Beach Volleyball

Beach Volleyball

I decided to start playing beach volleyball because I used to play inside volleyball and a friend asked me to partner up with him. So i decided to start going to training on fridays and going to matches on saturdays. This was part of the action part of my CAS due to the physical skill and fittness needed for the activity, also it was a committment to give up my Friday and Saturday afternoons up for training and matches, which were already busy times for me, however I thought it was do-able and reasonable.

Objectives

Here I had two main objectives, my first was to improve my volleyball skills with my partner and work collaboratively with him. My second of which was to come first in one of the matches sometime.
These two were two fairly reasonable objectives I set myself and I think I have a good chance of even fulfilling the second one.

Reflection

I have been able to attend training and have even been playing off training with my partner to get as much training in as possible. I believe I improved my volleyball skills, however it was a lot harder picking it up than I thought. I used to play inside volleyball for my old school, this was 6 aside volleyball and that is all I knew. I thought that Beach Volleyball would be pretty much the same, however there were more differences than I thought before I started. Firstly it is only 2 aside which I knew before, however when the ball is coming your way the first touch is not aloud to be over your head, it has to be struck from beneath or by a kick or header or something of that sort. This annoyed me as in inside volleyball one had the possibility to take it over ones head and this made it a lot easier. However one had to plan a lot more due to the lack of players on the field. Also the amount of fitness needed was insane. I really struggled keeping up, the strain on your neck from always following the ball, the intense headache from the raging heat and the amount of concentrating needed. The running around in sand to cover a lot of distance due to no other plays other than your partner. I really did struggle in the beginning it was very intense, it was like an epic battle between two sides, seeing which would lose control first, a real standoff. The matches were insane, us playing match after match, really taking a beating by players that have been playing for several years or even decades, the amount of control they had was really outstanding and astounded me. We only got 7th place in the tournament which to be honest, did not dissapoint me, the amount of effort we put in and what we got out of it was really outstanding and I think its a good achievement looking back at the amount of time the other players had played. Although I did not reach my second goal, I do not think the activity was a failure, I think I underestimated it when I first planned the activity, however I really did further myself and I enjoyed it a lot. What the best part was the friendship one built up with ones partner, this was by facing adversity together and helping each other, playing as one and really understand the moves of the other and adjusting to them, it really made me build up a good friendship with my partner and I feel like that is the most positive thing that came out of this whole activity.