Do You Want To Play Volleyball?

Imagine you walk onto the court. It may be on sand or a repurposed basketball court. In front of you there is a high net meeting your eyes. Someone serves. That ball begins to soar. It flies through the air and gets passed back and forth again and again. The vibrant blues, yellows, and greys of the ball shoots through the air like a cannonball. You hit it many times. You may even score a point or two. Every moment counts. The difference in your reactions can result in not just you, but your team in its entirety losing or winning. This is a high stake game requiring quite a lot of skill. Do you find this idea exhilarating to play volleyball? Many have. One example of a person who has is Ella James.

Ella James started playing volleyball around the age of 10 years old. To find out if that was the usual age, I asked, “What age do people typically start playing volleyball around?” She responded with, “Either like first or second grade or sixth or seventh grade.” In first grade people are around 6 to 7 years old and in seventh grade people are around 12 to 13 or 11 to 14 depending on their birthday. So, according to Ella James, it is reasonable to start around 6 years old to 14 years old. These are decent times to be indoctrinated to play. Ella James’s cousin also plays volleyball so I had asked her, “You said your cousin plays volleyball. Did they introduce it to you, did you two get put in together, or did you just both happen to get into it separately?” She had responded with, “Both of our moms signed us up for volleyball when we were around 10 years old and we've been on the same team every year. As for which mom came up with the idea. It was my mom.” I asked if her cousin still plays volleyball with her on the same team. She replied “No she doesn't. We both play volleyball, but we're not on the same team this year, sadly.” These two cousins, family members, and friends had joined this sport together with a strong sense of fellowship, but now by uncontrollable means this was stopped and now they play in opposition. Whose team shall triumph over the other this year? That is something none of us know. You don’t have to enter this sport alone, but I am afraid that only one of you may come out. Volleyball is a game known to challenge one physically, but can just as easily challenge one socially.

How and where do you get into volleyball? This question’s answer would be essential for the article so I asked Ella James, “Where do you play volleyball and do you have any words of advice for people just starting the sport?” She thus responded to the prompt by answering, “Be kind to other people on your team cuz they can boost you up. I also play kids sports.” If you want to play kidsports, which Ella does, and I imagine she would recommend it, click this link https://kidsports.org/sports-leagues/volleyball/ to sign up for kids sports volleyball. It claims to provide the players with fundamental skills that will help their long term success. Now although Ella gave her advice as to when to start, kidsports says it accepts people grades 3rd through 8th, so choose who to follow yourself. They will offer camps and leagues to help one join, but remember this is a competition. You will enter a battlefield in which in place of bullets there are balls and wounds are not uncommon, but this is not to say that there is no benefit in doing so. The relief and adrenaline of winning a volleyball game will wash over you if you play well enough and there are few things as fulfilling as such.

To conclude, one may play volleyball with kidsports with the link above to sign up from either 6 to 14 according to Ella or grades 3rd through 8th with kidsports. You have all the opportunity to join so now we ask, will you? I know Ella would recommend playing as I had asked her what her favorite hobby was and she responded with, “Probably playing volleyball with my friends because it's just honestly super fun.” 

The game is war and the competition is deadly and yet despite that fulfilling, creating opportunities for long term success and a deep sense of pleasure playing. Ella joined this war on the court and found many great things from it. She has found fun and she has found rivalry which one may argue to be the greatest motivation for improvement despite us not knowing who would win yet. Do you want to join her?