all about bocce

Labas visiems,

It‘s early in the morning and I feel how my brain is still taking some more time to work than usual. The rainy weather also doesn‘t really help to make me feel more awake. But well, nevertheless it‘s finally time to tell you a bit about my afternoon initiative, as I had already promised you ages ago. So, let‘s get this started.

I had decided to organize frequent Bocce trainings in the afternoon after being to the Lithuanian championship in autumn in Vilnius. Remember, our team had won there. I told you that I had been working as a Bocce referee from time to time before at home in Austria, which was why I got so excited about getting in touch with it here too. Seeing that competition in Vilnius really got me motivated to work with this sport again and I could not wait to get started. Since December, I am now organizing two trainings per week, on Wednesdays and Thursdays.  In the first group, there are all children and youths from developmental classes, since the competitions around can only be attended by these kids. The second date I left open for whoever wants to come and it happened that it’s now only attended by youths from the special classes. The days are of course quite different from each other, and both of them have their difficulties and challenges to learn from.

team and trainer at the competition :)

I realized quickly that there is quite some difference between being a referee and being a trainer and that this new role was more difficult to fulfil than I had thought in the beginning. I got quite nervous because of the language too, since despite all preparation by learning certain sentences and expressions there kept appearing things that I just could not explain when I wanted it so badly. It was quite exhausting for me to just speak Lithuanian for a whole lesson, and It cost me a lot of concentration to try to do so. You see, the start was quite a challenge. But if there is one thing that I learned from my EVS time so far then it is that it’s the challenges from which you learn the most. By the time I got more relaxed and accepted the circumstances I have to work in, with all their ups and downs. And it made me feel a lot better. Now I can really focus on the fun parts of the trainings and there is actually quite a lot of them. I like watching the excitement of some of the players about each well-thrown ball and cheering with them when they won a round. Of course, losing on the other hand isn’t always easy for them but I even see there a bit of progress in them. I mean, you can’t always win, that’s normal, and I feel like they also start to accept that. The best feeling as a trainer of course is to watch how some of the players get better by the time and to get simply amazed by some really smart moves they can make. It’s great to see the joy they can have whilst playing and in the end it was this joy that I had seen first at this competition in Vilnius that got me into the idea of doing the trainings and it is this joy that keeps me motivated.

Last week we also got the chance to test the results of our trainings in a competition. The road led again to Vilnius where the Vilnius Open Tournament took place, in which we could take part because our school is friends with the organizing school. It was less teams taking part in the competition than that first time in autumn but nevertheless going there caused a lot of excitement amongst my players. I had decided to give some players the chance of making the experience of the competition who had not been at one before. It was already quite a big deal to make this long journey to Vilnius and I guess the atmosphere in the sports hall with all the other competing teams was also quite impressive. Our team played once against each single other team and I found that watching these matches was a completely different feeling for me than at that first time in autumn. Of course I had also been fevering with the team back then, but this time I felt clearly more under suspense. In the end it was now my team that was playing. So I was clearly more affected by my players’ emotions, I shared their excitement about each win and suffered with them through each loss. In the end we did not win the competition but that was no matter of importance. It was about sharing this experience together, for my players being at such a tournament for the first time and for me the feeling of taking part in it as a trainer. It was a good day and I enjoyed it a lot. As well as I will keep enjoying our weekly trainings.

Iki pasimatymo,

Monika