California Beach Volleyball

A friend had asked me along to a beach party — her friend was having a birthday — so she came by my place at about 1pm and we did the drive down to Capitola. At any rate, we all played volleyball on the beach, and they were fanatical. In the interests of education and preventing other people from looking as foolish as I did, here are the guidelines to California Beach Volleyball, as near as I can figure them out:

• Low-fives: after a good play, you congratulate the other players on your team by hitting your hands together. Your hands should be about waist-level; “high fives” mark you as a clueless neophyte. The idea is to do it as if you are completely exhausted from your hard playing, but feel the need to exert yourself to keep up team morale, so you want to do it offhandedly and with minimal vigor.
• Never say, “Mine, mine!” or “I’ve got it!” These mark you as an amateur. Instead, say only “I got” or “I go.”
• If you blow a play, never say “I’m sorry” or anything like that. These mark you as an ineffectual dweeb. Instead, simply say, “My bad.” Note that this excuses almost anything. If you knock the ball particularly badly and it hits an elderly lady watching, causing her dentures to dislodge so that she chokes to death, horribly and painfully, while her three beloved grandchildren stare in horror, all you have to do is say, “My bad,” and the grandmother’s relatives will all smile and nod knowingly and not be angry.
• Never hit the ball directly. Instead, volleyball with fanatics plays like this: first person hits it to the center front line. Center front line pops it up in the air to left or right front line. Left or right front line drives it down for the point. This means:
  • The second hit always belongs to the center front line, unless he or she yells “Help!”
  • When your team is serving, the center front line needs to be facing away from the other team, towards his own players. This makes you feel like some huge mark just waiting to get hit by the ball, but really, it works better.
• Finally, you can get by for a long time not knowing anything about beach volleyball. Every time you play badly or miss the ball or let it hit you on the head, just shake your head and mutter something about not being used to playing on sand. This can get you through one or two games, easy, before they start to realize that you’re probably not used to playing on grass, either.

Discussion

Comments are moderated whenever I remember that I have a blog.

There are no comments on this article.