Over the past two years I have participated in four sports for Physical Education. They are Aerobics, Touch, Track & Field Athletics and Volleyball. In Aerobics I struggled to overcome stereotypes and self-awareness to achieve at a high level. While training for Touch it was a constant battle to stay focussed when the girls and the football boys kept arguing and the low turn up rates made training difficult. Athletics set a challenge for me to get motivated enough to train at an effective level for my 800m event. These events were very physically demanding on me to achieve at a level, which I saw as satisfactory, however Volleyball has not been so taxing on me. Compared to the other sports studied, Volleyball has less stereotyping and fitness demands, with the focus being more on skill performances. .
In Volleyball there are six main skills involved. They are digging, setting, spiking, blocking, serving and transitions between positions. As a class we thought that we had learnt all there was to Volleyball last year, we thought we knew how to dig, set and spike. .
The ideal performer in Volleyball can dig well hit spikes accurately as they keep their hands low, get into position and don't swing their arms but rather relax them, allowing them to absorb the speed of the ball so that the setter has the opportunity to set it.
After one game it was obvious that I still needed a lot of work. When passing I found myself swinging my arms to shoulder height, sending the ball straight up in the air and behind me. Realising something was wrong with my technique; I listened to what Mr Wilson had to say and began learning the skill again at the cognitive level. I was at the "reshaping of "old habits" into new patterns" (p92 Better Coaching) stage but quickly proceeded to the associative stage of fine-tuning.
In Volleyball the ideal performer sets a ball accurately into the hitting zone of the spikers. They do this by getting in position, the ball, if allowed to continue to fall, should hit them in the forehead; and only using, in this order, their knees, wrists and fingers to propel the ball.
