Last night I had my weekly volleyball game – ugh. First off, let me just say that it was a late game starting at 9:45. Which means that for 1/2 of my team, they are ready to doze off because they are over 45 and 9 p.m. is their bedtime. Heck, I was tired! But I love volleyball so I was ready to play anyway.
Sigh…needless to say, it was not a good game. I had to learn very fast to let go of my frustration because the truth is that there are a few people on my team with limitations – physically. They can’t move fast because as you age your reaction time gets slower, your muscles weaken a little bit, and your body can not just bounce back like a 25 year old lean machine. If one of my teammates dives to the floor, I’m just hoping they can get back up and that they haven’t broken a hip! Okay, that’s exaggerating a little bit…maybe.
The thing was, it wasn’t just age or sleep deprivation that killed us last night. It was due to the fact we were being reactionary and not strategically minded. In order to score points, you need to set up a play: bump, set, spike. My team got a little spooked by our opponents because they had a very good setter who gave ample opportunity to her teammates to hit the ball – hard. And after a couple of kills the attitude on our side (with the exception of me) became ‘Just get it over the net’. No, no, no, no, no! That’s not how you play a game; if all you are doing is being reactionary, trying to recover and not lose, you are going to lose. Hmmm, interesting how that works out, right?
I could wax all philosophical here and state that this is analagous to the ‘game of life’ – if all you do is react and you avoid being proactive, setting up a plan, following through on execution, you will lose. But I don’t need to point that out simply because we’ve all heard the overused metaphors on life being compared to a game. Some people’s lives are like Parchesi, some are like Chutes and Ladders, and others play like Hungry, Hungry Hippos. In reality, aren’t we all just playing Twister? We just need to practice our flexibility…
What league do you play in? You need to play in the Layton league, its pretty competitive. I play Wed nights, if we need a sub, I’ll call ya.
Comment by lirpanna — October 24, 2007 @ 12:19 am |
I play in a Kaysville league and it’s not terrible, but sometimes I do crave a little bit more. I could be available sometimes on Wednesdays!
Comment by angelbrew — October 24, 2007 @ 10:38 pm |
[...] new volleyball team, the Block Busters (I coined the team name). Some may remember from previous posts the frustration I had over the team I was on – the lack of competitiveness, lack of skill, [...]
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