All Request Saturday # 2

Well it seems I'm a little bit more popular this week. Either that means more people are following along, or more people are giving in to me begging them to "please, read my blog!" Either way, muito obrigado (thanks a lot in portuguese). So I'll start things off in response to a comment from my little bro.

It could use a bit more comedic flavour. -Dustin Saxton

Well Dustin, to put it as maturely as I possibly can:
-I'll be funny when I wanna be funny, so there.
or maybe
-Your face is pretty funny looking, so I posted that.
Either response should adhere to Dustin's comment to his satisfaction. I hope nobody is turned off by the little bits of family teasing I post up here, and Dust, I hope you feel the brotherly love bud.

Now lets get to a few serious questions. Here's the first one I received:

How does knowing that you're representing Canada (i.e., both as an official Canadian player and as a reflection of what Canada and Canadians are to the spectators and officials at the event) when you play internationally affect how you prepare during your pre-match training and how you play your matches while on court? -Jay Nuttall

During the majority of beach volleyball tournaments, there are so many games over the course of a few days that it's hard to even think that I'm representing Canada. Every game against every opponent needs the same amount of focus as the last, or the next. The amount of preparation and motivation should be the same for every event. When we play, it's almost better not to act like what people would expect of Canadians. It doesn't always help to be the "polite pushover" that a Canadian is supposed to be. Sometimes we need to play with the "win at all costs" American attitude, or the all out "heart on the sleeve" emotional Brazilian style.
In short, I love being Canadian, and I'm proud to be able to represent Canada at every opportunity, but I don't really think it affects how I play or train for a match. It just gives me a little more to brag about afterwards.

The next question is a typical mom thing to ask:

What are you eating down there? Are you choosing from lots of options or take whatever looks good? Cheap to buy food? Mylene Saxton

Doing good, Mom.

I'd probably get an earful if that's all I answered with. While on the road, it's not always easy to get to a grocery store and pick up all the healthiest options. Fortunately for Jessi and I, we live very close to a restaurant that serves all you can eat lunch buffets with a really good variety. For breakfasts we've been having granola mixed with frozen blended acai berry, a very healthy fruit which I find pretty tasty, though it would be nice to have a little variety now and again. Dinner often consists of finding a restaurant thats affordable and has a decent menu. Along the beach in Joao Pessoa, finding healthy inexpensive food isn't overly difficult, just go to the nearest coconut stand. But once we get to the European countries, it can put a real dent in the wallet.

And now onto the last question:

Of all the places you have visited/trained in/competed at thus far, which has been your favourite and why? -Kristy Giacobbo

I know it may not seem very far and exotic. But my favorite places are the beaches of Southern California. First of all, it has nice weather all year round, who wouldn't like that? Next, it embodies the beach volleyball lifestyle, so much so, that every time I'm there, I never want to leave. Finally, the people speak English. No offense is intended to any other language, but I just feel a lot more at home when I understand what the people around me are saying. Though I must say, after going to the Cayman Islands a coupe weeks ago, Cali is still my favorite, but not by as much.

Last week I was worried I needed to stretch out my answer, this week I might have written too much. I might have to put a limit on how many questions I can answer per week. Please, keep sending them in though, I'll respond on a first come first served basis. If you don't see an answer right away, expect it the next Saturday. I will try to get to everybody in time (as long as it's PG rated of course).

Cheers
Ben Jammin

Hot Topic

It is HOT here. All I can say is I'm glad we came a week and a half early. The heat is so draining, it's tough to get through even one training session at a time. So far we've been getting to the courts at 7 AM to beat the heat, which is draining on its own. By the time we get back home, all we want to do is sleep. Even blog writing seems tedious, but I'll power through it, don't you worry.

The heat is to be expected. I do, after all, play beach volleyball, the hottest sport on earth (Until someone invents volcano ball or something to that effect). It's just a little difficult to adapt when coming from when we're overjoyed about it hitting 20 degrees so that we can finally play outside. But adapt we shall. We've been training the last few days with Pedro and Ricardo, a few younger Brazilian players, and Renato "Geor" Gomes and Jorge "Gia" Terceiro who finished 4th at the last Summer Olympics in Beijing. They're actually Brazilians who play for the country of Georgia in order to give themselves a better shot at qualifying for international tournaments due to the very strong showing by all Brazilian teams. The two other Brazilian teams at the Olympics finished 2nd and 3rd. With such a strong training group helping us along, Jessi and I should be ready to do some damage come the qualifier on Wednesday.

Now lets talk about Brazil itself. Joao Pessoa anyhow. As long as there's shade, its a very neat place to be. Such an interesting culture here. Anywhere you look along the beach, you can find people playing either beach football (soccer), or beach volleyball. Almost everyone there has a beach jersey, and when practicing, there is always at least one person shagging to keep the practice running smoothly. I can only dream of that in Canada. At Ashbridges Bay in Toronto, if a ball rolls, someone needs to go get it, or it's bound to get stolen. It's funny considering Brazil's rate of crime is so much higher than in Canada. If you get thirsty, no problem, there's a coconut stand on every corner. Apparently coconut water has 3x the eloctrolytes of Gatorade, so it's the perfect sports drink and I've made very certain I have learned enough Portuguese to order as many as possible.

It's the people that are the most interesting. Everyone seems to be up with the sun at 5AM, and long past when it gets dark at 5PM. The coconut stands stay open 24hours for all I know. Jessi and I haven't really partaken in the party life, even when Pedro invites us to join him at the Casino. Or tells about his friend being set up with a prostitute. Apparently that's a normal thing for them. Such aspects are pretty shocking, though I'm sure there are parts of any culture that would make me check my ears, blink my eyes, maybe drop my jaw a little. Whatever it is that goes on here, they seem to play good volleyball, so I respect them for it. And I likely won't ever do everything Brazilians do, but some day, hopefully in the near future, I'll be as good as they are at the world's hottest sport.

Cheers,
Ben

Tuesday audible

My apologies for missing yesterday's blog deadline. I thought that since I would be spending over 20 hours in transit I would be able to squeeze one in between flights, but with delays, customs, and security checks, I didn't have quite as much time as I predicted. So this week it will be a Tuesday blog. Though sleep is hard to come by in airplanes for taller gentlemen such as myself, so bear with my tired vocabulary and story telling capabilities.

Just a warning for those of you interested in hearing about how my tournaments end up: I hate to lose. Even if we finish second like we did in Guatemala, I get bitter. If we're good enough to make the final, then we should be good enough to win it, and anything else disappoints me whether it should or not, and I don't like to talk about it. Unless we win a tournament, I likely will not divulge a whole lot of information here. Scores and results will be posted promptly but if you want the details, you'll have to address me personally because I like to keep my blogs a little more on the light-hearted side.

Alright, thats enough of being a big downer for the day. Lets get back to the long voyage to Joao Pessoa, Brazil, shall we? As poor athletes who want to get the most out of every penny, we booked our flights through the Volleyball Canada travel agent. That way we could find the cheapest possible Star Alliance route to save money and collect miles all at the same time. Brilliant, right? Almost, the problem being that the cheapest route isn't always the most traveller friendly. This flight being a prime example.

Had we gotten a flight directly from Guatemala City to Joao Pessoa (if one even exists), I estimate it would have taken about 5 hours, give or take. Instead, we first backtracked north 3.5 hours to Houston, then took a quick nine hour flight to Sao Paulo in the South of Brazil, then finally another 3 hour hop northwest to our final destination of Joao Pessoa. Thats 15.5 hours just in the air. Now add layovers in Houston and Sao Paulo, divide by the square root of four, then add ten (I used to be a math major, just making sure I still got mad algebra skills), and that makes over 20 hours of travel time. Now subtract sleep from that equation (keep in mind planes are not always tall person friendly) and that makes about 35 hours of being awake while travelling. Now you're probably second guessing asking me for help on your next homework assignment. But keep in mind every hour spent traveling feels twice as long, and I was only able to sleep for about 2.5 hours.

When we finally reached our destination, we were picked up by a good friend of Jessi's, and a top 10 FIVB player over the last 4 or 5 years, Pedro Solberg. Within two hours, we were running on the beach, and before the sun went down, we played a quick set against Pedro and Olympic Gold(2004), Silver(2000), and Bronze(2008) medalist, Ricardo Santos. We lost, but not convincingly, and we're set to train with them for a full practice early in the morning.

But Jessi's ready for bed and I'm not opposed to the idea myself. Our room is extremely hot, so hopefully we can get a fan going. But it just now started pouring rain so it might not be so hot after all. I'm just rambling now, so here's as good a time as any to call it a night.

Cheers,

Ben