In the last year of my high school volleyball career, my coaches and the athletic director were able to make it possible for the team and me to join the local division volleyball league and compete with even more challenging teams from the local schools. In the past, our school only joined the tournaments that are specifically hosted for all the international schools in Taiwan and East Asia. We didn’t really have the chance to officially compete with the local teams. I am grateful that I am able to experience it before I graduated from high school.

Despite we were not able to advance to the next round, I solidly believe I have learned a lot that cannot be learned otherwise if I didn’t get to play in this kind of tournament. Since I am the “only” person that stood as a libero in our team, this trip has been so significant as I was able to see where I could have done better or where I can still improve based on the outstanding performance from the liberos of the other teams in the tournament. Two specific improvements that I can verbally state are having better pacing and better positioning especially on receiving serves and spikes with no blockers. Other improvements are more leaning toward mentally and having that sort of “feeling” and “sense” that are not really expressible through words. Overall, it was an amazing experience that allows me to better understand the improvements I can make to better prepare for the upcoming TISSA tournament and season.