The Top Gun girls had a slow start in their first match of the day against the middle school teams. Their jet lag kicked in and waking up early didn't help. The following 5 games went very well, winning easily with the help of their new friend and teammate, Moeka, a player from Coach Yoko Zetterlund's youth clinic. The sports environment in Japan can be intense. The kids participate in various sports in elementary school, but start club sports as early as 1st grade. By the time they reach middle school, they will specialize in a chosen sport. As a result, some of these players have a lot of talent from middle school on with skills accumulated from all these years of being coached. We are quite impressed with the serving and passing from all the Japanese teams because of their strong emphasis on perfecting these skills. This philosophy is very much in line with our Top Gun philosophy.
The same scenario happened when we played against the high school team, losing our 1st game of the day. We need to overcome our 1st game syndrome! We played from 9 AM-5 PM, which is their normal, daily practice schedule during school breaks & weekends. We played hard & came close to beating them, but it was not to be. Of course, we also have to take into account that the high school players were all 2-3 years older than our Top Gun girls, except for 1 player who was the same age. Playing against high school teams was a very good learning experience. All their years of training showed in how impressive their serving & passing skills were. They were just great all-around players, something we strive to get our Top Gun players to be.
Participating in Coach Yoko's youth clinic was an eye-opening experience. A television program was there filming a segment profiling Coach Yoko so we had our 15 minutes of fame on Japanese television! Elementary school teams play on a smaller court & lower net, plus they use a smaller size ball. Our Top Gun players played well, but had a difficult time adjusting to the overall small sizes, losing to them in a close set. It was so fun to watch the excitement that emanated from the youth team. Their euphoria was contagious. We intermingled teams and they all had a BLAST playing with each other. We are SO impressed with how well they've been coached by Coach Yoko.
In general, Japanese people are very respectful. Before the matches, each team comes over to welcome and pay their respect to all members of each opposing team. On the court, they show great reverence not only to their coaches, but they also pay their respects and thank the opposing coaches after each match. They are respectful to their teammates and make a concerted effort to either congratulate or encourage them after every single play by circling around and high-fiving each other. It is heartwarming as a coach to see this display of attentiveness and respect.
We are very thankful to Coach Joe & Coach Yoko for arranging this trip. We met some wonderful people & made some great friends. We look forward to watching Japan's Inter-High School Championships with Coach Yoko in a couple of days!
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