How to have a Beautiful Mind:
Agreeing, Disagreeing, Differing in opinion:
In order to be a good mentee, you have to try to be open. Open to new opinions, to different perspectives, corrections of form, and to new information. As mentioned in the book, sometimes you are required to enter another person’s “logic bubble”. A logic bubble is “made up of the perceptions, values, needs and experience of that person”. In the case of my mentor, Mr. Salisbury, there’s no feasible way for me to try to take into account every single experience he’s had, however I can try to put myself into his logic bubble in order to better understand where he’s coming from and to understand the logic behind the advice I’m being given. Though I would agree that it is important to disagree in healthy relationships, I’m in a stage in the learning process where there’s so much that I don’t know, that I don’t really see myself in a position to have a fully educated position. Sure, if he gives me advice that I’ve already tried, then obviously I’m going to say something, but from the perspective of volleyball, I don’t think there’s a lot of ambiguity with the basic’s we’re working on. Yes, I do have my own opinion, but a large part of that opinion is still in the process of being formed because I have a lot of room to grow.
Progress report:
Gyu-min and I workout a deal with Mrs. Anderson where we could use the school gym on Thursdays after school hours, as there were no clubs currently using the space, and so for the past 3 weeks we’ve had sessions with Mr. Salisbury, as well as a few kids from the jr. volleyball club, in order to increase the overall value of the experience. What I mean by this is that with a handful of kids, you can run drills that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to run due to a lack of amount of people. I have progressed significantly in all aspects of my abilities, ESPECIALLY in setting, which is good because that was, I would say, my weakest ability. My serving has continued to improve as well, with me carefully adjusting the amount of force I’m putting into the serves in order to try to slowly increase how hard I can accurately serve. Additionally, my receiving form has gotten better, and I’ve had quite a few good digs from when we started. I measured my vertical jump to be 22cm, which is something I can definitely improve on (given the fact that I am 6’1). Gyu-min has some footage from the experience, so for further information maybe check out his post (I’m not sure if he’s posted the footage). Instead, here is a video of me playing “pepper” with my brother, a drill where one person receives, the other sets, the original spikes, the other receives, and the cycle continues.