Volleyball Practice 3/12/12

Today at my house I decided to do my volleyball practice and check-in/test again just to see where I was, because I haven't done it for a while. I was inspired by playing in P.E. to play more!

Here are my results from today:

Bumps: 39

Sets: 11

Fist Bumps: 45

I'm excited for Thursday's tryout! I'm glad I had some time today to work more in preparation!

P.E. Volleyball

Today we started our volleyball unit in P.E. I was VERY excited when I walked into the gym and saw the volleyball net set up. I nearly jumped with joy! Before every P.E. class we get a little time to warm up, do whatever we want until class starts. Today, since there was the volleyball net set up, the whole class except one person played together until class. It was really fun!

Then our teacher came out and we ran our warmup lap. Then he started to explain some things about volleyball, which of course I already knew. He talked about the boundaries on the court and what they're called and stuff. Then he needed an example to show passing. He asked for someone who plays volleyball, so I raised my hand. So I got to demonstrate passing for the class! First he had me sit on the ground with my legs spread out and show there, then he had me get up on one knee and pass, and then standing up. He commented to the class on my form passing standing; he said I had good form, and pointed out how I bent my knees and spread my legs. Then, we passed in partners. We did the same routine I had done with the teacher, throwing the ball to the person sitting and then switch, knee and then switch, and then standing. Then we passed back and forth, which was fun, and we saw which team in the class got the most consecutive passes. Me and my partner got the most. We got 30, while most of the other teams got somewhere around 2-8 passes. One team got 17, which was the closest to what we got.

Then we played queen of the court. We broke into three teams of 6 people, except one team which had 5. He had people who played volleyball first, so there would be at least one experienced player on each team. I was one of the people, and there were two other girls too. One of them was my partner from the passing we had done earlier. Then we broke into teams. The game was two teams were on the two sides of the court. One side was the queen side. Whoever won the point would go to the queen side and stay there until they lost a point. We played that until the end of class and it was REALLY fun! At the end, all the teams had 3 points, except one who earned a fourth point right at the end of class.

Overall it was a REALLY fun P.E. and I am really excited to continue volleyball in P.E.!

Also, the tryouts for my school volleyball VA team are on Thursday! I am going to try out for VA, I was on VA last year, and I'm very excited for tryouts coming up! I hope I am able to be on the team again. I think I will be because I made it last year and I have improved a ton since then!

SillY Volleyball - 3/10/12

Sorry everyone, it's been a while since I posted, but I've been really busy! I've been going to SillY Volleyball on Saturdays, but I haven't been posting. The last few weeks there have been less people there than usual, so we do more things with all groups together and then the advanced group breaks off and we work with the beginner group for the rest of class.

This Saturday at SillY there were even fewer people than there have been lately. We did our warmup, 15 laps and the usual passing with a partner stuff, and then we basically broke into two groups to do our exercise with 3 passers on the court and a target. We broke into beginner and intermediate and advanced together. Then we did other exercises like serving and spiking practice. That was the point when the advanced group usually broke off to do their advanced stuff. This week they had the intermediate people go over, too. So I got the chance to play actual game-like scenarios and do advanced skills practice with the really good people! It was a really great experience and I think I improved a lot playing with them. Also, the advanced group stays later, so unexpectedly, we got an extra hour of playing time! Luckily we didn't have anything else we were planning to do. It was really great to get the extra time playing the more advanced and rigorous drills and working with more great coaches and amazing players! It was a really fun day at SillY and I learned and improved a lot.

One of the specific skills we worked on, that was new for me, was switching positions at a specific time during a volley. Basically, we started off in one position in the rotation, and after the serve or at another specified time during the volley, we were supposed to switch positions to another specific place and play there for the rest of the volley. I've seen private school teams I've played on my school team do that, so it was cool to be behind the switching for once.

Other than that, mostly I just improved a lot upon skills I already knew. They taught me what I was doing wrong for some things, and helped me improve on others with advice, and just with me observing the other players in the advanced group.

While we were playing the games we played with the other kids in the group, of varying ages, but also with the coaches (and for a while with the coaches' little 8 year old daughter, who's actually pretty good). It was a really good experience for me!

SillY Volleyball - 2/11/12

I didn't go to SillY last week because I went to a math competition with my school (which was fun!). I went today, and didn't do quite as well (in my opinion) as I have before, but I think I'm still improving and I just needed to get back into it after taking a break. It was fun, we did the usual warmup, pretty much. 15 laps around the gym. And we did 3 people on (back row) with one target for a while, then we did 3 people on the court in the back row with a setter and an outside hitter. Another thing we did today was we practiced hitting a little. With 2 lines on the outside (both sides) on each court for 3 courts we threw the ball to ourselves and hit it over to the deep corner (that was our goal). Then we did the same thing, but we threw it and then attempted to do an approach and jump to hit the ball over. That was pretty much all we did today, but it was fun, and as always I think it helped me improve.

Also, on another note, I'm going to hopefully be signing up for Stanford summer Volleyball camp, if there's still space!

SillY Volleyball - 1/21/12

On Saturday I had my SillY Volleyball class, as usual. This time my friend came with me, she will be doing this class too, and during the warm-ups we were partners. This time we did the regular warm-ups (see 1st SillY class post for more details of close to what we did) and then broke into our groups.

We had different coaches this time than last time, a pair of people. First in our group we did the 3-on and a target combo for a while. And we did a game. We had 4 people and one of the coaches on each side and basically played an actual volleyball game, except we didn't really count points until the end. The setup was 3 people in the back row and one person in the left front hitter position. The coach was the setter. We played with whoever was in the right back spot actually getting to serve the ball; overhand of course. I started off in the left front hitter position and did really well, getting some good hits in before we rotated positions and I was left back and serving. I did well with my serves, getting pretty good accurate overhand serves most of the time, which is an improvement. They were also very powerful, which is good considering I have so much potential in my strong arms. We rotated through all the positions playing the game, which was really fun. Near the end, I was in left back and our coach from last time had finished with the group he was with for the day and was watching us. I dived for the ball and saved it and it was awesome! I was really happy with how I did with that, and then he said it would be the last one, and the coach who was working with us on my side gave me the ball to serve. The first time I tried I didn't get a good toss, so I hit the ball into the net, but they let me try again and it went over and was good! The other team didn't get that ball, so he gave it to the other side to serve for the last one.

The game was really fun and I was happy to get to actually play and practice my serving in game play, because it turned out really well! I learned (as usual) and I think I improved a lot! This program has been really helpful to me and I think it will improve my volleyball skills immensely by the end of the process, since so far it has done so much.

If you want to learn more about SillY Volleyball here is the website again!

SillY Volleyball- Class #1

Today I had my very first SillY Volleyball class of the season! It was really fun and educational and I really enjoyed myself!

First when we got there we had to run 10 laps around the gym, then stretched, which I believe will be our warmup every time. Then we got partners and did ball warmup and practice. We threw the ball to each other, bounced it, with both two hands and one, and then did tips. Tipping is like spiking, but you use the tips of your fingers and tip it over. It's softer than hitting (spiking). Then we did actual hitting to our partners. Then we started passing (bumping). We first threw the ball to the other partner and they'd pass it to us. Then after that we passed back and forth, with a different variation after that, where (practicing ball control) we passed once to ourself, then shifted forward and passed to our partner back and forth.

After that we split up into groups based on age and level, and I was in intermediate with mostly 8th and 9th graders. Our group was the smallest (at least for today, I'm not sure how big it will be in the future). We had only 7 people, not including our 1 coach. We warmed up with 5 little tiny sprints across the court and then did an exercise where there were 3 people on the court and one target for the people to aim to. The coach passed the ball out somewhere and whoever's it was had to call it and pass it to the target, who put it put it back in the bin and went to the back of the line. We did that for a while, then went to the corners of the court and he (the coach) spiked it to us to get back to him, and then he tipped it and we had to get it, then go to the end of the line on the other corner of the court.

After that we had a water break, then came back and had 6 people on one side, and the one other person and the coach on the other. We were in the positions, with the front middle as the setter and basically played a game. The coach passed the ball in and we bumped it to the setter (or tried to) the setter would set it and usually one of the outside hitters would spike it over and it would continue. Either the coach and other person on the side would get it and get it back over, or the coach would start a new ball. Whenever someone made a mistake the person who was out (on the side with the coach) would take their spot and the person who made the mistake would switch with them. I started out as the setter (front middle) and stayed for a pretty long time! I was a little surprised because I'm not the best at setting, but I think I did well, and am improving, which is great! We continued like that and I switched out like everyone else, but not too often. It was really fun and we actually did really well and managed to bump, set, spike it over successfully a lot! After that we did a cheer and then went home.

I had a lot of fun and am really looking forward to next Saturday, and the Saturdays continuing when I'll get to do it again and continue to improve! The classes are 2 hours long on Saturday mornings from 9:00 am to 11:00 am. Here's the website if you're interested in more information.

Volleyball Practice 1/8/12

Today I practiced some volleyball outside of my house. I have practiced a few times that I haven't posted about, but they were shorter, and I didn't do the test, so I didn't post it for you guys. Today I passed back and forth with my dad for a while, then did my "test" (look back at first one of these for schedule). Here are the results from today:

Bumps: 39

Sets: 15

Fist Bumps: 25

I still need to work on setting, but I do think I have improved since last time because of the SillY Volleyball Clinics and I am better already. I think all of my skills have improved at least slightly, because the bumping, setting, and fist bumps were much more controlled than last time, even if some of the scores may be less, namely, the fist bumps. Everything else my score is better than last time.

Also, next Saturday my SillY Volleyball classes start, so I will let you know how that goes. I'm very excited!