Volleyball

Since the beginning of February, Emily has been playing volleyball for her school team.  When the season started she wasn't the best player ever and was really disappointed that she couldn't serve the ball over the net. The coach told me that Emily was having a hard time for two reasons.  First, she's just smaller than the other kids and doesn't have tons of upper body strength.  Second, she's too nice and wasn't getting angry and hitting the ball hard when she served.  To help her improve, we bought her a volleyball so she could practice at home and kept encouraging her to hit the ball as hard as she possibly could.  Even with all the extra practice she was doing at home, she still wasn't getting the ball over the net.

After their first match, she was feeling bad that she still hadn't gotten any of her serves over.  Her teammates were surprisingly supportive - I expected middle school athletes to be less encouraging and upset that she hadn't played well.  Instead, they were cheering her on and cheering her up when she felt bad.  I am so grateful that our girls go to a school with such great kids!  For the second match, Jared told Emily to pretend that ball was his face and that she needed to hit it as hard as she could, with every bit of strength in her body.  I wasn't sure that would work as Emily loves Jared and isn't often frustrated or mad at him.  I thought she might have more success if she pretended the ball was Abigail!  However, as usual, Jared was right!   She got all of her serves over AND they were aces!  Because her serve still isn't that strong, the ball just barely clears the net and then drops right to the floor on the other side.  Tiny little Emily is her team's new secret weapon.  She can serve and they are almost always aces.  She has gotten really good at bumping and setting and has toughened up her arms.  When practices first started she would come home with bruises all over her hands and arms from hitting the ball.  Now she's tough - she'll spend the entire practice bumping the ball and come home without any bruises!  And, now that she has knee pads, she's totally willing to "sacrifice her body" and dive for the ball.

This Friday they had another match and I was determined to get some pictures before the season ends.  My camera is trying to die - I had to replace the batteries three times to get these pictures - but I got the pictures!

Getting ready to serve

And the ball is going over the net!

You can really only see Emily's arms in this picture - she had just bumped the ball.  She still has to concentrate to serve well, but she bumps and sets perfectly!