When people talk about teamwork, I mainly think through the lens of volleyball.
In Singapore, people usually play together, but everyone still carries a little bit of their own game. In Japan, and especially in Omoroi Life’s Volleyball things are a little bit different. Even when somebody is strong enough to score on their own, they still look for another person. One touch becomes two touches and two touches becomes three. The point is for the team rather than for any particular individual player.
My volleyball team at SAS is close. We joke around together. We sit together after practice. Nobody dislikes anybody.
Still, people drift toward the friends they already know best.
Henry, Kyte and Cooper were friends before volleyball, so they naturally spent a lot of time together. The seniors often gather around the seniors. After practice, small groups form without anybody planning it. It’s not a deliberate thing. It’s just something that happens naturally, no one does it deliberately.
At Omoroi Life, I noticed something very unique.
A new person could walk in without knowing anyone, and ten minutes later, somebody would already be asking where they were from. At the end of the session, they would usually be standing in a circle talking with everyone else while the nets come down. Of course, friends still stay close to their friends, that happens everywhere. But a person who shows-up with a friend will probably sit beside that friend during breaks, but at the same time people keep moving between groups.
Before I went to Omoroi Life, I thought a close team was a team where everybody was very close and had been friends for a long time, but my time at Omoroi Life highlighted a different aspect of teamwork, where teamwork happens spontaneously and still feels like a real team that has played together for a long time.
Ryuichi – omoroi life member
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