It’s been over 2 years since I last played club-level volleyball for Pioneer. Since then, it’s been one social team after another, including the point where I wrecked my shoulder. So when I started my first training session with Rongotai last night, not only was I the shortest player, but the weakest hitter, weakest jumper and my passing was a bit rough. Thankfully, I’ve got a decent level of base fitness, so when we were prescribed sit-ups, push-ups or jumps for each mistake, my lungs could take it. On the plus side, they seem like a good bunch of people to play with – as encouraging as you could hope for when you’re thrown in past the deep end.

A slightly stray set in last night’s volleyball game did a small number on my ankle. The ball was set too close to the net and slightly too wide. I couldn’t reach it with a normal spike, so I knocked it over the block with my left hand, but came down with one foot on the base of the support pole. I’ve always had relatively strong (more like inflexible) ankles, and it didn’t turn over at all. In fact, I didn’t notice anything until long after I got home—a slight swelling and a bit of resistance to rotation.

I’ve got an anti-inflammatory gel on it, and I’m going to skip my cardio class tonight at the gym. My next game isn’t until Sunday, so I’ve got a bit of time to rest it off.

I don’t know how coincidental this could be:

• There is a tear in the knee of my track pants.

• There is a small hole in my knee pad.

• There is a not-as-small tear in the skin over my knee.

The problem is that I don’t remember landing on anything that could have been that sharp or pokey. I’m kinda confused. Floors generally don’t bite.

I knew I was going to miss the start of the tournament, but I managed to catch the last day of the New Zealand Open volleyball tournament. I’d arrived well after noon and missed a lot of the action. However, I didn’t miss the second mens semifinal and both mens and womens finals. And the finals were scorchers.

My new camera came out a number of times during the event, and the resulting photos are available on my flickr account. I didn’t realise that I had adjusted the colour balance until well into the day, so many of the photos look a little blue. My apologies.

My first Christmas present came in this afternoon. It wasn’t much of a surprise, since I ordered it for myself. The best gifts are the ones that you know you’ll love.

I ordered a beach volleyball net from Buffalo Sports, and it seems perfect. I haven’t had a chance to try it out yet, since the weather is a bit crap today, but it is very similar to the ones that we use for the beach league. I didn’t buy the sand adapter kit (strangely separate), but with a few bungy cords and some training wheels from a bike, I’ll be ready in no time.

The ball that I have is an indoor ball, but Kristina insists on buying that part, since I bought the net already. I’ll probably eventually get a nice Mikasa anyway.

I’m really hoping that the weather is decent this weekend. There’s heaps of daylight before the parties begin.

I didn’t get a chance to post the results from volleyball last week, so I’m playing a bit of catch up. Both beach and indoor went badly for us.

I arrived at the beach just after Beach Ninjas took the court against Balmain. We’d played them earlier, and knew we were up for some strong competition. Not only did they play well as a team, they played the environment well. Sun and wind played a factor, and they used it to their benefit most of the time. We lost relatively easily. (21–12, 21–12)

We played Volley of the Damned immediately following our crushing defeat, but came on in relatively good spirits. The girls were fun (and good looking, but don’t tell them that). We went back and forth a few times, but ended up losing in 2 sets again. (21–18, 21–13)

Going into the finals game tomorrow, we’re placed 3rd overall. Our first game will pick up where we left off, against Volley of the Damned. Hopefully, we’ll play a little harder this time around.

Beach bums were playing their first game while we played our second, so I didn’t see much of it. The scoresheet only tells the final result. The match took 3 sets, but the Bums lost out to Sets On The Beach in the end. (18–21, 21–19, 15–10)

Their second game looked a lot like their first, but shuffled around. It seems that a few people were missing, and one player from each team in the first game ended up being on the next team. Nothing seemed to go right for Beach Bums. Even with a dedicated cheering section, two sets were all that was required for Opus Wipeout to win. (21–15, 21–11)

Beach Bums finished 9th overall, and are playing against all the teams that they’d squished in the past. Best of luck to them.

Indoor semifinals was the following night. We were playing against Windsor Aces for the right to play for 1st/2nd in the B division. I was disappointed to find that we were playing with only 5 players. Since the one had backed out at the very last minute, there was no time to arrange a substitute.

We’d played strongly in the first game, winning by a handful of points. Somehow, we let our energy drop off in the second game, and after a string of bad receives that crushed morale, we gave up the second game by a humiliating margin. We’d pulled up in the third game, but were riding behind by a couple points, when the ref called the game. Third game was to 15, and none of us thought anything of it before the final whistle went. A lot of disappointment was evident, and no one wanted to go for drinks afterward. We’re playing for 3rd/4th on Wednesday, and with James heading off to Canada for the next season, we’re going to be losing a very proud monkey, so we have to win this one.

We played round 4 of 6 last night out at Kohimarama Beach. We were pleasantly surprised by a shift in the weather. The morning was rainy, windy and cold. By 3:00, I was pretty certain that the game wasn’t going to be cancelled, and when I got to the beach, it was warm and calm.

While I was in Aussie, Beach Ninjas had scored 2 wins to put us onto court B, thanks to the help of Beach Bum Kristina. Unfortunately, her magic wasn’t enough to move Beach Bums onto court C at the same time.

We played the first game with 3, since our 4th player was stuck babysitting and Kristina was playing her game at the same time. Coincidentally, the opposition was also playing 3. There were definitely moments where it was obvious that our team is in need of more polish, but there were some moments that looked pretty good. We ended up beating TBA in two well-fought sets.

By the time we finished our first game, the first Beach Bums game was already over. They had squashed Vodiballers in two straight sets as well. Their second game was against the sponsorship team, Health Plus Chippies (otherwise known as Team Canada). The 3 of us guys subbed in 2 players to fill up the court for the girls, but I’m not sure how necessary that was. Beach Bums took the match easily in 2 sets, which puts them onto court C for next week.

The final game for us was against Sets On The Beach. They hadn’t quite finished their match against TBA when we came back, so we had a good chance to see what we were facing. With Beach Bums finished for the night, Kristina was available to be our 4th. The game was relatively long, but pretty much one sided. As the sun was heading down behind the trees, we secured our place on court A for next week, having won in two sets.

We finished up the night with a short game of 2 on 2. Kristina and I against James and Will. It was far from pretty, but it was a good time. I think 2s games are much more fun, but I’m not sure if we’d do well in a 2s tournament. Not yet, at least.

There are two weeks remaining for this league, and want to stay on court A now that we’re there. We’ll need to clean up our game a fair bit, but we have a good chance of walking away with pride, and maybe a prize. We’ll see how that goes.

We played the second round of beach volleyball at Kohimarama beach last night. The weather was fantabulous again, with a very slight wind coming across the courts. I thought that the shells were slightly less sharp this week, but I was the only one to think that. Everyone else either wore socks or regretted not wearing them.

Once again, we were trying to win both of our pool C matches to move up to pool B. We started by playing Balmain after having watched them win their first match quite easily. They were playing a fairly average game, but we were playing slightly less than average. They beat us in two sets (21–15, 21–19).

Having lost the first match, the best we could do was hold our position, but that seemed reasonably assured, having seen Chippies play earlier as well. We still had a few errors popping up from time to time, but we easily held that match, taken in two sets (21–8, 21–13).

Easily, the most exciting match took place in pool D. We got to know Beach Bums last week, and we’re happy to be their official cheering section. The two matches they played were the only matches to go to three sets. Unfortunately, both matches went against them. They lost to Opus Wipeout by the narrowest of margins (19–21, 21–16, 12–15) and then lost to Westies as the sun was dropping over the horizon, which made the ball difficult to see (15–21, 22–20, 13–15). Best of luck to them for the next round. They’ll stay in pool D this time, but here’s hoping they take our spot in pool C after we make our way into pool B in two weeks’ time.

We played our first game of beach volleyball last night at Kohimarama beach. There are still quite a few shells out there, and our feet were all a bit cut up by the time we were finished. I didn’t really realise just how badly cut they were until this morning when the pain started setting in. I might just need a pair of aqua shoes on the sand next week.

In any case, we lost the first match and won the second one, which means that we stay in the pool that we started in. We were very close to winning our first match, too. It came down to 2 points in the 3rd set. Once we get used to the new court, we should start playing better. I’m hoping that we’ll shift up at least one pool in the next few weeks.

We played a grading round last night at AUT. It was organised into 30 minute refereed games to sort the teams into B and C grades.

Luckily, the organisers changed the draw before we started, so that we weren’t going to play the team we were originally paired with for the first game. They are definitely C grade and we are definitely B grade. One of the girls on the other team asked if we could not spike at them. I think it’s a fair request. The team we ended up starting against had no problems with spikes, giving or receiving. We won the games pretty easily, but we did notice a few places where we need to work harder and cover better.

For the next half hour, one of the teams had only two players, so we filled in the spaces so that we wouldn’t cool down too much before our last game. It was pretty relaxed, keeping moving instead of focussing on quality. We ended up playing that same team, but a little more formally, for the last game since the team we were supposed to play didn’t show up. There wasn’t a lot of challenge there, but it was a lot of fun anyway. They were definitely winning in terms of volume and enthusiasm.

The best part of the night came after the final whistle blew. Instead of leaving right away, we agreed to help take down the nets if we could keep going for a while longer. It was the 6 Monkeys and the girl that is playing on our beach volleyball team, 3 on 4.

Having so much more court to cover is a lot of work, and slowly, a few of the monkeys grew tired and drifted off. Shortly after 10:00, we had settled onto a game of full-court two on two. As far as I’m concerned, nothing gets a person moving more than absolute necessity. With that much court to cover, there isn’t time to stop moving, and definitely no room for miscommunication.

We finished up when exhaustion took over. Sets were nice and high, but jumps were sinking lower and lower. Finally, by about 10:30, we were done and the nets came down.

It’s been an age since I worked that hard on a volleyball court, but it was a great boost of confidence with the tournament this weekend. I hope to put this all to good use.