The View from the Sidelines

Well this past weekend turned out to be a very nostalgic one for me.

I decided to go home for the weekend and visit my sister for her 17th birthday. She's on the varsity volleyball team at my old high school (the same team I was on for three years), and they had a tournament on the Oregon coast this weekend, so my mom came to pick me up and we drove there together.

The team was staying at a beach house owned by the family of one of the girls on the team. While the team was out at the pool together, we snuck into the house. I hid in the kitchen, and when the girls came back I jumped out and surprised my sister. After her original shock she started crying, along with some of the other girls on the team!

So that was pretty cool, but what really got me reminiscing was actually watching the team play at the tournament the next day. The girls played exceptionally well, taking second place out of the 16 teams there. I was really proud of them, but every time the girls were in a tight spot or won a close victory, I kept wishing that I could be out there with them.

Things look a lot different from the side lines. And I don't mean just when you're on the bench for a few rotations. Watching as a fan proved to be a lot different than watching as a teammate. I noticed a lot of things that I never noticed while being on the court, or simply on the team for that matter.

For example, the setter for the opposing team in the last match of the day set all of her balls extremely low. Therefore, the hitters were forced to tip more often than not. Forced or unforced, my girls failed to pick up a good portion of these short attacks. From my conveniently located spot on the sidelines, I could easily tell that the defense needed to move up in order to get more of these easy tips up. From the perspective of the girls, however, this was not such an easy realization.

I feel like this is an issue not just in volleyball, but in people's daily lives as well. It's hard to see things from a different perspective, when you're stuck in your own position. For me, it took actually leaving the team and watching from the bleachers to notice the mistakes I had been making for years as a player; details I had never noticed that could've made a huge difference in my effectiveness on the court.

Sometimes it can be really hard to look at things from someone else's point of view, but I've learned that a good alternative to this is simply stepping back and looking at the big picture. I was able to do that this weekend too. I was used to seeing only a limited view of the game from my position on the court, but being in the audience gave me a clear view of everything happening on both sides of the net.

Being a back row defensive player, I used to blame the front row blockers a lot for balls that went down in spots that I believed were impossible for me to get to. Watching from my front row seat this weekend, I realized how hard it is for the blockers to predict where the set is going, and to get in their spot and coordinate their block.

This, I guess you could say, is part of the Spike Approach; it is one of the many lessons I have learned from the sport of volleyball. Even though our perspective may be the easiest to see, it isn't always right, and it certainly isn't ever the only way to look at things. Sometimes taking a step back from a situation can make the biggest difference. Just like in a game, taking a time out every once in a while can be a good thing. Take a second look, from a different angle this time, and the whole picture can change.