May 28, 2014- Atomic Volleyball

On Wednesday May 28, the gym block played Atomic Volleyball. When Mr. Pederson first told us that we were going to play Atomic Volleyball, the name was familiar to me because I remember a couple of people who have gym on the other day talking to me about it, and I also read a couple of blog posts on Atomic Volleyball from some of the students blogs from the other gym class. I had five people in my group and when we first started playing the game, Mr. Vaughan guided my team for the first couple of minutes until we got the hang of it. It was so nice to see shy students be so involved in the activity. Atomic Volleyball allowed me to forget about having skills and to primarily focus on having fun and getting a good workout. In my opinion, Atomic Volleyball is way better to play than regular volleyball because it allowed everyone to worry less on the skills. Thus, this allowed people to not panic when the ball came in their direction because all you had to do was catch it. I liked the idea of switching/rotating every time someone from your team threw the ball to the other side. Just by switching, it increased my heart rate and made my breathing faster. While switching, it was fun when I would sometimes bump into the other person switching with me. The easiest way to get someone out from the other team was because they forgot to rotate. Switching was such an important aspect of the game because it forced you to be alert, aware and to pay attention at all times. In the very beginning of the game my team members and I sometimes forgot to switch, however as the game progressed I immediately switched right after one of my team members threw the ball over. When one of my team members were out, they would yell out "switch" every time the ball was thrown over the net. I found this helpful and by doing this, we were able to work together as a team. As I looked across the gym, almost everyone had a smile on their face which was so nice to see. I actually thought this gym class had the most positive attitude compared to other gym classes. I was able to be the last person left on my team a few times. It was a little more challenging when you were the only person on your team when most of the team members from the other team were still there. One time, when I was the only person left on my team, the entire other team was still in, and so their strategy was to throw the ball in different directions so it would be more difficult for me to catch the ball. They made me run more, but I didn't mind it because it gave myself a challenge and made the game more interesting for me. In the beginning of the block when Mr. Pederson first told us we were going to play Atomic Volleyball, I was actually a bit nervous because at first I thought it was going to involve more skill and it was going to be a harder version of the regular volleyball. However, when we started playing I had a lot of fun and I didn't want the gym block to end. It felt like this gym block went by really fast! Before the year ends I hope we can play Atomic Volleyball one more time because it was a game that the majority of people liked. At the end of the block, the smiles on my team members faces instantly told me how they felt about this game. To conclude, this game generated a lot of enthusiasm and positivity which allowed everyone to get a good exercise in a very fun way!