Rocball, like volleyball, is a variation of a sport with its roots of play founded in the Pre-Columbian, Meso-American sport of Tlachtli: A team sport once played by Aztec warriors.
The actual game of Tlachtli involved passing a ball from side to side over a low wall without it touching the ground. If the ball fell to the ground, a team would win a point and vice versa. If you struck the ball with an incorrect part of the body, you could lose points for your team.
After the creation of volleyball in 1895 and prior to 1980, athletes who played this kind of team net sport played under two different general restrictions. In volleyball, players were not allowed to hit the ball with any part of the body below the waist. In the Asian sport of sepak takrau players were not allowed to use their arms or hands to touch or hit a ball.
In the Micronesian sport of Rocball, players are allowed to hit the ball with any part of the body as long as a player doesn’t carry or hold the ball. And, as in Tlachtli, there is a situation in which a team can lose a point and both sports have scoring areas other than the court floor: The sport of Tlachtli had vertical loops 8 or 10 feet high on a wall above either side of the court, and Rocball has vertical areas for scoring with six by twelve foot goals located ten feet behind each court.
Fundamentals: A quarter/set game of Rocball with 25 points a set, takes a little less or a little more than one hour to complete.
In Rocball, when a player serves a ball over the net, the receiving team, the defensive team, has two hits to return a served ball. When a served ball is successfully returned over the net, the offensive team has the first five hit play on the ball, and each team is allowed up to five hits to score point/s.
*** Variation: After two hits off a served ball, subsequent plays are five hits for the offensive team and three hits for the defensive team until point/s is scored. This system of play gives the serving/offensive team more of the benefits of the side-out system of play, where the team with the serve had scoring advantage and the receiving team worked against the score for the advantages of the serve.
1. It makes a difference: When a team is allowed five hits, it has more than just a couple of advantages over volleyball's traditional three hit play:
a. It allows a team to recover from a missed played ball after the third hit.
b. It allows a team more opportunity to set up for a multiple point, backcourt score.
c.It allows a team more flexibility to move the ball from one side of the court to the other.
d. It allows a team more choices of when to spike off a set ball.
e. It allows more different types of strategic plays.
f. It allows a team to break the predictable bump, set, spike routine.
g. It defines the difference between which team is playing offense and defense.
h. It forces the three hit, defensive team to adjust more as a reactionary force.
i. It creates longer volley and rally plays.
j. It breaks up the mind-set and monotony of the three hit count for players and spectators.
2. The team with service is the offensive team and points scored by a team with the serve are defined as volley points: Volley = discharge and attack
3. The team receiving the serve is the defensive team and points scored by the defensive team are defined as rally points: Rally = mobilize and recover.
4. By identifying a team’s points as either volley or rally points, the game incorporates different perspectives and fosters more diverse innovative relationships between the sport, its players, and teams.
Last edited by Feger : 12-18-2009 at 08:35 PM.
|