Two days ago, I had one of the worst days of practice I have ever had. Nothing went right, every touch on the ball felt awkward and wrong. Instead of doing something to help the team each time I played the ball I was doing the opposite. My hands felt sticky, my legs heavy and most importantly, my head was elsewhere. No matter what I did I couldn’t get myself into that place that an athlete needs to be in to do well. And after spending a lot of time replaying that day in my head, I think that I’m starting to understand why.
Here’s the main reason: My focus was misplaced. I don’t mean focus as far as concentrating on the game. I was most certainly focused on the task at hand. But specifically, I was focusing on things that were of absolutely no value to me at the time.
Let me explain the way practice was structured that day. Morning training consisted of a warm up game called Hagebau, a game based on the principles of soccer and volleyball, which has become just as competitive as anything else we do down here. This day, the “young” team, made up of the younger players on the team, killed the old and set the negative tone for what would be a terrible day for me. Afterwards we did a bit of straight setter training and a few light drills afterward. The night training, and I count this as the worst of the two, was basically a competitive practice with scrimmage-like drills taking up all of the two hours.
The thing that worried me most about playing so poorly on this day was the fact that I had a good feeling going into the day. I’ve felt an improvement in my game over the last few weeks, and felt that I had been training well, doing my job and working hard to get better every single day. My serving felt stronger than it had in a long while, my hands felt light like I could do almost anything with the ball I wanted to. In short, I felt strong. So, going into the day, I was full of confidence, I knew that I was improving and I was looking forward to getting a chance to continue.
But somewhere along the way, my priorities got mixed up. Instead of going into that night competitive training with the mindset that I was going to keep improving, focus on the aspects of my game that needed work and just work hard, I came in thinking only about winning. Now, winning is absolutely one of the most important parts of playing sports. Anyone who says different is not being honest with themselves or anyone around them. But, focusing on winning, especially while playing, is a complete and utter waste of time.
The concept is nothing profound. I don’t claim that what I’m saying is innovative or deep. However, I do believe that it is something we lose sight of all the time.
For example, when I walked into the gym on Thursday night, I had already had a full training earlier in the day where I didn’t feel very good about my game. Like I said, my legs were slow, my hands didn’t feel very good, I didn’t feel like I could make solid connection with the ball. I knew all of these things, I felt them somewhere in the back of my mind but when I got to training and I saw that we were going to have a competitive game like practice I immediately started thinking about winning each drill. We warmed up, did hitting lines and served. And I still didn’t feel good about my game, but I remember still thinking, when the games start, hopefully I’ll be able to switch it around.
What happened? The team I was on lost every single set that we played. Zero wins and five losses. And we switched around a lot so I brought the losses to both sides of the net. As a setter, I take a lot of responsibility for those losses. No one has a bigger influence on the outcome of a volleyball match than a setter.
The funny thing is, I spent the whole time worrying about the score, worrying about the refereeing, worrying about the difference in how hard the free balls were to my side of the net compared to their side of the net. Worrying about losing…
I finally realized afterward that these were the things that a loser would think about. These were the things that I hadn’t been spending my time on for the past two months.
So, what should I have been thinking about? Well, that’s the tough question. The more I think about it, and this is for me personally, the more I think that getting better and being a great player is based on working on your weaknesses all the time. More than that, it is identifying your weaknesses on any given day. Maybe today your legs are tired and that means that you have to work that much harder to make sure you move your feet and get to the position you need to be in. I have a tendency to drop my hands when I set and not take the ball as high as I should (something I did all of Thursday without doing anything about it) and I have to remind myself all the time to take the ball high. We all have lots of things that we have to work on and it is a constant struggle with yourself to keep working on those things. But the only way to get better is to focus on them and correct them and continue to develop as a player.
Second, I think all great players have the ability to drop all of their insecurities when they get on the court. This is directly related to focus because once you drop that insecurity you are free to just play the game. All of a sudden, winning doesn’t reflect positively or negatively on the player because it is what we can call an “outcome goal”. We all know that winning is not 100% dependent on how well we play, there are several factors that influence the outcome of every match or game. Luck, weather, opponent’s ability, refereeing, teammates, these are all things that can make even the best performance a losing one. Without insecurity, a player can play without distraction, the only thing that matters is their performance and knowing inside their heart that they have done all that they could do to help their team. They can be courageous and they can play without pressure because the only important pressure comes from inside, and usually, a player who plays this way wins. Once you forget about winning, you generally win and that, for me, is a zen-like state.
So, that’s where I’m at right now, trying to lose all of my insecurities. Trying to take what the coaches tell me without saying, “But….” Because they don’t want to hear an excuse and an excuse only holds me back from my goals. When I make a mistake, the goal is to correct that mistake and do it right next time, not to get angry at my hitter for not putting the ball away so that I don’t look bad. I lose sight of this all the time and it doesn’t do anyone any good, and I think if we’re being honest others do too, and it all comes from being insecure about our own abilities and what others, whether it’s a coach or spectators, etc…, think about us.
Friday was a much better day and even though I’m sure there will be more bad days at some point, I’m trying to stay zen. Until we lose in Hagebau again that is…
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Unterhaching.
Unterhaching is a suburb of Munich, about a six hour drive from Wuppertal, and consistently one of the top five or six teams in the German Bundesliga. We’ve had a good pre-season with only a few setbacks along the way. Other than one terrible training match in Duren and the finals in the Bottrop tournament where we were missing all of our outside hitters we’ve won pretty much every match we’ve played. Everyone has told me that we were farther along than last season’s team at the same point in the season and that we had a great chance to go to Unterhaching and take home two points. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen.
I personally didn’t really know what to expect from the experience. Being my first ever match here in Germany, I had very little idea of how the match would go and how good Unterhaching actually would be. It turns out, they can play, and also, it is going to be extremely important to protect home court advantage when we play in our own Bayer Halle. The difference in the season is going to come between the middle five teams – Eltmann, Unterhaching, Moers, Us and SCC Berlin.
Unterhaching relies heavily on two main guys, an outside hitter – Stankovic and an opposite – Mayer. Mayer jumps very well and hits the ball high when the set and rhythm are there. He kind of reminds me of Danny Weemes, just 25-30% better. They ran their offense fast to the outside but fairly slow to the right side and not particularly fast to their middles. Overall, they are a good team that can play at a high level at times.
The match was close all the way. Neither team took a very big lead at any time except when they sprinted out to a five or six point lead in the fourth set, and neither team could really put the other away. Playing from behind seemed easier for both us and them. The last set was no exception with us leading by one or two points throughout, we looked like we were going to sideout our way to a win but around 13-12 or so we couldn’t finish. Two middle sets from their side one the last two points and we were looking at six hours of driving carrying a loss home with us.
We’ve talked quite a bit about the loss in the last few days, and needless to say, no one is particularly happy about it. On the positive side, the team performed at a high level for much of the match and we actually won more total points. Last year the team came into Unterhaching and lost 1-3 without really pushing them at all, so it looks like this year’s team has potential to be around the top of the league. Also, if we get a couple of breaks to go our way, we win this match and everything feels a lot better.
Personally, it was a good experience to be a part of the match. I actually didn’t play at all (some thoughts on this soon) but most of our bench got into the game at one time or another and everyone did a pretty good job. The crowd was pretty solid, 700 or so in an intimate space made the match that much more exciting. Our first home match is coming this weekend and I can’t wait to see how it all turns out.
I personally didn’t really know what to expect from the experience. Being my first ever match here in Germany, I had very little idea of how the match would go and how good Unterhaching actually would be. It turns out, they can play, and also, it is going to be extremely important to protect home court advantage when we play in our own Bayer Halle. The difference in the season is going to come between the middle five teams – Eltmann, Unterhaching, Moers, Us and SCC Berlin.
Unterhaching relies heavily on two main guys, an outside hitter – Stankovic and an opposite – Mayer. Mayer jumps very well and hits the ball high when the set and rhythm are there. He kind of reminds me of Danny Weemes, just 25-30% better. They ran their offense fast to the outside but fairly slow to the right side and not particularly fast to their middles. Overall, they are a good team that can play at a high level at times.
The match was close all the way. Neither team took a very big lead at any time except when they sprinted out to a five or six point lead in the fourth set, and neither team could really put the other away. Playing from behind seemed easier for both us and them. The last set was no exception with us leading by one or two points throughout, we looked like we were going to sideout our way to a win but around 13-12 or so we couldn’t finish. Two middle sets from their side one the last two points and we were looking at six hours of driving carrying a loss home with us.
We’ve talked quite a bit about the loss in the last few days, and needless to say, no one is particularly happy about it. On the positive side, the team performed at a high level for much of the match and we actually won more total points. Last year the team came into Unterhaching and lost 1-3 without really pushing them at all, so it looks like this year’s team has potential to be around the top of the league. Also, if we get a couple of breaks to go our way, we win this match and everything feels a lot better.
Personally, it was a good experience to be a part of the match. I actually didn’t play at all (some thoughts on this soon) but most of our bench got into the game at one time or another and everyone did a pretty good job. The crowd was pretty solid, 700 or so in an intimate space made the match that much more exciting. Our first home match is coming this weekend and I can’t wait to see how it all turns out.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Unterhaching
Our first match is over and we're starting to get a good feel for where our level lies in comparison to the rest of the league. Things aren't ever going to be easy for us especially when we are away from home. Teams like Unterhaching, Moers and Eltman will absolutely put the wood to you if you don't come into their gym and play good consistent volleyball. We failed to do that over the weekend and we paid for it.
The match itself was pretty exciting, very close all the way with a lot of lead changes and at times a pretty high level of volleyball. It was not a good feeling to lose this one.
I'll write more about the whole experience in the next day and post it here.
The match itself was pretty exciting, very close all the way with a lot of lead changes and at times a pretty high level of volleyball. It was not a good feeling to lose this one.
I'll write more about the whole experience in the next day and post it here.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Odense, Denmark
When we left for Denmark, I was pretty excited for a few different reasons. Besides being free from punishing my body physically everyday and the chance to finally play a little more volleyball. I was mainly interested in what it would be like to play some matches against Pepperdine.
As long as I have been here in Europe, I’ve wondered how well teams from the American college system would fair against teams from Europe. It’s been a topic of discussion with nearly any foreigner that I have ever encountered during the time that I have been here without anyone ever being able to make a defining argument for either side. I’ve heard people say that American teams would dominate in Denmark, I’ve heard that they would be somewhere in the middle and I’ve heard that they wouldn’t do as well as it seems they would. My feeling has always been that a good American team would sit somewhere in the top four in Denmark. What made this trip even better was that we would get to see how well a good American team would do against teams from not only Denmark, but Sweden and Germany as well.
Personally, getting to play against Pepperdine again was a special experience. I’ve known their coach, Marv Dunphy for a long, long time. Both my parents went there and my dad played both with and under him back in the 70’s. Plus, Pepperdine is always a good team, so they were a perfect sample for the comparison of American and European volley. And the result is that they did pretty well without really proving anything.
We spent four days in Sønderborg team building and playing American football and Frisbee golf while still training some volleyball and playing two matches against Pepperdine. It was nice to be back in Denmark for a little while, especially on the coast with easy access to the ocean and beaches. I’m not exactly sure that I’m ever going to be ready to live too far away from the sea like here in the middle of the European continent. The air is just different.
But, the time was well spent. We were head and shoulders above Pepperdine in the two training matches that we played, winning 8-1 over the two days. Unfortunately for them, they were missing one of their best players (a 201cm outside hitter) from the beginning and lost yet another starting outside hitter in the middle of our first match when he dislocated his shoulder in a collision with another teammate. As far as the volleyball went, their biggest problem is being young and undeveloped. Their first seven were possibly physical enough to play with us but as soon as you got down into their bench, they just weren’t strong or experienced enough to play with anyone on our team.
Some notes from their team: I loved their setter, great size, great hands and a good attitude as far as I could tell. He’s got to work a little more on the way he runs his offense and try to put more tempo into his sets because generally they weren’t fast enough. But those are things that can easily be corrected in the next couple of years, he is still very young. Otherwise, their middles were generally more effective than most of the other teams we saw in Denmark. Somehow, I feel that American teams put more emphasis on attacking out of the middle. When I was in college, all I heard was set to the middle repetitively, and it seems like Pepperdine did that with a lot of success as well. I don’t think they looked real impressive but I would guess that their middles hit a very high percentage.
Otherwise, the trip was a success. We won the Marienlyst tournament with only a few problems along the way, including a five set final. The tournament looked pretty solid, if a little early in the season, with a nice mixture of teams from Denmark and abroad. I should say congratulations to Jesper Hansen and the rest of the club for organizing everything and pulling it off without a hitch.
It looks like the Danish league is going to be competitive again this year with four, five or possibly even six pretty good teams fighting at the top. From the looks of things, Marienlyst and Gentofte are a tad ahead of the rest of the pack, but lots of things always happen once the season gets going.
Overall, a good experience, capped off by a classic night at Christian Firtal and Frank A. Good luck to everyone who was there. It’ll be exciting to see how things go.
As long as I have been here in Europe, I’ve wondered how well teams from the American college system would fair against teams from Europe. It’s been a topic of discussion with nearly any foreigner that I have ever encountered during the time that I have been here without anyone ever being able to make a defining argument for either side. I’ve heard people say that American teams would dominate in Denmark, I’ve heard that they would be somewhere in the middle and I’ve heard that they wouldn’t do as well as it seems they would. My feeling has always been that a good American team would sit somewhere in the top four in Denmark. What made this trip even better was that we would get to see how well a good American team would do against teams from not only Denmark, but Sweden and Germany as well.
Personally, getting to play against Pepperdine again was a special experience. I’ve known their coach, Marv Dunphy for a long, long time. Both my parents went there and my dad played both with and under him back in the 70’s. Plus, Pepperdine is always a good team, so they were a perfect sample for the comparison of American and European volley. And the result is that they did pretty well without really proving anything.
We spent four days in Sønderborg team building and playing American football and Frisbee golf while still training some volleyball and playing two matches against Pepperdine. It was nice to be back in Denmark for a little while, especially on the coast with easy access to the ocean and beaches. I’m not exactly sure that I’m ever going to be ready to live too far away from the sea like here in the middle of the European continent. The air is just different.
But, the time was well spent. We were head and shoulders above Pepperdine in the two training matches that we played, winning 8-1 over the two days. Unfortunately for them, they were missing one of their best players (a 201cm outside hitter) from the beginning and lost yet another starting outside hitter in the middle of our first match when he dislocated his shoulder in a collision with another teammate. As far as the volleyball went, their biggest problem is being young and undeveloped. Their first seven were possibly physical enough to play with us but as soon as you got down into their bench, they just weren’t strong or experienced enough to play with anyone on our team.
Some notes from their team: I loved their setter, great size, great hands and a good attitude as far as I could tell. He’s got to work a little more on the way he runs his offense and try to put more tempo into his sets because generally they weren’t fast enough. But those are things that can easily be corrected in the next couple of years, he is still very young. Otherwise, their middles were generally more effective than most of the other teams we saw in Denmark. Somehow, I feel that American teams put more emphasis on attacking out of the middle. When I was in college, all I heard was set to the middle repetitively, and it seems like Pepperdine did that with a lot of success as well. I don’t think they looked real impressive but I would guess that their middles hit a very high percentage.
Otherwise, the trip was a success. We won the Marienlyst tournament with only a few problems along the way, including a five set final. The tournament looked pretty solid, if a little early in the season, with a nice mixture of teams from Denmark and abroad. I should say congratulations to Jesper Hansen and the rest of the club for organizing everything and pulling it off without a hitch.
It looks like the Danish league is going to be competitive again this year with four, five or possibly even six pretty good teams fighting at the top. From the looks of things, Marienlyst and Gentofte are a tad ahead of the rest of the pack, but lots of things always happen once the season gets going.
Overall, a good experience, capped off by a classic night at Christian Firtal and Frank A. Good luck to everyone who was there. It’ll be exciting to see how things go.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Pre-Season Review
It was slightly premature when I said earlier that this blog was back. A certain internet company, which will remain nameless, who has their name plastered all over the shirts of a certain Champions League playing German football team, decided that me having internet was not very high up on their list of priorities. The result, after numerous trips to the store, and several phone conversations, is that last week the apartment finally joined the modern era…
With that said, I wanted to start by looking back at what has been going on down here during the past month.
First, I want to say that it has been an experience being a part of this team. Besides working hard on the court, we’ve got several initiatives off of the court that we have been participating in. More importantly than that, there is an overall feeling that we’re headed towards something, both as a volleyball team and as a part of the community. Without overplaying it, I think that everyone in the club feels the same way and it’s a good thing for all of us.
The season unofficially started a few weeks ago with our first big exhibition match against Duren. Duren has been one of the best teams in Germany over the last few years. They have finished in the top 2 and actually done a fairly decent job in Champions League.
Coming into the match, I had no idea what to expect. We had worked very hard with our conditioning and strength programs over the first month, but hadn’t spent a whole lot of time on volleyball specific drills. We had played a little but certainly not a lot and were still working to get everyone on the same page. We were at a normal early-early season place for most volleyball teams and it was exciting to see where our level was. We’d also been making a big deal out of this match as a part of a “Double Feature” with handball, there were posters plastered all around town, radio announcements, etc… And it turns out that quite a few people responded. There were around a thousand people in the stands when the lights turned off and the music started for introductions.
It was actually something that I needed some time to get used to. Drums were banging, people were screaming and the game moved at a faster pace than I was used to. We ended up winning in four sets (no thanks to my poor performance in the third set) and even though Duren was missing one of their best players, it was a good win for us and for the crowd. Anytime you beat a good team you have to be happy about it.
Just for a quick comparison point to Denmark, after the match we had several jobs to do during the handball match. Some people started by serving drinks, etc… in the bar for the fans, some mingled downstairs in the VIP room with the sponsors and some sat at a table and signed autographs. Weird experience.
So, it was a good start to the season for us. And a good way to end our “pre-season/hell conditioning program” while transitioning to the next phase of our preparation. Next Stop: Denmark.
With that said, I wanted to start by looking back at what has been going on down here during the past month.
First, I want to say that it has been an experience being a part of this team. Besides working hard on the court, we’ve got several initiatives off of the court that we have been participating in. More importantly than that, there is an overall feeling that we’re headed towards something, both as a volleyball team and as a part of the community. Without overplaying it, I think that everyone in the club feels the same way and it’s a good thing for all of us.
The season unofficially started a few weeks ago with our first big exhibition match against Duren. Duren has been one of the best teams in Germany over the last few years. They have finished in the top 2 and actually done a fairly decent job in Champions League.
Coming into the match, I had no idea what to expect. We had worked very hard with our conditioning and strength programs over the first month, but hadn’t spent a whole lot of time on volleyball specific drills. We had played a little but certainly not a lot and were still working to get everyone on the same page. We were at a normal early-early season place for most volleyball teams and it was exciting to see where our level was. We’d also been making a big deal out of this match as a part of a “Double Feature” with handball, there were posters plastered all around town, radio announcements, etc… And it turns out that quite a few people responded. There were around a thousand people in the stands when the lights turned off and the music started for introductions.
It was actually something that I needed some time to get used to. Drums were banging, people were screaming and the game moved at a faster pace than I was used to. We ended up winning in four sets (no thanks to my poor performance in the third set) and even though Duren was missing one of their best players, it was a good win for us and for the crowd. Anytime you beat a good team you have to be happy about it.
Just for a quick comparison point to Denmark, after the match we had several jobs to do during the handball match. Some people started by serving drinks, etc… in the bar for the fans, some mingled downstairs in the VIP room with the sponsors and some sat at a table and signed autographs. Weird experience.
So, it was a good start to the season for us. And a good way to end our “pre-season/hell conditioning program” while transitioning to the next phase of our preparation. Next Stop: Denmark.
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