I enjoyed Saturday's contest at Riata--we started around 2:00 and played til 8:00. I think I won 1 game, maybe 2, but it was a fun day. Misty joined us on the court again. The rest of the details escape me at the moment.
Some viewers may be wondering where many people were on Sunday?
Well, I was under a gag order. Which has now been lifted by 5LJs. A Sander private invite only pool has opened up near Austin. Much closer than Dallas. After hearing about Dallas Camelot, and then going there, such a thing is every waterballer's dream. But it's invite only. The usual suspects who were not at Riata were among the invited.
So this is a wonderful thing. And all players can inspire to get the golden ticket to go to the Magic Farm:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29_uSlEEPSkhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfMo8bBubKoI can say that this was also an amazing moment of good fellowship among the water sander hybrids, their water curious friends, and the Waterbaby Vets who attended. I can say that the days of animosity are behind us, and the days of competition and camaraderie are on. It is good that it is so. And this was an epic day in that way.
The games: I'm used to Gods vs. Titans going the Water Gods way in water, with sand getting the worst of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWVaa6FXmbYNot so much this time around through the early battles. Waterbaby Titans got worked.
I've seen this happen before, almost always when we're on a new and different court... more on that later.
Back to The Games!
After the initial slaughter, Captains were chosen. Creepy was one of them. He is a stubborn panda, so he went almost all water: Creepy, Scott, LJ, Jess, T2, and Javi, who is at this point King of the Nerds, if he goes down for nothing else in the Ballhalla of Fame, for his many performances on mismatch teams. Creepy picked LJ as his 3rd pick. That's pretty high in this day and age. More on that later...
Against them: Sand Jesus (our generous host), Baker, Dub, Curious George, Q the setter, and Ross the Boss (new young tall guy who hits like no one's business, if someone will set him).
Height (minus Q, who's stature still didn't average out the discrepancy), skill*(in this court, more on that later), and power advantage were all on the House team.
And yet, somehow, the Little Water Nerd Team That Could, with LJ playing against character with them, not only stayed competitive, but actually often built big leads, and overcame House odds and calls to give as good as they got in the most competitive games of the day.
On some of the rallies, one of the lady spectators said, "That was fun to watch!" so something was being done right on this new court.
I also played* (more on that later) on a tall tree team that lost like 15-2. Inexplicable. That's why we play the games.
Staying with the games, thank you generous host Sand Jesus for opening your venue to initial combat.
I'm going to do something that may come as a shock to some of you, and give player of the day to---5LJs. I expect he had a lot to do with Chiefing this event together, and played both with and against his Sanders with equal ferocity, lippiness, and occasional suck not getting in the way of his goals.
Javi played equally strong for both sides. I like that. My motto is that I'll fight just as hard with you as against you. And of course, my water boys came in to yet another new court and survived and adapted.
That's the good. Now comes the BUT...
Something strange happened on the Obstacle--Ballchair attacked Sand Jesus, the founder of the feast! Like fell on him! I see that as prophetic. Here's why...
While having a pool within striking distance where the best of the best can fight is awesome, and every baller's dream, there is an inevitable question that arises--what kind of court?
Is it rectangular? Yes. Is it an Argosy pool where you can play with 2's, 3's, 4's? No. So more like a Riata pool in terms of dimensions? Yes. How high is the net? Good height.
So far, so good. Then, we come to the problematic questions:
How's the footing? First pool I've played in with vinyl coating. Best wear shoes with traction for traction. And this one is the kicker--how deep is it???
Well, that depends... and therein lies the problem from my perspective. Uneven, and mostly deep to very deep is the answer.
Almost everywhere, minus what we will eventually call the "hitter's mound," I found myself up to my chest or my neck in water! That's quite different!
I've played in 3, 4 and 5 ft of water. 3 is too little, hurts when you jump or dive, 5 is too much. 4 is just right. It's the Goldilocks factor for me, Goldilocks!
So suddenly you find yourself not being able to do things the same way you're used to, meaning you have to change just about everything you're used to being able to do on the fly: strike zone very limited for fielding. You think you can get that? You can't get that. Serves at you are gonna go off your hands and out because you're already on your tippy toes to have an out of water presence. If you try to go up, and then go back up again on a play, that's gonna be an issue, because you're floating more than normal. Moving around in general through deeper water is more difficult. First passes, followed by sets, better be right on point, which sucks for me, because I'm an awkward setter, trained on 1 inch passes (ask Mikey) and other foolishness that works in 4ft of water, but apparently not 5ft for me on this dday.
Or at least that's how it all looked from the waterline. The bigs didn't seem to be bothered much, but from my perspective, it was like looking at giants play. A player who was not me said, "I've never felt this old in a pool before." I will second that.
I appreciate that when faced with challenging court situations, the weird turn pro. Innovative fixes were developed on the fly. Not sure what the solution will be when players figure out how do do a back row give and go to the spiker's mound...
All courts have challenges. But this one is particularly challenging, from my perspective. There are a lotta workarounds, and while I'm willing to try to learn and soldier it out, I doubt I'm going to be entirely happy with the aspect of switching from being able to do more in 4ft of water, to being able to do much less in 5, even if I manage to get the buoy bell off my head as a hazard to navigation.
It was great to be a part of it. This was a moment in Sand Water detente that will go down in history--playing together, on the same farm? Who coulda known:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH5USLpPa_0But just maybe, this is a particular Camelot that is for thee, and not for me.
We've all had "the talk" about "that guy" being on your team,:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMENQeCbxfI&t=80shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ-f4Ij6ycgI've been around the block enough to know this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPHbXdHRHOcIf I'm that guy, I'm out of the lineup. It's that simple. But something else. SANDERS called down water ball at the exclusive resort community on Friday! Such a thing has never happened before! And I heard it was good ball.
Which gets me to back at long last to my biased perspective--with a level of discipline that has eluded this league for at least the decade that it has taken to tame the Riata, we could do this in 4ft of water, as Ballchair intended:
I enjoyed Saturday's contest at Riata--we started around 2:00 and played til 8:00. I think I won 1 game, maybe 2, but it was a fun day. Misty joined us on the court again. The rest of the details escape me at the moment.
Some viewers may be wondering where many people were on Sunday?
Well, I was under a gag order. Which has now been lifted by 5LJs. A Sander private invite only pool has opened up near Austin. Much closer than Dallas. After hearing about Dallas Camelot, and then going there, such a thing is every waterballer's dream. But it's invite only. The usual suspects who were not at Riata were among the invited.
So this is a wonderful thing. And all players can inspire to get the golden ticket to go to the Magic Farm:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfMo8bBubKoI can say that this was also an amazing moment of good fellowship among the water sander hybrids, their water curious friends, and the Waterbaby Vets who attended. I can say that the days of animosity are behind us, and the days of competition and camaraderie are on. It is good that it is so. And this was an epic day in that way.
The games: I'm used to Gods vs. Titans going the Water Gods way in water, with sand getting the worst of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWVaa6FXmbYNot so much this time around through the early battles. Waterbaby Titans got worked.
I've seen this happen before, almost always when we're on a new and different court... more on that later.
Back to The Games!
After the initial slaughter, Captains were chosen. Creepy was one of them. He is a stubborn panda, so he went almost all water: Creepy, Scott, LJ, Jess, T2, and Javi, who is at this point King of the Nerds, if he goes down for nothing else in the Ballhalla of Fame, for his many performances on mismatch teams. Creepy picked LJ as his 3rd pick. That's pretty high in this day and age. More on that later...
Against them: Sand Jesus (our generous host), Baker, Dub, Curious George, Q the setter, and Ross the Boss (new young tall guy who hits like no one's business, if someone will set him).
Height (minus Q, who's stature still didn't average out the discrepancy), skill*(in this court, more on that later), and power advantage were all on the House team.
And yet, somehow, the Little Water Nerd Team That Could, with LJ playing against character with them, not only stayed competitive, but actually often built big leads, and overcame House odds and calls to give as good as they got in the most competitive games of the day.
On some of the rallies, one of the lady spectators said, "That was fun to watch!" so something was being done right on this new court.
I also played* (more on that later) on a tall tree team that lost like 15-2. Inexplicable. That's why we play the games.
Staying with the games, thank you generous host Sand Jesus for opening your venue to initial combat.
I'm going to do something that may come as a shock to some of you, and give player of the day to---5LJs. I expect he had a lot to do with Chiefing this event together, and played both with and against his Sanders with equal ferocity, lippiness, and occasional suck not getting in the way of his goals.
Javi played equally strong for both sides. I like that. My motto is that I'll fight just as hard with you as against you. And of course, my water boys came in to yet another new court and survived and adapted.
That's the good. Now comes the BUT...
Something strange happened on the Obstacle--Ballchair attacked Sand Jesus, the founder of the feast! Like fell on him! I see that as prophetic. Here's why...
While having a pool within striking distance where the best of the best can fight is awesome, and every baller's dream, there is an inevitable question that arises--what kind of court?
Is it rectangular? Yes. Is it an Argosy pool where you can play with 2's, 3's, 4's? No. So more like a Riata pool in terms of dimensions? Yes. How high is the net? Good height.
So far, so good. Then, we come to the problematic questions:
How's the footing? First pool I've played in with vinyl coating. Best wear shoes with traction for traction. And this one is the kicker--how deep is it???
Well, that depends... and therein lies the problem from my perspective. Uneven, and mostly deep to very deep is the answer.
Almost everywhere, minus what we will eventually call the "hitter's mound," I found myself up to my chest or my neck in water! That's quite different!
I've played in 3, 4 and 5 ft of water. 3 is too little, hurts when you jump or dive, 5 is too much. 4 is just right. It's the Goldilocks factor for me, Goldilocks!
So suddenly you find yourself not being able to do things the same way you're used to, meaning you have to change just about everything you're used to being able to do on the fly: strike zone very limited for fielding. You think you can get that? You can't get that. Serves at you are gonna go off your hands and out because you're already on your tippy toes to have an out of water presence. If you try to go up, and then go back up again on a play, that's gonna be an issue, because you're floating more than normal. Moving around in general through deeper water is more difficult. First passes, followed by sets, better be right on point, which sucks for me, because I'm an awkward setter, trained on 1 inch passes (ask Mikey) and other foolishness that works in 4ft of water, but apparently not 5ft for me on this dday.
Or at least that's how it all looked from the waterline. The bigs didn't seem to be bothered much, but from my perspective, it was like looking at giants play. A player who was not me said, "I've never felt this old in a pool before." I will second that.
I appreciate that when faced with challenging court situations, the weird turn pro. Innovative fixes were developed on the fly. Not sure what the solution will be when players figure out how do do a back row give and go to the spiker's mound...
All courts have challenges. But this one is particularly challenging, from my perspective. There are a lotta workarounds, and while I'm willing to try to learn and soldier it out, I doubt I'm going to be entirely happy with the aspect of switching from being able to do more in 4ft of water, to being able to do much less in 5, even if I manage to get the buoy bell off my head as a hazard to navigation.
It was great to be a part of it. This was a moment in Sand Water detente that will go down in history--playing together, on the same farm? Who coulda known:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH5USLpPa_0But just maybe, this is a particular Camelot that is for thee, and not for me.
We've all had "the talk" about "that guy" being on your team,:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMENQeCbxfI&t=80shttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ-f4Ij6ycgI've been around the block enough to know this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPHbXdHRHOcIf I'm that guy, I'm out of the lineup. It's that simple.
But something else. SANDERS called down ball at the exclusive resort community on Friday! Such a thing has never happened before! And I heard it was good ball. And it was good that it was so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdZuVw29PrEGoes to changes in the League, that were always possible at Argosy, but are now possible after the 10 year project of taming the Riata. We can play (early) BBGs more or less at will. The will is the problem.
Given the choice, I'd rather play in 4ft of water than 5. So that I can be a little more relevant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRtemWv_5cc
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