Urban Adventure

WARNING for sensitive viewers, the picture is gross.


Seb has already written about his experience from american indoor volleyball, and here is my version. 


So I played a volleyball game yesterday. My first volleyball game in over a year and my first time playing a whole game in what seems like forever. And I LOVED it. Gosh I miss playing so much... Yes, I have been playing some beach volleyball all spring but it's only been a substitute for my real sport. I do think I could love beach as much as indoor after a little more time, but for now indoor still has the # 1 spot. 


I got to the gym and must have looked pretty lost. Since a girl named Emma came towards me as soon as I stepped in thorough the doors. Two courts with teams playing and people everywhere.  On one court it was coed teams playing with the guys pounding the balls as hard as they could. On the other court there were women playing real volleyball. Middles running slides and everything. I met up with my team featuring three eastern european women that came here on scholarships in the beginning of this century. My team was great, we were 6 total with me only being second shortest. The league I was going to play was division 1 in the New York Urban Professional league. A lot of players move to the city because of work and the league started as a corporate league but eventually the players wanted to play with each other and win instead of playing with there co-workers. wow, long sentence.. Anyway that means that the league has a good share of players that have played for a good Div 1 team in college but simply got a job in the city. 


Ok, back to the game. 
Warm up was apparently overrated so we just hit one ball each then we were ready to go. The first set was intense. I had no idea what I was getting myself in to but on the court I was just playing. Everybody was so competitive and fought for every ball and every play. I was setting just where I left off for some weird reason, I was actually kind of okay. Setting slides, 4s, fast balls, BLOCKING (I had 3 solo blocks thank you very much) and dumping. The one thing I could not do for some reason was play defense. No big chocker there, but I thought that I would have gotten a little better from all the beach playing. Apparently not. 
When we won a rally we cheered like we just won the nationals. So much energy! I was exhausted after three rallies. The other team kept on fighting so the games got really tight. We won 2-1 after 1 hour playing without a break. Then it was the next teams turn. So in one hour I had played a volleyball game without warm up or knowing my teammates names. I had so much fun and realized how much I miss playing the game.
I found myself sitting on the subway going back home just thinking "what just happened?". 
And of course I got a really nice burn on my hip. Why haven't I learned that I can't keep my waistband of my spandex on my hips? It was a painful shower by the way.