It's November and I cannot believe I have been here for almost three months already. Even though some days are very long with little to do, the weeks have flown by. I'm happy to report that so far my team is 3-0 for the season. I have to say it helps so much to now finally be doing what I moved over here to do. I have been itching to play in a match, especially while following the dawgs in their spectacular season so far. I'm so proud of my girls and look forward to seeing their run in the tournament this December. 
Had a whopping 5 trick or treaters
With the start of match play here, it is hard not to reflect on how different preparation for matches are here versus at UW. As my coach Alex keeps repeating, I live in the real world now and I have to say it is very different than college. For one, I have not laid eyes on a scouting report since my last college match or an ounce of film. Our debut match I admit I still felt the pre-match jitters I would get before facing foes like USC or Stanford. It was almost worse because I literally had no idea what to expect. Due to the nature of my team being composed of many different people with jobs and school schedules to attend to I had yet to play in depth with the same group of women consistently in a 6 on 6 format. I only had word of mouth from Alex of what to expect from the other team. It took me almost all of college to really understand our scouting methods and how to use that information in matches and now without it I feel like I'm relearning how to play just by my wits and instincts in the middle of battle all over again. What I realize through the first weeks of play is that I am using every bit of information I learned from Jim, Tui, Keno, Keegan, Murph, teammates, everyone and anyone who coached me before college and more. My coach here of course leads the way, but now it's my job to be able to fix much of my own mistakes and be a leader on the court playing all the way around. As it is well known, I had a much different role at UW and it is a weird but satisfying emotion to be back in the same position I was in high school.
This experience is somewhat jarring because between now and high school, I am a completely different person. I honestly don't know how I got through my early years of playing without everything I learned at UW, and I mean much more than just mechanics. One of the reasons it was difficult for me to succeed as an outside in the past were my lack of passing skills, and now it's imperative I continue to improve in that area in order to keep a job as a professional volleyball player. Only now I don't have multiple coaches at my disposal to help me see what I need to work on, to help me not get to frustrated and hold me accountable to higher standards. I am now doing all the work that once belonged to many other people without all the tools I once had available to me. Film, gym time whenever I please and so on. UW volleyball was the hardest thing I ever went through but there were some incredible advantages to being there.
My emotional state while training and competing now versus high school can only be compared to once stumbling through fog and now seeing everything on a clear day. In my younger years, if things did not come naturally or easily to me they were of no use to me. If I was told to change something, I would fight tooth and nail to avoid anything uncomfortable that would have me admit I wasn't already good enough to get by. Really makes me cringe to think how immature and selfish I acted for many years when I thought I was doing so much right. (To my former coaches and teammates, sorry for being such a butthead.) Jim told me many times I needed to learn how to learn. Not that I wasn't trying to heed his advice, I just truly didn't understand how to do it. Due to my own nature of hating failure, it took me far too long to embrace change and make myself a better player until it was too late. I missed my chance and only really learned how to train like I wanted to the spring before my senior year. It wasn't enough to give me what I wanted and I continued to ride the bench with a few moments during my last college season to show what I could have accomplished had I learned my lesson much earlier in my career. As a team we did so much that I am proud of, but I never got what I wanted as an individual and I only have myself to blame.
One of my most important skills I left college with was not to become so wrapped up in my own mistakes and failure and learn how to use it as information to improve myself. Lately I have been struggling a lot with serve receive, in particular having to pass balls on the right side. After some embarrassing strings of points against a strong serving team, the next practice we trained heavily to alleviate the situation. I was struggling one particular practice and all of sudden remembered a bit of information that Jim would tell us about a former player (can you guess who?) who would start serve receive with her hands together before the serve so her wrist and hands were together early. I remember this helped me in the past and soon after I saw immediate results that boosted my confidence and made me realize just how easy it is to perform when you aren't spiraling in despair. Five years ago, in the same position I would have ended the practice in tears because I wouldn't have been able to persevere and know how to resolve my dilemma.
A similar situation came during our first match. It happened to go to five and the first set went to 32-30 with us being able to take the first game. There were many moments during the match where the momentum continued to go back and forth for each team. Other challenges included not having line judges and many questionable calls and missed calls from the refs. With so many things not within my control, it was quite the challenge for me to ride it all the way to the end. What I surprised myself with so much was how easy it was for me to stay calm in really stressing moments. I may attribute some of that due to my newness to the area and league. Not much is at stake while playing a team from Geneva for me versus a rivalry match against Oregon. But I also found myself realizing that it was so much easier to control my impulses to shout or sulk when things wouldn't go my way. I happened to miss 4 of my first 5 serves but unlike my 16 year old self I didn't completely tank the rest of the match. After everything I went through at UW, nothing can compare to moments that led to my time here now. I still am not perfect and have moments when I might not look everyone in the eye or grow silent, but I am much quicker to shake myself and carry on then before. I think after grueling practices, painful film sessions, and matches such as the one against Oregon at home in 2012 or the USC match (still makes my heart race thinking about it) that sent us to the Final Four, I can take on just about anything with much more composure then I ever dreamed possible. In the end, we beat a good team and I was extremely pleased I was able to not only be effective in scoring points, but stay composed when things got hairy.
I have rarely doubted my ability to play when it comes to hitting and what not, but it has been a lifelong battle to know how to control my emotions. As a child, I was incredibly sensitive and an easy target for anyone to make me cry. When I found sports, my strong emotions provided an intensity that were conducive to being aggressive and highly successful in almost anything I set my mind to. Unfortunately with my high highs, came very strong lows and that has been a detriment to many aspects of my life that also go outside of competition. My dad always did his best to make me aware of these feelings because as we both know I am daddy's little girl and with his work ethic and passion he also passed along a hot temper a strong aversion to keeping emotions in check. Many coaches did their best to make me see my destructive behavior but it took some incredibly tough love and many tears in college to understand what they all were trying to help manage.
Now I apologize to my non volleyball readers because if you are still reading I applaud your willingness to get through all the jargon that comes with my 15 years of playing this sport. What I guess I am trying to illustrate is how struck I am by the changes I have made since the day I decided I wanted to be Division 1 athlete. If you knew how many times I have cried, been furious, been ashamed, confused, and loathing of my inability to control intense emotions you would see I can't express enough how much a volleyball match here has made me realize how far I have come. I have so many people to thank for my progress, but I know the real work came from the many moments in college when I knew it would be easy to quit in order to feel some immediate peace. Due to my own stubbornness I was able to push through everything. In the end it took me making the conscious decision to think better and put my own insecurities and weaknesses aside for the greater good of the team. I may not have all the awards and accolades I dreamed of but those things don't matter when I look at the bigger picture of how far I have come along in my own personal battle. There still is much work to be done but it does feel good my years of frustration and heartbreak haven't been for nothing.
Up on the docket this weekend is a double header which will help determine our path in the Swiss Cup. Thankfully match play is helping to distract me from the fact I will not be spending the holidays for the first time in my life with my family. Halloween was the wake up call that it will be very difficult for me to see pictures of friends and family celebrating the holiday season all together.
Had a whopping 5 trick or treaters Apparently the last American prepared a Thanksgiving feast last year and the girls here did not object to the holiday so I may be playing Betty Crocker soon. Should be interesting but an adventure none the least. What I am incredibly excited for is in a month, my favorite ginger will be on his way to spend three months in Europe with me which only makes it harder to make the days go by faster without missing the chance to live in the moment.
I miss you all but in no time I will be heading back wondering where the time has gone. Till next time...
An old American who has learned new tricks
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