By: Parker Kalmbach

Hi, I'm Parker Kalmbach. I am 17 years old, a senior in high school and have lived in Southern California all my life. I started playing beach volleyball about two years ago because it looked like a really fun way to spend time at the beach. Living near the beach has made it easier to play year round especially with so many organized youth and adult tournaments from March until November or just pickup games locally in the offseason. If there is sand, a net and a ball anyone can get started, but finding a partner who has as much enthusiasm for the game and desire to get better and win is the hard part.

I was lucky enough to make the U19 Beach Youth National Team that trained at Hermosa Beach, Calif., for the 2009 Youth World Championships in Alanya, Turkey. Before leaving for Turkey, our teams trained at the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, Calif., which was very inspiring since you are using the same facilities that Olympic athletes use. I was really excited to go back to the OTC for the Holiday Beach Camp because not only are the facilities great, but so is the food and you can eat as much as you want.

The training sessions at the Holiday Camp were extremely helpful for working on certain skills and different techniques. For instance, after having watched on video the first round of Olympic playoffs between Brazil’s Ricardo/Emmanuel and Russia’s Barsouk/Kolodinsky, the Brazilian team showed how important it is to look at the defender before going up to hit. That is exactly what Coach Angela Rock helped me improve on at practice the next day. It is always very important to know where the opposing defender is, that's why Coach Angela had us all look through the net to see the court before we would actually jump to hit. I found that session very helpful.

There were some really good players at the camp, so every day was lots of fun with great competition. David Ryan Vander Meer was at the camp and he came all the way from Michigan. After only playing together for two days we were playing very well as a team. He likes to play as much as I do and he sure can jump. When the new beach season starts in California we are planning to play some tournaments and have him come stay at my house and hopefully we can play as a team at the 2010 Youth World Championships in Portugal!

Having signed up late for the camp, the room assignments were uneven. However, I got very lucky and was paired up with one of the coaches - AVP star John Mayer, who was also a star volleyball player at Pepperdine University. It was fun talking to him and learning from him and interesting to hear what he had to say about playing at Pepperdine since that's where I will be playing next year!

I am looking forward to trying out for the 2010 U19 Beach National Team and hopefully going back to the Olympic Training Center because there will be six brand new official FIVB beach volleyball courts installed!

- Parker Kalmbach