Personal Narrative: Breaking The Norm

Iclesias Phanord Breaking the Norm I’m surrounded by bouncing basketball and expectations. I had not yet found my vocation. However, many people around me had; whether it was basketball, cheerleading, or track - they had found a purpose that drove them. I did not have anything that I was truly passionate about but when I began playing volleyball, I discovered it and I fell in love with the intensity that came when I touched a volleyball. The first year of volleyball was rough, I enjoyed the adrenaline that flooded my body when the seconds turned into minutes which slowly turned into …show more content…
The second year of high school is when the difficult days paid off. I did become better but... still not good enough. Consequently, I continued to practice whenever I could find the time. Eventually I made the decision to attend a camp to hone my skills and educate myself about the sport that I loved so much. Training with professionals and more experienced players helped me tremendously. During those weeks, I worked harder than I ever had on a hobby before and I enjoyed every second of it, Eventually some of the movements became cemented like muscle memory. The skills that I acquired from camp like the ability to find weaknesses and exploit them in intense athletic situations and the ability to think quickly in distress. These things were not easy to develop and I’m far from perfecting them, but thanks to the camp, I’m prepared to build off the template. There were many amazing people that I had the pleasure of being surrounded by, from national players to college professionals and coaches that have had experience in volleyball for years. Watching them play was extraordinary. The pressure that they gave during a game was incredibly intimidating. Once they were like me - someone who was a novice who was