Progress Report:

Well there’s no better way to say this, a LOT has happened since the last blog post. Evidently it was a while ago, but it feels like I’ve grown a very significant amount in the last month in terms of my overall “hard skills” as Mr. Salisbury called them. The last I left you, Gyu Min and I had only recently discovered our little spot in the park. Well, fortunately for us, that was the last time we had to practice there. After that, something miraculous happened; the protocols lifted up again, and they returned the nexts back to the sand pits at lafarge. With this wonderful occurrence, Gyu Min and I moved over there, and began practicing on those courts. The reasoning being the nets were nicer, it was a better spot, and a good opportunity to practice some beach volleyball. Beach is a very different beast than gym volleyball, for a multitude of reasons. The largest ones being the vast difference in terrain and number of people. In a standard in gym match, there are 6 players per team on the court at any given time, as well as substitutes. For beach volleyball, it’s a 2 v 2 match, on sand which makes maneuvering and jumping a lot more difficult, and pairs it with accounting for wind. The only upside I can think of with the sand it’s a good cushion, and it’ll make us a lot stronger for when we go indoors again. Once spring break started, I sort of fell into a rhythm where i would attend a match with Gyu Min and some other students from the volleyball team, all outdoors and wearing masks. One student in particular became a regular, and we routinely go to play volleyball with him, as he’s been playing for much longer than we have and is much more skilled. Regardless, I’d like to say I played probably around 4 times over the two weeks of spring break, each time lasting for around 4 hours. Needless to say I was a little sore after the first two, but my body is adjusting to the increased energy demands. On top of this, Gyu Min and I decided to join a small camp that’s operating out of pinetree community center in order to hone our skills more. The class is exceedingly small, with only one other student aside from myself and Gyu Min, and they are taking protocols very seriously. It’s only been two weeks since we started, however I really think I’m seeing improvement. It runs once a week on Tuesdays, from 6:45-8:00. Most recently, today, Wednesday April 15th, we managed to schedule a time to touch base with Mr. Salisbury after school, and give us an opportunity to show him our growth as players, and ask for any advice he has. We played from around 3:00 – 4:30, which is where Block Y would end, and it ended up going really well. He agreed that our hard work has paid off, and that all of our allround technical skills have drastically improved; our receives are reliable, our sets are mostly stable with little spin and good accuracy, our spiking is coming along, our serving has really improved, and our digs have come along well too! Blocks are not able to be practiced safely at the moment due to COVID and proximity. He said to keep on improving, and that our next steps should be focusing on more teamwork aspects of the game, and try to go into the correct positions at the right times, and learn different patterns and ways of playing. As a benchmark, however, I believe the last month offered explosive growth in all areas, and we can continue to push forwards!

 

Concepts and Alternatives and Learning Centre Summary:

Concepts

Some concepts that arose in our last meeting with our mentor are:

  • Fine tuning Hard skills vs Soft skills
  • Rotating your approach so you’re always spiking on the same axis as the setter is on
  • Receiving in a “sweet spot” near the middle of your forearms
  • Using hip movement and core muscles to create torque when hitting
  • Adapting timing to terrain
  • Filling empty on the court productively
  • Talking while playing

Alternatives

Throughout this project, our mentor has been more of a guide than a step by step teacher, and we’ve had a lot of flexibility through the fact that Gyu Min and I are really the only constant. We’ve tried alternative locations, alternative instructors through the joining of the aforementioned camp, as well as learning from our more skilled peers, alternative training methods, and much more. Choosing a different mentor may have provided us with a more rigid schedule, however I think that this sort of freedom with occasional check ins is much more productive, better suited to the nature of In depth, and frankly a lot more enjoyable. The ability to let this stay as an opportunity to improve at a hobby and not turn it into something that you feel like you “have to do”.