Volleyball

I have been trying to go to volleyball practice at least once a week, mostly just to try and connect with students outside of class. At one school, practice is totally laid back and I have the chance to talk with students a bit. At my larger, primary school, practice is what I imagine boot-camp to be like. It's really intense- I am often afraid to talk with students because I'm afraid they'll get in trouble for not paying attention. The old head coach (who recently moved schools) seriously scared me. He would give the girls this horrendous evil-eye if they made one mistake during practice. The other coach is pretty intense, but not as scary as the head coach. I have befriended her outside of volleyball club, and she is really nice, and doesn't intimidate me during practice (but if I were a student I would be super-intimidated!) The new teacher (the cute one :)) was assigned to replace the scary head volleyball coach. He told me that he didn't really want to be the volleyball coach, but that he had to fill this spot. He played baseball in college, and is interested in being a baseball coach. I talked to him about his first few days of practice, but when I asked him today told me he didn't go to practice yesterday. I was confused until he found in the dictionary the phrase, "I was fired." Apparently, he wasn't intense enough! I think he probably chatted with the girls and just kind of let them play around, and the other coach got mad and said he shouldn't be a volleyball coach! But I'm happy for him because he got moved to the baseball team. Anyways, today at practice I saw the evilest side of the volleyball coach. During a drill, she said the girls weren't yelling loud enough (counting off number of steps taken). She would make some girls do the same drill 10 times, even though they were yelling at the top of their lungs. She must have been in a bad mood because her behavior seemed a bit out of line to me. Anyways, I was last in line, and needless to say, when it was my turn I was pretty nervous that I would make a mistake. Thankfully I was able to do the drill without too many mistakes. But then I felt terrible because the coach lectured the girls even more that I could do the drill and I don't even speak Japanese (during the drill, each player yells out in Japanese). But, a highlight of practice was that I actually got to scrimmage with the girls, which is only the second time I've been able to since I started coming to practice.

Today was the first day the first-year students joined sports practice. They were so cute! It was a little sad watching them start learning the drills because they are going to be doing them every single day for the next three years. Watching the beginning of the loss of childhood is kind of depressing.