went well. My self esteem was up and I figured if I can play with these people I should be fine to play in the games. They also told us that we were D2 so we were not going to be playing the hardest people in the league, but they weren't going to be easy wins. It turned out, the people we played with at first were schoolies (in high school) and that our competition was going to be harder than them. That is when we noticed the girls playing on the other court. They were beast. No tanks. Made for destruction on the court and we were going to be their first victims. I could smell the blood in the air already. We hesitantly questioned our trainer, Robert (who's real name is Glenn by the way... isn't that unusual?), and he calmed our fears immediately. They were on the national tour team but went to Bond. One just got recruited to play in Sweden and the other as a coach in Europe. Thank god. We would never see them in a match and I rejoiced inside.
So when we played beach volleyball on the beach the next day, my self-esteem was high enough to play with all the guys. I should have stayed laying out. I swear I got worse as I played more. It was not a good sign for me.
The next day in training we met our teammates. Benji is from Western Australia and is on our Mixed 4's team with us. He is good and will probably hold his end up and most of mine during these tournaments. We also met Felipe, a guy from Chile who lives in Broadbeach. Felipe is really good but is playing in pairs with Aaron who he claims is "fat around the middle and we are trying to get him to lose it." His words, not mine. There are also some people from Germany who are playing with us, but we cannot figure out if they are coming to Perth, or just want to train in hopes of joining the team next year. It is still to be determined. Robert fixed our form, got us out of the mindset of indoor volleyball and said we were continuing to improve.
We have training twice a week an are getting better every time. Sometimes training is really serious with drills and patterns, and other days there is just enough people to play a game and we have matches instead of training. That is when Robert told us to go to indoors tonight. We figured, eh, we are already sandy, already sweaty, why not? I will NEVER again go to an indoor volleyball session. The ball is a lot harder than I remember, the spikes are that much more intense, and I fear i will break my nose like Ben Stiller does to that poor girl in "Meet the Parents." We played with girls on Griffin University indoor volleyball team. They were trying to set up who would be setter and who would be hitter and so forth. Like I had any idea what that meant. Don't we all do every position at some point based on rotations? This was so different than what I was use to. When we finished our matches, Libby and I made up the first excuse in our heads and high tailed it out of there. My arms were purple the rest of the night from the intensity. I learned very quickly I should stick to beach volleyball, plus I can get a tan that way :).
Practice yesterday was hilarious. It was Libby, Robert, Ben who is in high school, and I. We played pairs the entire time and were taking nothing serious. I kicked every other ball and were throwing them all over the place instead. We make a great team let me tell you. I had a flashback to senior year of high school when obnoxious noises and obscenities were cool. I would make the most random noises out of nowhere when I had to run to the other side of the court. I was the butt of every joke that day.
Needless to say, I am loving playing volleyball. I am meeting so many people I would never have met. I cannot wait for Perth this weekend. It is going be PERTHection
No comments:
Post a Comment