Honestly, this learning project was so much fun. I'm sad it's over.
But wait? Why am I sad? I can keep playing! Now with my friends!
For this wrap up, I decided to buy a small net, nothing too serious and set it up in my friend's backyard! We played a couple rounds of grass volleyball and ended up having so much fun that they want to do it again, or even look at playing indoor/beach volleyball.
I am glad that I can really inspire others to start playing as I had so much fun learning about the sport and working on my technique!
My recap is going to be wonky because I took pictures and documented my learning but I didn't post about it until the end of the semester from being swamped, but I did find time to practice multiple times every week so I really could get better and learn the game!
Every week:
Every week, I focused on large things, making sure that I can pass to a place on a wall, passing to a place on the ground, making sure I have correct contact on the ball, serving, etc. I would do drills for these anytime I would practice so I could get better! I mostly did the same drills and noticed that as the weeks went on, I was improving to the final endpoint of playing with my friends where I could pass properly to them or even serve properly! I was really proud of where I came from in these weekly drills because when I played an actual game with them, the motions felt natural to me.
- I spent this week looking into drills to do at home and looking into some talented volleyball players on YouTube (Koko, Victoria, and Sarah)
-This week we put into practice some at-home drills and went through the 3 main aspects of volleyball I was going to try learning (bumping/passing, setting, and serving).
-This week's training was difficult because it was super rainy, but I made do with some inside training, some small movements, just getting contact with the ball (apparently it's beneficial!)
Week 4: Volleyball Specific Workout?
-This week I decided I was going to do a volleyball specific weight training workout to work on muscles specifically for volleyball
-Workout found here
-This weeks focus was learning about multiple different types of volleyball, beach and grass volleyball! I didn't necessarily figure out which one I like better but I did hypothesize which one I would participate in the most, which is grass volleyball!
-I loved watching the video of Sarah Pavan and Heather Bansley because they're two Canadian ladies that played in Rio representing Canada!
-Video found here
-Sarah Pavan is actually one of my original resources to starting my journey and I didn't realize she was an Olympian until I watched that video and connected the two together.
Week 6: "Setting" up for Setting!
-This week I decided I would 'treat' myself and get into doing some setting, one of the positions I wanted to learn about at the start of my journey but it was too difficult to start off with.
-This was actually so fun to learn and figure out how to do, I used my brother as a source to measure where I should set the ball to. Considering he's 210cm, this was a hard feat to get through, but I ended up setting the ball to him properly once, which I was very proud of!
-Decided setting might not be for me, I just need to practice it more to figure it out and learn!
Week 7 and Onward:
Ahh, the final week. This week I wanted to do a little hurrah! As I said earlier on in my post, I decided to buy a small net and treat my friends to some grass volleyball! This was super fun teaching them how to play, telling them the rules and practicing my own skills with them. This was a hit because not only did we practice, play, and have fun, but they want to do it more often. Now I can practice with others!
Moving forward, I will be playing with my friends and continue learning volleyball on my own journey (using the weekly training I've been doing every week since I started). I have decided that when I am more comfortable or if we get more people for an indoor team, I would like to join Regina's recreational teams, so we can play indoor volleyball against others. Also, as a little present for myself, I decided I would buy a new volleyball for myself! This learning project has been so fun and I am so glad I got the chance to start playing volleyball.
The grind doesn't just stop because the semester is over, one more time! もう 一回!
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