Interesting volleyball experience

I had one of those eye opening opportunities this evening. On Thursday night, we play pickup volleyball. Usually the two courts self-organize into "better" and "worse", but once both courts fill, you often get a mix. Sometimes this mix (especially "worse" on the "better court") can cause some frustration.

I was playing on the "better" court, and we were having a good game of 5 on 5 - the other court was full with 6 on a team. Then two people walked in, and they couldn't have looked more different. The first was a very American looking guy, probably about 45, 6 foot tall (182 cm), and just didn't look like a volleyball player. With him came a very slight, very Asian looking girl, and 4 foot 10 inches (147 cm) at the tallest. She probably weighted 38 kg at most, and looked somewhere between 16 and 19 - hard to tell. I didn't quite get her name, something like Lana, I think. I later verified that she was his daughter, presumably adopted.

Well, he joined the other team, and Lana joined ours. After a few points, it was clear that this was going to be a problem. He had no volleyball skill, and was sort of randomly moving obstacle just waiting to cause an accident. Lana was different. She was a very directly moving massless particle, fearless, but, well, massless. She would hit the ball, and more likely she would get knocked over herself. She would try landing for the hardest spikes, intercept the ball (which would go careening off into the ceiling) and go rolling over. Her serves were hilarious at first, since she didn't weigh much more than the volleyball. For her first two serves, she tossed the ball, reached up, missed it, and flipped upside down, giggling. And then got up and did it again!

Eventually her Dad dropped out and watched, but she kept playing. And improved. And improved. She quickly learned where to run to intercept the ball. She copied others and learned how to underhand "bump" the ball. After some spectacular and amusing complete misses, she tried to floor spike some balls. We taught her how to set, and she started doing that.

By the end of the night, she was still at the bottom of the hierarchy, but she fit in. Everyone was cheering her on, and her learning curve was very steep. We all invited her back next week, if for no other reason to see what starts happening then. Probably by then she'll be doing floor dives and rolls.

Seriously, though, I really enjoyed watching her learn, watching her figure out the physics so she didn't get knocked over, and her fearlessness. Go girl!