Playing Japanese Bīchibōru: Open Gym Impressions
On a recent trip to Tokyo, my daughters and I played 4v4 ビーチボール (beachball not beach volleyball) at an Open Gym in Koto City.
Beachball is a volleyball variant developed in Japan in 1977 as a less intimidating version of volleyball. It's played with custom made beach balls which are well balanced, bouncy, and strong. The game is 4v4 and played on an indoor doubles badminton court (smaller than a beach volleyball court) with a 1.8m/5'11" net.
Last time I was in Tokyo, a beachball player explained all the rules to my daughter and I so when we went to this open gym, we knew most of the rules. As with many open gyms, the players were a bit wary of us at first, considering we didn't speak Japanese, but they warmed up to us quickly when they realized we knew all the etiquette around shoes (courts are considered indoors so you only wear indoor shoes or socks on courts, no outside shoes) and we clearly understood the basics of volleyball.
For warmup, we played 2v2 then 4v4. Since we had 9 players, the 4v4 game was played with the player who made the last mistake being subbed out. There were many polite arguments about how we should be subbing out but as foreign visitors and my daughters being kids, they often allowed us to stay, taking the blame for our mistakes.
The players were diverse: A younger 20 something to some older players in their 50s. One player had only played 3 games before another had been playing for 30 years. One interesting thing about all Japanese open gyms is that a player who is sitting out refs with a scoreboard and electronic whistle and is expected to actively call nets and other violations. I haven't seen this in open gyms where I live.
Because of the low net height, I got to block! Turns out even if I can get over the net, I suck at blocking. I got tooled multiple times and had the ball dribble down on my side. To be fair, beachball has a rule that you cannot contact the ball with any of your body parts crossing the plane of the net so you have to be more conscious when blocking. Because of the low net, fat ball, and no breaking the plane rule, some of the jousts were really cool with both players standing there, pushing the ball, trying to make the ball go to their opponent's side.
It was a blast smashing downballs as slow dropping sets let me read the defense and choose my targets. Coach's half arm swing hits worked brilliantly with that ball and the ball can be hit really hard and fast but it slows down at the end of flight. My daughters, who have not played much with beach balls or badminton birdies, had a harder time adjusting to the suddenly slow down of the ball but I adapted quickly.
Serves were wild. Spin serves dominate though one guy demonstrated float serves which also gave me fits. Sadly, the best players were all holding back to make the game more fun but I saw some practice serves that moved 3-4 feet horizontally left and right and some top spin serves that dropped like they were rocket propelled.
Overlap rules are simplified with 2 players having to be left of the mid-line of the court and 2 players to the right but front back overlap is the same as volleyball. Serves must occur behind the service line and serve receivers must start behind their service line which is the badminton service line. Serve Receive formation is roughly a rotated rectangle. The general strategy was to have 3 players blocking at the net and only 1 player playing back row defense, though, watching higher level play on YouTube, it looks like they have 2 blockers and 2 defenders. Middle blocker is the setter, the other two blockers are generally the hitters but the back row defender can also attack without restriction.
The game is a blast with the beach ball generally being slower and lighter (one handed passes are easy) and thus more forgiving, leading to some crazy fun plays, but expert players can generate some insane offense and serves.
I would love for beachball to take off in other countries, especially for beginners, as it's just easier to play than volleyball. It's kind of like pickleball versus tennis. Players would need a badminton court, a modified net that allows it to be raised higher, and beach balls (which are super cheap: The high end ball is under $4.00 USD.)
After we finished playing, we learned that almost half the players spoke quite good English and we chatted about how we found the game, how long we had played volleyball, and chatted about beachball tournaments. During the game, I don't think we realized how much English everyone spoke, so we mostly used pointing and simple words like "setter" and "hitter" and "defense" and a lot of pointing but even that worked out well.
Overall, playing beachball was one of the highlights of our trip to Tokyo. We had only meant to play for an hour and we stayed for all 3 hours. The other players were very kind and welcoming and I was glad to play something so fun and uniquely Japanese while being able to tap into our love of volleyball.
EDIT: Sorry I couldn't film our gameplay! Filming was prohibited at the Sports Center. Here's some random YouTube footage of the game played at high level: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uN8TQ6VwvQ
