I Kinohu, after nā ali'i had reinvented volleyball, Church College & the L.A. Jewish Community Center usually volleyed for the championship. As soon as San Jose State College began to appreciate the medley, colleges slowly realized that the net helped to keep opponents from making this a contact sport. To some leading minds, volleyball had built-in art, poetry & a swinging rhythm. But its money-value required ever taller & more aggressive hit & run rhapsodies, broken digits & toes & floor gymnastics, too. One could start seeing jumping figures roll over the playing floors after the desirable ball had already erred far off the court bounderies.
Yet, an old-fashioned, conservative coach remained loyal to his little wāhine, always at least 2 on his squad of 6. By calling them serve specialists or good ball receivers, he kept potential critics in line even if one of these grateful stars smashed all records in serving errors (faults) or wouldn't move fast enough to meet a powerhit before it hit the court. One of these eager little women never foresaw the spot where the playtoy would hit the ground. She usually falls where she stands still in expectation & then floors herself, so she can touch the bomb with her fingernails; not once or twice but dozens of times during a match.
Photogenic Fotu is nice, willing & eagerly replaces the stronger, hitlustrous & half-trained too-late replacements who are expected to shoot cold turkey without the longer warm-up of the little nuisances. If Eckmier & Sanders were in it as starters, they might startle coaches, cockroaches & noisy spectators. A team of those 2 late substitutes with Hittle, Arnott, Princess Victoria, Boogaard et al. could do wonderworks if they were coached to be perfect servers, keener observers of the flight line of the round shuttlecock & less wild in hitting the soft globe. Concentration, only concentration, is the only permissible drug for sportive activists. That, too, can be taught & learned.
This old man forgot which coach was the first to allow the psychologically too effective glad handing, high fives & self-praizing of the successful player & then all caring teammates. That is stupid, self-defeating & loss of focus, outscoring & inside dropping in false excitement. Worse yet psychologically is doing the same extroverting distracting idiocy after each stupid blunder. Only fools would break out of their perpetual observing & readiness. Their eyes cannot remain on the ball. Any experienced coach knows & should act accordingly.
Ka Mana'o started the season as the supercargo & gave height to her performance. Like her, the littler ones could also learn outsized jumps if not over-praized for great efforts & not blamed by an angry man mid-game. Be calm & do all instructing during healing rest minutes if you neglected giving good advice during practice runs.
However, nobody seems to criticize the great vulnerability of our team enhanced by Mr. Shoji's "short sets". Most of them turn out to be low, too low, sets. For each one hitting paydirt, there are from 3 to 10 near misses, or they are immediately blocked & K.O.ed by some tall-enough opponent who has her eyeballs on the low ball. Only if the desperate next actress scoops it still over the net, (our voluminous commentator calls it tape even if he means the entire net)it might be called a foul. If the set is high & not too close to the net, the hitter can more easily get the ball past the opposing giants without punching the shuttlecock far afield. No homerun needed in volleyball.
Better sets unclose to the net could reduce the many net violations for which the Rainbows are famous or notorious. Or did Mr. Shoji take his players too often to Nevada to instruct them in gambling with every 2nd or 3rd ball?
Some orthodox players long insisted that the fast dumpshot was the cleavage of their 3-ball handlers-at-a-time Law. Since these days "winning is everything" has become the supreme rule, all good & even bad volley ballers keep trying it even if a huge scarecrow stands right behind the net. But some players are too slow to re-react when that dump is dumped back. Attention to that possibility could save some games.
May I point out the consequence of this insight? At times you should forget the distinction between setter & hitter. If the setter gets a beautiful set, he or she should seize upon this opportunity to hit it home before all opponents are ready for the designated hitter, the ordained number 3 person. Tell yourself in a hurry this is my chance to be sure of being a great hit as an unexpected hitter. Could it not also be, as too often observed, that the final set may turn out to be too low, too awkward or misdirected to be the finality?
Finally, observe the frequent collision of eager 2, 3 or even 4 ball players when they run into eachother or otherwise obstruct the possibility of holding the fort. Whoever thinks she or he can save the ball for the team, shouts "mine" & hurries with all might & main to get under it before it is lost in space. That kind of sole ownership can also be taught and learned.
Free Advertizing Annex
Broker Manuel Roberto, Kona manager of Edward Jones, is offering a counselling session to encourage your investment with him & the Joneses. He is a clever usurer, or crook, who con-sold at $10,000 a good Port Tacoma tax-free bond which, I was told too late, could have been mine at over $550 less the day of transfer. Two more reputable stock brokers swore that they would have let me garner that profit minus $5 brokerage fee. But he follows a manual for making the most aged & sickest broke, so he can prove he is a Robber, too, but instead of #2 he maybe the #1 Robber hood.
Just watch that thief gather his millions as soon as our chief corporation President privatizes part of everyone's SS payments. Innocent & hard-laboring victims who have no master's degree in business administration will lose their nest egg. Thousands of Robertos will take them for most of their private investment & the S.E.C. approves of every such theft like in my case.
Week 62- November 24, 2004 - The Condimens Of Corporate
Treason