April's Beach Volleyball Log

Advice to a Friend

Today I thought about something I told a friend this weekend while in Las Vegas where we were attending a Spring Leadership Conference featuring Fortune 500 Leadership and Success Consultant, John C. Maxwell. My new best friend.

We were just two women as usual talking about Relationship problems and I realized based on past experience that I had often spent so much time trying to convince whoever I was with at the time how good I was, how perfect I was for them and their situation and how much I could and should be there for them and help them....but I learned that sometimes they can see those qualities better if I just stepped back and gave them room..no overcrowding or constant convincing...just room.

It frequently turned out that Their vision was clouded by things that happened to them in their past...things that I didn't even know about and definitely couldn't control. Hope that helps.

tags: john c maxwell leadership relationships aprilsbeachvolleyballblog.com las vegas

I've surrounded myself with the best five coaches!

As of today , having officially completed my first session of beach volleyball with Dave Sorrells I now officially have five coaches.

One of the best ways to be successful in life is to surround yourself with people who are much smarter than you are. (If anything, it really makes you - feel good about yourself, and it kind of makes you look smart too!) Think of the benefits.

Here is my world class team.

Performance Coach - Alfonso DeRose - Mental, Psychological, Behavioral Performance training

Yoga Coach - Bryan Kess - Flexibility  and Conditioning training

Weights and Conditioning - Jan Gable - Olympic Weight Lifting and Core Plyometric/Agility training

Business - Christopher "CJ" Jones - Business Success and Winning Principles

Volleyball - Dave Sorrells - Beach Volleyball

P.S. With Alfonso, I set several goals to achieve and the only way I could achieve these goals was to  educate myself and get around intelligent people who could teach me what I needed to know. So far so good.

I havent learned so much in such a short amount of time since college...this is awesome. 

tags:nfitness health flexibility goal setting mind games psychological mental training beach volleyball business principles core training plyometrics olympic weightlifting conditioning female athletes sports beijing summer olympics torino winter olympics yoga life coach aprils beach volleyball blog coaching volleyball coaches weightlifting coaches

Researching the Beach Volleyball Game

Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday, I had morning beach practice for two and a half hours, then yoga class (which is great)  and then I went to the Amateur Athletic Foundation Sports Library to do research...on the beach volleyball game.

I decided to learn as much about it as I could by gathering past article on instruction. Never too late to learn and since its wintertime and I have the time I might as well start from the beginning and learn about the concepts of the game I don't know enough about.

Mostly training tips ...which were written by Karch Kiraly or his coach Mark Barber and several others by the best female players to play the game Carolyn Kirby,Kathy Gregory, Liz Masakayan.

One of Karch's articles talked about learning how to play by watching the best do what they do. Alfonso, my performance coach, told me how successful people model themselves after someone. You pick the good qualities of someone you admire and you model yourself after what they do. Apparently Oprah modelled herself after Steven Spielberg.

The game hasn't changed much so the advice, tips and recommendations I feel are still valid. Especially suggestions on ...drills. Even though indoor and beach volleyball are team sports...how well you perform your individual fundamentals..often determines how often you win.

So practicing individual drills as much as you can are always the best thing to do!

Taking a risk...

I took the advice of my performance coach (formerly called life coach but that's misleading) and decided to take a risk... to change some things..a big change in some cases in order to reach the goals I set for myself . That's so I can train on the beach during the winter time. Scary...can I survive?

Last week Alfonso had me start to assess - my weaknesses to see/list the things I had to work on for the next nine months before the next beach season starts. Sometimes it can be very well let's ssay "interesting" for lack of a better word to hold a mirror up to yourself and actually take a look at what things need to be fixed.

You have to look at the Spiritual, Emotional, Physical and Mental parts and see what it is that that's less than 100% and determine what it is you have to do -to get everything up to 100% or over. That whole process sometimes can be painful but it doesn't have to be.

One of the things I want/need to improve is my flexibility. I use to dance - ballet, tap, modern dance, hula. I did it for 17 years all through elementary and high school until I had to decide what I wanted to pursue in college. Dancing is great for flexibility which I havent practiced or anything for the last lotta years.

So today I took my first yoga class. It was fantastic. What was pretty cool was learning that alot of the volleyball "stretches" that we do are a basic part of yoga.

I wasn't that bad! The balancing on one leg movements and down dog stuff and floor work wasnt that bad but anything that had to do with sitting on my knees was. THAT's what I will be working on. Sitting cross legged again, sitting on my calves and improving my knee flexibility will be one of my top priorities for the next nine months.

Flexibility today. Speed and Plyometrics tomorrow.

tags:

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Motivating My Team because...

Motivation, Drive, Passion

What single On Court incident or experience happened to YOUR TEAM that inspires and motivates You to want to help your team to finish HIGHER then LAST YEAR?

College, Varsity, JV or Club and/or Pro Players...

How do you intend to contribute to your team's success?

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Your Worst Nightmare

What's your WORST "on THE court-during the game" experience?

What happened and what did you learn from it?

tags:

girls volleyball womens volleyball womens beach volleyball usa volleyball volleyball olympic volleyball volleyball voices girls health girls fitness girls sports womens health womens fitness college volleyball indoor volleyball grass volleyball disabled volleyball volleyball worldwide international volleyball womens sports sports nutrition food womens college sports diet obesity club volleyball junior volleyball usa volleyball olympic volleyball aprils beach volleyball blog girls volleyball