Reflexes

In 1997 a friend of mine invited me to join a a co-ed volleyball team she was starting. I and most of my teammates had never played organized volleyball before, but we were all young, enthusiastic, athletic, and most importantly, competitive. As I recall, we lost our first match two games to one against marginal players who were collectively older than us. How did they beat us? It came down to reflexes. We were playing reflexively—when the ball came over, we tried to react. The problem with relying entirely on reflex is you tend to get out of position. The other team spaced the floor, watched each others' backs, and snapped back into place when they did get out of position.

That season was pretty rough. We certainly lost more than we won, but we did learn how to play. As a result, our next season was very successful. Part of the reason for it was acclimation to each other, the court, and the rules, but a large part was our ability and willingness to learn. We watched the good teams in our division, and we learned to play like they did. In doing so, we needed to rely less on reflexes, and lean more on each other.