played volleyball for years, and it was rediculously competitive. from september till about january, you had the shcool leagues, which was basically just a warm up. Then, the local volleyball clubs would have "tryouts" in which all the players from previous years would attend, along with a tonf o new people, and the teams would remain completely unchanged from the year before. I played on one such team. We had practice 3 or 4 days a week, and tournaments lasting all weekend, every weekend. Then once that was over, there would be 2 months of solid summer camps, with grueling conditioning aspects to it. If you didnt spend your entire summer in camps, you'd lose your spot on the team. My last year we went to nationals, and I just got so sick of the constant pressure that I quit and never looked back. After that, i found i had a whole lot of free time. I started going skiing again with my dad, and I absolutely fell in love with it. everything about it was so different from playing volleyball, I didnt have to worry about my team, my coach, losing my spot on the team, anything. I could just enjoy myself, find my own limits to push, it was exactly what I needed. and now my life very litterally revolves around skiing
