Visiting the land of soccer

While visiting the land of soccer, this volleyball girl misses her time on the court. To make up for a few missed games, I have been sharing my volleyball passion with my friends.

Early in my visit, I taught the gang of little ones how to do a proper block...

• feet shoulder width apart
• bend at your knees, as if you were sitting all the way down in a chair
• arms....hmmmm....how do I explain this?

Actually, your elbows can come all the way down to your side. The main idea is that you are using your arms and shoulders to help you jump higher.

• Then, when you jump as high as you can...
• Your shoulders go to your ears, your hands come up, close together and your straight, strong arms go forward a bit. 
• I told the gang of little ones, to pretend like their arms are a strong wall.

There are few more important techniques to blocking, when you are on the court: proper alignment with the hitter (varies depending on if you are double blocking, blocking line or blocking cross), timing,  traveling across the length of the net, and distance from the net. But my gang of little ones did not need those details for our use of volleyball blocks.

We have been using our new set of skills in a variety of ways:

*an inappropriate belch

give me 10 volleyball blocks

*you want to run around the store while your sister is trying on clothes

give me 10 volleyball blocks

*you want an extra sweet treat after lunch

give me 10 volleyball blocks

*fighting with your sibling

both of you give me 10 volleyball blocks

Tonight at dinner, one of the gang earned an opportunity to do 10 volleyball blocks and E.H.B. sadly mentioned that she has not gotten to do any volleyball blocks. Poor girl.

It led us to a conversation about my teammates and the "family tree" of my three teams (Tuesday night, Wednesday night and summer sand). E.H.B. asked me to draw her a diagram so she could understand who plays on which team, which of them also plays on a second team, which teammates I can play against, and which of them are related to each other. After drawing it out, I realized it is a bit more complicated then I ever thought about. 

The "team tree" includes:

a father son duo

a father daughter duo

a husband & wife

a pair of roommates

one of my former 4-Hers

one teammate plays with me on all three teams

I play with three of them on two of the teams

The part of the tree that gets confusing is when you start comparing which teammates I play against, on which nights. 

(this is 9 out of 12 of my teammates: including subs)

Unless you like to analyze things like E.H.B., then it really doesn't matter. I prefer to just get on the court and play.

*******

For those of you who know I am only 5'2" (on a good day) may be scratching your head at the validity of my blocking skills. My teammates love it when I try to block, but I have never successfully blocked on a co-ed net. But I will keep trying. One day, I am going to get up there.

Captain America and Princess Ballerina may accomplish that goal before I do. They are pretty good blockers. :)