Here’s a brief overview of my last week’s blogging about volleyball...
Week 7:
This week our volleyball team had a bye so we didn’t get to play. However I still arrived at the hall around 6pm like I do every week. Luckily enough one team was short of a player so I ended up playing for them. For some reason while playing the hits were going really far in the air, nearly hitting the roof for most of the game. This made it difficult to play as the lights would outshine the ball, making it difficult to perceive where the ball was going to land. In the end it thinks that is a contributing factor to why the team had lost. Also the age differences in team were majorly different which could have gave the older team an advantage of height and strength which won them the game. The younger team I was filling in for seem to be a bit down about losing. But I didn’t feel sorry for them in that respect, as I remember when I was younger playing all the older teams, and loosing by lots of points and feeling sad about it at the time. But now I playing the same people in my older age and WINNING it is a lot more satisfying. Also during the night I helped with the score and got a few practice hits in between games.
Week 8:
This week I had run late to volleyball as I moved and lived further away than before. This meant I had to get changed there and quickly rush to get to my game in time 645pm. I luckily made it with no time to spare and jumped on the court to play. Because I was in such a flustered state I started hitting the volleyball in the wrong directions or missing it all together. Luckily my team was awake and managed to win the first set. Then the second set I had calmed down a little and started to play properly again. I had a really good run while serving and got to the team 7 points in a row. My team rewarded me with praise which fuelled my performance. With good team work and communication on the court, we ended up winning the game!!
Affordances:
I’ve found the aspect of affordance as very relevant to volleyball. This is mostly to do with the communication aspects and the idea of community within the team and also within the competition.
Good communication can be described as the key aspect to winning volleyball as explained by Waite (2009). He also explains that with good communication the team can become more united and play as one. This also relates back to the aspects of communication we talked about in class like the formation of relationships within the activity. Without these relationships, communication would be more difficult, as it is more difficult to talk to a stranger than someone you know.
Week 9:
This week I turned up early to set up the hall and got to catch up with my friend who I hadn’t seen in a while. It was pouring down with rain and was freezing outside so it was a relief to be in the hall. Then onto the first game at 6pm. This was a rather good team against an average team, so it was easy to predict the score. The next game was ours. We all casually wonder onto the court and get ready to play. I feel that our laid back attitudes we have to volleyball make it a relaxed atmosphere when we play, making less pressure on ourselves, usually resulting in positive results. Once we started playing we seemed to be on a role getting all the hits over and passing the ball to each other well. But somehow the opposition made a comeback and ended up winning the first set. Then we decided to step up our game a notch and set each other up for spikes. This was a good strategy as the opposition was unable to return the balls or if they did hit them it would go rebounding off the person in the wrong direction! We kept this strategy up to the end winning us the game. During the game the rain had taken over and was slamming on the roof, not in a frustrating way but more calming way. It was nice to listen to and filled the silences with some form of noise. It was slightly disappointing as the other team was bitter in our win and didn’t think it has been refed appropriately so some didn’t shake our hands afterwards. But our team wasn’t too bothered as we were more excited about our win than the poor sportsmanship of the other team. For the rest the night I did the scoring for the other teams and caught up with some people between games.
Ergonomics:
As I have touched on in my some of my first blogs ergonomics also fits into volleyball. Different ideas of this can be related to person, activity or environment. Over the 9 weeks I have come to understand the aspect or ergonomicsand how it is important to my activity. If I could pick the most important ideas in relation to me it would definitely be my responsibilities within the team. These include being on time, participating to the best of my ability and keeping good communication with my team mates and adapting all these to fit the appropriate situation. For example when in different teams especially I adapt my style of communication and participation style to fit the team’s style of playing. This can relate back to the quote by Caulton and Dickson (2007), “constantly make slight invisible adjustments to an activity to adapt to the needs of those taking part and ensure that it continues to work for its intended purpose”.
Ambience:Over my blog I haven’t fully touched on the subject of ambience. This is because I find it hard to relate to my activity. But after writing my last blog taking into the account the different atmospheres I have a slightly better understanding of ambience and how it relates to my activity.
Ambience can be described as the atmosphere, moods and activities that surround us. It can give us insight to a sense of feeling for the activity and also help us provide our own integrity/authenticity (Saito, 2007).
I feel that I can relate to this definition in relation to the sort of atmospheres I was around in my week 9 blog. First aspect was the atmosphere of being warm and dry inside, feeling safe and cosy. Also then, the atmosphere that the oppositions produced when they didn’t want to shake our hands. It’s amazing how fast the atmosphere can change, and in long term I guess we naturally learn to adapt to that without knowing.
References:
Caulton, R., & Dickson, R. (2007). What’s going on? Finding an explanation for what we do. In J. Caulton & A. Lawson-Porter. (Eds.). Contemporary issues in occupational therapy. (pp. 87-99). Chichester: John & Wiley Sons Ltd.
Saito, Y. (2007). Everyday aesthetics. New York: Oxford University Press.
Waite, P. (2009). Aggressive volleyball: dictate the pace, determine the outcome. USA: United Graphics
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