More Volleyball at Kaetsu University -- by Coach Susan

The Louie-Chens were lucky enough to stay another week after the other Top Gun players returned home. As a result of our longer stay, Kira was fortunate enough to be able to practice and scrimmage on Friday, Aug. 15 at Kaetsu University where Coach Yoko coaches. We were also lucky enough to have the company of Moeka, Honoka, and Kumiko again.

There were a total of 4 university teams and a high school team there that day, from different parts of Tokyo and Osaka and even a team from the University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get the names of all the teams because the coaches were busy with their teams. Watching the Japanese teams warm up was an experience itself. Not only did they do the normal stretching, passing, setting, and hitting drills, they also incorporated other drills that forced the players to move and dive all over the court to practice getting the ball to a target or up so that another player can set the ball for an attack. It was impressive to see the hustle and ball control that all the players exhibited.

Another thing I noticed was that the players were in charge of their own warm ups and drills. I was informed that the coaches in Japan are all teachers who would need to attend meetings after school so they are usually not present while the team is warming up. As a result, the players on the team have to learn early on how to run their warm ups by themselves. The Canadian team and most teams in the USA still have their coaches or assistant coaches helping with the warm ups. I was impressed with how organized the players were taking turns and alternating being in charge.

The Canadian players were so much bigger than all the Japanese teams, but they lost every single match. The difference was that the Japanese teams ran a faster offense to be able to get past the tall blockers. Also, they had better serving and ball control than the Canadian team. Don’t get me wrong. The Canadian team was a good team, but they definitely were not a match that day for any of the Japanese teams. I learned from Coach Yoko that beginning from middle school on, teams practice daily from 9-5 and they place a lot of emphasis on serving and ball control. Ball control is one of the skills that our Top Gun team works very hard at as well.

Kira, Moeka, and Honoka had a great workout performing all the drills with the Kaetsu University players. Kira even had the pleasure of serving and playing the last several points of one of the matches between Kaetsu University and another Japanese university team before we had to leave. Everyone was so happy for her when she served an ace! She also passed decently for her team to run an attack and eventually win the match. I think this was one of the highlights of her Tokyo trip.

Kira and I learned some great lessons that last day before we had to leave Japan. We enjoyed educating ourselves with the different drills they used as part of their warm ups and Kira would have loved to play more with them. Their ball control and quick offense were fun to watch. I know I wouldn’t have minded watching their scrimmages for a longer time, but alas, we had to leave. We will definitely be implementing some of these drills into our Top Gun regiment.

Tomo and Nana were the DS for the team who worked with Kira, Moeka, and Honoka.