Time to Get Serious

So the 4's tournament that I talked about in my recent blog was a lot of fun. My team ended up taking 2nd. Overall, my team played fairly consistent. We had our good and bad streaks, just like any team. We had our longest bad streak in the finals though, which is the most inopportune place to have it. I'm not mad that we came in 2nd though because the team that we lost to was very strong. They had 2 very solid hitters, a solid setter that could block, and a solid defender. On my team we had 2 defenders and 2 hitters. I was one of the hitters but we decided that I should set because of my natural sand hands (I'm not being cocky here, everyone tells me that they are naturally great). Also, as setter I could block against some of the bigger hitters. It was a good plan except that then it took me out of the offense which was fairly annoying. Overall the tournament was fun and I got to work on my setting for beach and I got to work on my blocking. I definitely need to work on blocking the right side. I was for the most part late or didn't go because I cheated to my left.

Last week I had some solid practice with Bryan and Urbie, my partner. The first day we got together the sand was so hot that I am sure we all ended up with blisters on our feet. I ended up putting on a pair of Bryan's socks to help protect my feet. Tip to all of you sand players... keep a pair of spare socks in your bag for days like these. Who cares if you get a stupid tan line as long as your feet are protected from what feels like fire. No joke. Anyway, Bryan had us work on hitting and our approach. Urbie is going to be left side and I will play right. She has a cannon of an arm just like me. But she is more shotty than I am. We worked on our sharp cross and our deep line. Then we worked on serve receive. Urbie was struggling to break the habit of receiving the serve with her hands, which in sand is illegal. She has gotten better though. She has learned to keep her hands together or to move back and take it with her platform. Anyway, serve receive was really good for our first time out together. We were talking a lot and we were able to feel each other out as far as tendencies. We also have been working on finding the set that the other person likes. Urbie likes them in and a little off the net so that she can hit more shots. As for me I like them on the net. I feel like more of a threat when I know I can either pound it or roll it to a spot. The first day training together overall went very well and it made both of us very excited about playing together.

The next day I trained with Bryan and Mark, a player we met at Four Lakes, who is pretty darn good. Once again we worked on hitting and serve receive. It was more of a one on one type training with Bryan, which is always good. The main focus that day was to work on me not throwing any pity parties. I was struggling with my setting and wasn't letting go of the mistakes and Bryan had to reinforce the point that I had to let it go and stop feeling bad for myself. After I stopped pouting I was able to take his advice of squaring my body. Once I squared to where I wanted to set the sets were better. Weird how that happens, huh? Anyway, it was a solid 2 hour practice and it was solid reps. Later that day I found out that Urbie couldn't play in the tournament in Michigan that was on Saturday. I was pretty bummed out about it. But then Bryan said that if his partner fell through that he would play Men's AA with me. Yes, you read that right, Men's AA, not Co-ed. His partner ended up being able to play, but I was pretty ecstatic knowing that Bryan thought we could compete in, and win, a Men's AA division playing co-ed together.

Urbie and I were able to train for a second time last week with Bryan, and also with his partner for the Michigan tournament. We worked on serve receive again. They served us floaters, top spin, and the dreaded sky ball (a ball that is hit as high as it can be right into the sun. I hate it). Urbie and I were struggling at first. None of our passes were going to target or we would pass to target and have either a bad set or a bad hit. After a while though, even if we had a bad pass, we were able to make a good play out of a broken one. Bryan told us that if there is a broken play to send the second ball up by the net so that the hitter can hit it since there most likely will not be a block due to the bad pass. Bryan has done this multiple times with the people he has been playing with while we've been training, and for the most part has been extremely successful. Anyway, after serve receive we played some games against Bryan and his partner or another male player. We lost each game but I'm not even mad. We were playing on a higher net and Bryan and his partners play pro. They're all very smart and very skilled. It was only making us better. We had some solid defensive plays and some smart shots on offense. We were able to see it all coming together, very exciting.

So this past weekend instead of going to Michigan to play in the tournament because I was partnerless, I went up to Twin Lakes with my friend from Saturday-Tuesday. Needless to say I didn't do much training while I was up there. It was nice to just lay by the lake and enjoy summer like I used to. But I am home now and I am ready to get going. So plan of attack for this week:

Thursday: play with Urbie against some of the other girls I know so that we can see how we do on a girls net against other females.

Friday: play beach again, coed, girls, I don't care as long as we play

Saturday: play in a doubles tournament downtown with either Deanna or Kait(Urbie can't play).

This all depends on whether or not I am staying here or going on vacation with my mom up to our cabin. If I go up to my cabin then I won't be able to play Friday or Saturday which would be a bummer. But I can still train because we have some stairs I can run, lots of hills that would be great for sprints, and a beach of sand that I can do suicides in.

Next week will be filled with lots of training. Urbie's and my first tournament together is next Saturday. It's the EVP at North Avenue Beach downtown. I am pumped. We are going to play the gold division, which is the division under pro. I am excited to see how we do. :) More updates to come. Thanks for reading!