I’m in Calgary, Canada right now visiting the fam. It will be my niece’s 5th birthday and I kinda promised her I’d be here for her party. As always, my visits make me enjoy the kids. A few days ago I watched my 2 younger boys (read: nephews) compete in an inter-school volleyball tournament. Watching them made me realize just how fast time flew by. I still have a picture of them when they were babies, born a year apart by my 2 sisters, respectively. And now, Sef is 13 while Coco is 14. I still can’t believe my babies can whack a volleyball so hard it spanned the length of the whole volleyball court! You can even hear that smacking sound their hands made while they slapped the ball with their spikes.
I enjoyed watching my boys! I loved seeing them jump on their side of their net trying to block the opponent’s volleys. They could whack the ball effortlessly. On one instance Sef even rallied 5 straight points with his serves.
It’s also interesting to note how puberty plays a big part in all the boys’ strength. Not just my nephews, but the whole squad. They have the speed and the strength, no doubt. But there’s still something amissed about them knowing how to control that strength. I guess at that age, they still have to learn how to curb that force they’re now starting to acquire. I didn’t get to notice this change with my two older nephews. Probably because they were not as athletic as these two younger ones. My older ones are the “geeky” ones of the brood. They are my seasoned computer gamers 🙂
I wasn’t a good volleyball player, altho I’ve dabbled (dribbled??) in the sport once or twice. Among all the games, this is the sport that I knew by heart. I knew the switches, the rules. the scoring. So it caught me by surprise that the rules have changed – a lot. Pancho, my eldest nephew who came with us, was trying to explain the new rules to me. And even he only came to know about the changes recently while watching the younger boys play.
Coco’s Practice Serve
So yes, they’ve changed volleyball rules. And just in case you haven’t watched a volleyball game lately or you’re relearning the rules of the sport, let me list down some of the changes that I observed:
- A player can now serve the ball AT ANY POINT behind the end line. It used to be that the player can only serve on the right corner behind the end line.
- They now have “Let Serves”. A Let Serve is when the ball touches the net when it is served but it as to go over onto the opponent’s side of the court. In my days, that was called a “net ball” and forfeits the serve.
- During my time, only the serving team can gain a point when the opponent couldn’t return the ball within 3 hits. First team to reach 15 points wins the set. Now they do a “rally scoring” – the team scores a point when the opposing team misses or couldn’t return the ball in 3 hits – regardless of who serves the ball. But this time, they need to get 25 points to win the set.
- When my nephew had 5 straight point serves, the referee whistled to signal that the next player in his team now serves. This was something new for me. It used to be that the server continues to serve the ball for as long as the opponent misses returning the ball. It didn’t matter if he/she did it for the whole set of 15 points. Luck of the game. But now, do they do this to give other players the chance to serve? I’m still trying to find out why.
Sef’s Practice Serve
But no matter what changes were made, volleyball is still an exciting game for me, And yes, my nephews’ team won the game. Effortlessly, I should even say. Both their school teams (boys and girls teams) won. (The girls were awesome, by the way.) Yay!!! They’ve got another game next week that I’d still be able to watch. Looking forward to that a lot and hopefully I can get better pictures then. Yes, I am a shameless, proud auntie.
I leave you for now with one of their winning points during their game.
One of the winning points
Till next time, my loves!
The once named “godmother of the Philippine Blogosphere”, Gigi Manaloto-Refugia, known by her pen name “Ate Sienna” has been blogging since 2002 in her old pansitan.net community where she housed famous bloggers. She now writes about being 50-something and shares her tips on fashion, makeup, skincare, travel, food and thrift-store diving.
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