Personal Odyssey Stuff

As a celebration of my making the volleyball team, I thought I'd post the summary I wrote about my Personal Odyssey from the Personal Odyssey Celebration and the video I made for it.

"My Personal Odyssey is volleyball. In 6^th grade, I realized that I actually really liked volleyball even though I hadn't before. In 7^th grade I played on the GMS VA team and fell even more in love with the sport. I did a bunch of camps and practicing the summer before 8^th grade. I joined a volleyball program called SillY Volleyball through DeAnza college that meets every Saturday morning so I could get more practice and training. I played with my dad and mom at home. Then, once volleyball season started at GMS, I made the VA team again. For my odyssey I've been practicing and playing at all opportunities, making goals, blogging about what I've been doing, and growing as a volleyball player!

Along with my newfound love of volleyball, one of the main reasons for me choosing this odyssey was high school. This is our last year of middle school, and in high school there are tryouts for the volleyball teams and not everyone makes it.  It is very competitive and volleyball is one of the hardest teams to get on at the high school I'm going to. I really want to continue playing volleyball, and I really want to be on the high school team! That is another reason why I really wanted a lot of time and opportunities to practice, learn, and improve my volleyball skills!

I've improved exponentially since before I started this odyssey. I have honed my skills to have more control. I corrected some things I did wrong, too, and learned new skills from my coaches at SillY. I have improved my hitting so that I hit it down and in much more. I have also improved my overhand serving. I didn't used to be able to get the ball over consistently serving overhand. Now I serve it over and in most of the time, and a lot of times the other team can't return the ball! I have learned many new skills, rules and strategies during this process, and improved all my skills with time and good coaching.

This project has been a great experience for me. I have gotten time to practice volleyball that I might not have gotten without this incentive. I'm also doing SillY Volleyball partly because of this odyssey. SillY has been so great for me, and I wouldn't be where I am today with my volleyball if it weren't for them! In addition to these new skills and practice time, I have gotten more confidence. I know more where I should be on the court at any given time, and feel more like I can get the ball if it comes to me, and make it to the setter or wherever it should go. I also feel more confident about my chances of achieving my goal of making the high school team. I enjoyed the opportunity to play more volleyball and learn so much more! It has helped me so much to do this, and I hope it helps me achieve my goal. Even if I don't make the team, I don't regret doing this project. I have grown so much and added to my love of volleyball. Now, I will continue to move on in my volleyball odyssey on my own. It will be an ongoing odyssey, and hopefully the next step will be playing high school volleyball!"

High School Volleyball

You all know that the culmination of my Personal Odyssey was to try out for my high school volleyball team. Well the tryouts were the week before school started and at the end of that week we found out the tentative team. I was going to go to the first night of volleyball tryouts and then if I didn't think I would make the team, I was going to try out for water polo instead, because I also really like water polo and it is the same season as volleyball. I talked to the Varsity coach after the first tryout to see if he thought I had a chance of making the team and he said he thought I was good enough to make the JV team, so I finished the week of 2 workouts a day of volleyball tryouts. At the end of the week I found out that I survived the first cut! On the Wednesday the next week (the first week of school) the team was finalized and I found out I was officially on the JV team! It was very exciting to be on the volleyball team and have reached my goal. It's really fun to be on the team, and all my teammates are really nice, but nearly every single one of them has played club volleyball. I have had probably the least experience on the team. It's really fun, but it takes up a lot of time! Practice is every day after school from 4pm-6pm and we have games every Tuesday and Thursday and sometimes tournaments on the weekends. Mostly all I have time to do is go to practice and then do my homework!

It's very exciting to be on the time and I'm really improving a lot. I am learning more about the specific positions, the rotation, and where people are supposed to be on the court at certain times. I am playing middle, which is in the middle front. It involves a lot of blocking and hitting.

I thought you all would like to know that I reached my goal and am continuing on with my volleyball odyssey.

Here's a picture of our team during a game:

I'm number 15!