Eventful weekend

5 years ago

Eventful weekend
Wow! who would have thought that a simple team-building volleyball match could be, so action-packed?

Sport is such a wonderful way to release all your stress and frustrations yet be warned it does not come without some sport-related injuries.

Going into the match not knowing all the rules can result in some hard-earned points going to waste, as our team quickly learned. Knowing the basics just does not measure up when you desperately need the advantage.

It was a match of English vs Afrikaans, as the energies were high and the competitive nature of both teams elevated, luckily this did not last long as the pleasure of playing the game just took control…

Having four native speakers who had limited understanding when it comes to the regularities of the game, we soon realized we were heading for trouble.
Needless to say by the second half of the game we even had the official cheering our team on which resulted in some good sports and much-needed motivation. We soon came to the conclusion that acknowledging the referee's hand signals was an important part of playing the game and looking to our opposition for validation makes for a good laugh as all is fair in love and war and if need be they will have some fun exposing your weaknesses. Next time we will show up prepared!

Some Volleyball vocabulary we had knowledge of:
Foul: a violation of rules.
Server: the player who puts the ball into play.
Hit: To jump and strike the ball with an overhand, forceful shot.
Dig: something we attempted to do a lot of and resulting in injury (slang for the art of passing an attacked ball close to the floor).
Spike: hit or attack, a player on the offensive team who intends to terminate the ball on the opponent’s floor or blocker.

Some vocabulary that could have been useful to know:
Service error: one of our common fails, an unsuccessful serve where the ball hits the net or lands out of bounds. Clearly calling it out of bounds was not the correct term of use.
Dink: a legal push of the ball around or over blockers. 
Front set: refined as overhand pass.

The outcome spoke for itself, English won one out of four matches. Credits to the Afrikaans for good sportsmanship who sent one of their players to assist in one of the matches, not the winning match! Laughing out loud.

In a bizarre turn of events, two of my teammates sadly were in an accident on our way home. This put the team in team building. Both teams were on site within 15 minutes, luckily, we were two cars tailing. After changing lanes, the car's wheels locked resulting in it slamming into the barriers four times at 130 km, those of us following were thankful for ABS brakes (anti-lock braking system).

After emergency personnel cleared the scene, this took about an hour and a half as heavy rains and floods had emergency services on their toes this weekend, a trip to the emergency room confirmed no serious injuries.



Casualties, bruised arm and all things considered we will be playing volleyball again, next up white river rafting, after recovering of course. This time we will do our research on the rules. 