 to physical therapy for a better life. I'm your host, Christine Linders, board certified orthopedic physical therapy specialist. Today we are talking with former pro beach volleyball player and current coach, Alika Williams, about the benefits of fitness and beach volleyball regardless of skill. Welcome, Alika, and thank you so much for coming on the show. Aloha, thanks for having me. Oh, this is fantastic. So tell me, I am dying to know, so is everybody else. How did you get started in beach volleyball? I kind of started from the beginning. I was, I grew up on the big island and my parents were athletic. They played tennis and so I grew up playing tennis and played some soccer and was in the water a little bit. But in ninth grade, I was lucky enough, I got into Punahou school. So I moved over here to Oahu. And as most people know, Punahou is a very, very, they have a very strong boys volleyball program. And on top of that, my mom's brothers, the crab brothers, my mom is a crab. So Chris and Tony crab, back in the 60s and 70s and 80s, they're big time volleyball guys. They coached and played at the highest levels professionally and my uncle Tony coached in the Olympics in 84 when they won the gold medal. So upon my arrival here in 1989, I got spurned onto this whole volleyball scene. And once I got to the bug between Punahou and Outrigger and my family and it was the snowball started and boom, here we are. 30, 25 years later and 30 years later and volleyball is my profession now. So here we are. That's amazing. So you played a little bit of a pro. How old were you when you were doing that? Out of college, I played in indoor volleyball at Santa Barbara and I graduated in 1998. So I was on the tour from 99 to 04, about five years. Got my feet wet and played against some of the best players in the world, which was pretty awesome to go up against those guys and the big names. And it was a pretty big time in beach volleyball. Men's volleyball was real strong at that time and pretty awesome to play some of these guys who won medals and made the Olympics and were all American and national champions and got to rub shoulders with those guys. So that was really awesome. That's really cool. Now, I don't know for anybody that's in my age, did you wear any dig this attire? You know, I was cut when I was in the 90s, beach volleyball I think was at its peak. That was when it was really booming. So like I said, when I came over here in 1989 and through the 90s when I was in college, the beach volleyball apparel was off the hook. So yes, all that fun stuff where there was Massimo or side out or club sports where there was all those lines that were real big at the time. And unfortunately, it's not what it used to be. The sport has shifted as far as apparel and it all goes hand in hand with the prize, money and the exposure. But there's still some of that. My good friend Billy Berger up in California, he's kind of taken over the side outline. He's trying to make a little bit of a comeback with that line. So it's kind of cool to see. I would like to see that. It's like surfing, beach volleyball and surfing. Every sport is triathlon too. Every sport is taken off in a different direction, like apparel lines and things like that. And I think like side out is such a great line. I'd love to see that come back. So now let's talk about you as a coach. I am fascinated with coaches and I'm fascinated with you on how you can coach beginners, advanced, people that don't know beach volleyball, tell me a little bit more about beach volleyball and how it can be for your life. Yeah, kind of just touching back on my history. Growing up around the Punahou program, the Outrigger program, they have the beach courts at Outrigger, they're playing indoor as a boy at the boys level and you go on and play college. For a lot of us, coaching is just kind of like a process and evolution of you as a volleyball player. I mean, you come home in the summer, you need to pick up some extra money. Next thing you know, you're coaching boys a few years younger than you, you're helping out, you're the assistant coach and you're getting right in there and coaching just kind of comes naturally as a player and in that realm as far as the exposure you come home, you coach a Punahou Intermediate team or you coach a high school team and that evolution just began. So I mean, I've been coaching volleyball since high school, helping out the younger boys and younger kids and from that standpoint, it was pretty easy, it was pretty easy and it just transitioned over to the beach because I'd spent so much time playing beach volleyball and again, coaching is just kind of the way, the path for me is gone and now here I am coaching and I like to, I'm not just a coach, I like to kind of throw a personal trainer, a personal coach in there. With my program, I like to consider it a lifestyle, I'm coaching kids, adults, boys, girls, men, women and a lot of them are just doing it for fun. They come to me for an hourly, weekly lesson and like I said, it's just a lifestyle, they're just out there to get a workout and have some fun with some friends and continue on with the volleyball that they're playing. So sorry, I just got a call from you. Anyway, so yeah, that's just kind of where I'm at right now. And we can touch on my Hunakai service some more as we get through this conversation but that's kind of the history of how I got into coaching and why I am where I am today. Yeah, I think that's amazing. I love that, we were talking a little bit before the show on how, I love beach volleyball, I've been playing and I played in college and I've had all these injuries and never thought I could play again and then I moved to California from Connecticut and there was beach volleyball and I never knew there was beach volleyball for me. I just watched like Steve Timmons and Karch Karai playing and just loved those guys in high school but I get to California and there's all these nets set up and so I thought, oh, I don't think I could play because of my shoulders, I've had four surgeries and I met my friend Scott who said, let's go down there and with the ballers and we've got this purple and pink ball and leave a pep around and I realized I could still play volleyball and enjoy it. I didn't have to hit the hard court like with my arms outstretched and so that's kind of how I got started in beach and I realized, wow, I can still be a volleyball player and with my injuries and things that I suffered in high school and in college and so when I get to Hunakai Park to meet with you I was talking about earlier how I can have all this stuff going in my mind and I do wanna improve my skill and I wanna stay in the game how I can and maybe I can't play four hours but when we get there for that hour I get a great workout, I get great skill training from you and I just think it's an amazing thing. That's why I wanted to share this with everybody because I also know people who come there and they come there because they love volleyball they don't really care if their skill improves they just wanna play and they wanna get a great workout and so I feel like beach volleyball in a way is for everyone and I want people to know that. Do you know? Yeah, I mean, I think two things that you just touched on there I mean, obviously California, Southern California you know, it's ground zero for beach volleyball like you said, the beach is so big and wide and you know when it all started these people people say white tiki is where beach volleyball began which could be true who really knows, right? But the part about Hawaii is the beach is narrow and there's no space in California there, you know, it's in Hoyt's the beaches for the sunbathers and if there's a little extra room besides that we're gonna put up some courts but as we all know that, you know the sunbathers are what drives the economy here so that's important that that beach is used for the tourists and to make sure they're taking care of but in California there's not enough sunbathers to go around that's how big beaches are Hermosa and Manhattan and it's, you know they're down by the water and there's probably a half a mile wide stretch of beach that's just sitting there empty so you know, whoever the powers that be or back in the day said, let's put up some nets here so there you have it Santa Barbara, East Beach, Huntington, Hermosa, down in San Diego so pretty easy for it to become a lifestyle a place like that, right? You get the adults, I did do some coaching on the beach up there and it was great because I would be home during the week in California between events and it stays dark so long up there in the summer they have these adult clinics and lessons, you know nightly where they're down the beach till nine, 10 o'clock to stay light and these people are in it for lifestyle, you know they love being with a group of friends and hitting the ball around and you have no problem paying a professional to help, you know, run them through drills help them prove their game show them how to play the game so in California it's the place to be I mean it's ground zero for that lifestyle and like you said, the injury part that the body part playing on that soft surface and longevity, you get people playing into their 80s just because non-contact sport soft stands it's not as rigorous as indoor, you know it's more of a finesse game moving the ball around not as much of a power game and as we all know the power stuff is where you get her rotator cuffs jumping on the hard surface, the knees, the joints you know I got lots of friends that just stuck to the indoor indoor demographic or domain, whatever you want to call it and they're busted up, you know they went and made their money in Europe playing professional indoor they get maybe 10 years out of it at most they make a lot of money but they're not playing much volleyball anymore they're getting surgeries or getting new vips they're getting new shoulders and so yeah it's definitely something special about beach volleyball as far as being able to keep on going and keep on enjoying Yeah I love that you mentioned the soft sand and the deep, the non-contact sport aspect of it and compared it to like court volleyball because a lot of times when I talk to my patients and I talk to my friends about playing beach volleyball and they'll say oh my gosh, wow that's so hard it must be so hard on your body how do you do with all your injuries and I tell them that it's so forgiving like for me to go and run around in deep soft sand is so forgiving because you know what it's harder on my muscles and maybe on my breathing but it's so easy on my joints and so much more forgiving because when you land in the sand the shock is absorbed a lot, I don't know the percentage in the sand and I love it here in Hawaii it's so amazing because I will give people go to a beach and walk in the deep soft sand as an exercise for Achilles tendonitis, plantar fasciitis people that have knee arthritis or they have weak hips I will have them walk sideways in the deep soft sand forward and backward because it's something they can do but they can't walk around their block because they're on pavement and there's no better place to do it than here in the islands it's really just a gift to be here, you know it's amazing. And that's the one kind of bummer about Hawaii is there is a shortage of courts of volleyball courts and it's the false image people get I know a lot of people who they come here or they expect coming here with the beaches and the weather that they're gonna have tons of volleyball here and like I said, the beaches are too narrow in a lot of places, it needs to be used for other things so it is the one kind of false image that Hawaii gets I hate to see when people come here and they're like, we moved here to play volleyball and you're like, ooh, it's a little tricky as you know, there's only a few places on the island, public places that you can really play so it would be nice to see more and not necessarily on the beach but just sand courts put in around town there's definitely space for them and they are costly unfortunately but you know, it's gonna always kind of keep Hawaii a little behind like a place like Southern California where it's just courts for miles you know, that's where you're gonna get these great especially the girls right now there's so much opportunity of up and coming junior girls with college scholarships and opportunity, I mean Southern California for women and up and coming girls is, I mean, they're just producing kids right now and it's just taking off, you know between Title IX and COVID and Kerry and Misty having so much success and then what's the latest gold medalist? I mean, it's just taken off over there it's crazy the depth and the quality of play and the amount of quantity of good players it's definitely a correlation Yeah, as a physical therapist who's been injured in so many places since the young age because I grew so fast and then playing sports without PT or having a trainer, having access to one I would love to see more of those like park courts set up like public courts because it's such a great way to have fitness it's such a great way to prevent injuries because of the softness and it's a great way to have fun and have well-being like tennis courts and pickleball courts I would love to see that I remember I was living in Connecticut and I was driving to Portland, Maine and there was a park where the court and Connecticut I lived there I'm like, we have like so many parks I don't know of a single one that has a court in Connecticut but way up in Maine where it's super cold there is right as I got off the highway there are some sand courts and I think that would be an awesome addition to everyone living on the islands too and which leads me to ask you more how did you get started with Hunakai that's a beautiful park with a beautiful court how did you get into that? Yeah, it's interesting when I came home from playing I was coaching indoor and I get, you know people kind of knew me as a beach volleyball player around town while they're playing in local tournaments with Waikiki or down at the hour rigor or on the main lab and I just started getting inquiries just word of mouth call this a leaker guy, you know help your daughter or help you wanna learn how to play volleyball and I was just kind of moonlighting and kind of getting creative on where to train people and where to do that but obviously not having a sand court accessible sand court I needed to find that and I had some good friends that live in the Kahala neighborhood people I grew up with people I've known for a long time and that park is owned by the Hunakai Park Association and like I said it's made up a lot of these the board itself is made up of the neighbors and that's a lot of people I know and so in 2010 I think in 2008 or nine the NCAA announced women's beach volleyball is gonna be picked up as a scholarship sport so that was kind of like okay, I gotta do this because it's only gonna like I told you earlier it's only gonna explode everything's moving in that direction so I just came up with a proposal and the park they have other tenants there the soccer clubs at play there they all pay rent helps with the upkeep of the park and I just approached them and I said, hey, if I come in here and build a sandbox here I'll be the teaching pro here I'll run the court everything will go through me and I'll pay you guys rent I'll pay for the cost of the court and it's just worked on me now here we are 12 years later I can't believe it's gone by that fast so it's funny the first week in 2010 was my first week of business and kind of side note it was funny because I I had to get the sand from Waimanalo to Kahala and it was a week before a week between Christmas and New Year's and President Obama was in town every time he comes here he goes and throws layers off Halona Point where his mom's ashes are and with the president the secret service traffic they blocked the road wow so I'm waiting and you got to pay these truckers by the hour, mind you so I'm waiting the hole is dug and I'm waiting for my first inaugural dump of sand of the dump truck it took about probably 10 to 20 truck loads of sand to fill that box but I'm standing there standing there twirling my thumbs and I'm going where is this truck? I'm calling them and the truck driver's telling me I'm stuck at Sandy Beach because the secret services blocked the road so anyway, it was just a fun story like I'll never forget you know, it was when Obama was in office and he comes and does his Christmas trip here and him holding up my traffic and having to pay the trucker extra and because of President Obama but we'll have to we'll have to send him a link to the show exactly, exactly is it was pretty funny so I'll never forget that that week of building the court digging the hole it was all grass before so I had to take a foot deep out of it by a huge area and we took all the earth and grass out of there and brought sand in and here we are 12 years later I can't believe it's been 12 years I didn't even realize that I've been in Hawaii for three and a half years and so I think I knew about you for two and a half of them maybe, huh? Yeah something like that and it's really cool it's really cool what you're doing there and I know I know when I show up you see younger girls and different age ranges and things like that and I just I think it's such a great thing for everyone to participate in is there yeah, we'll go ahead were you gonna say something? Oh no, just you know with my service it's fun going back to the lifestyle thing because a lot of these especially the parents they're not really educated on the sport they don't know much about it and here's their daughter or their son wanting to get into it and you know, they come down there and they see me training adults and training older people and they're just kind of scratching their head and they don't know about that lifestyle we're talking about, right? They're totally foreign it's totally foreign to them they're like, wait, what? You train adults and it's just four people and it's just a little group and yeah, that's my product you know, I train whoever wants to come and it's you know, you're not signing up for a club or you're not committing yourself for six months you just come for a weekly lesson or a monthly lesson or a one and done lesson then you know I try to keep it all flexible and real easy I'm just teaching beach volleyball lessons and if you want to get better at volleyball and get a great workout like we talked about you know, I really like my product it's very unique especially here it happens in California a lot because again, there's courts but here it's special because there's not really anybody else doing it with that kind of intimacy and service I give people so it's really cool and I've 12 years I mean I got girls kids that I started training they're getting married now and having babies and it's just like you know, they always circle back have been to some weddings and it's just you know, it's kind of it's pretty cool it is an amazing service yeah and I'm really glad we're talking about it I'm wondering how is best for people to get in touch with you if they want to get a lesson because I think you know, I'm always encouraging my patients on every realm to do something it's just depending on what kind of thing they need if it's something for their mind if it's something for their body if it's something that you know, they want to learn a new skill and they're expressing that to me and you know, based on what their ability is not with volleyball but like physically are like maybe they can't take tennis but they can play each volleyball because it's in the sand but the court is too hard for them how do people get in touch with you if they want to take like a one-on-one lesson or pay me and my boyfriend want to come and play volleyball with you for an hour and see where we're at or maybe we want to start playing together in a group but you know he didn't play before and I did or I haven't played before or I am terrible at passing I want to improve those skills like how do we find you or how do people reach out to you Yeah, I mean, Rich, I do whatever you want it's like people come to me and I tell them hey, I can give you a one-on-one lesson and they go a one-on-one lesson in volleyball how is that even possible but you know there's lots of things we can do especially if you're a beginner even I have girls that or kids that play indoor they've played indoor for three or four years and they've never gotten sand between their toes which I always like to say we're going to get out there and we're going to just kind of learn positioning and we're going to do tons of reps we're going to pass 100 balls and we're going to set 100 balls and then I'm going to set you 100 balls and we'll serve 100 balls so that's kind of what that private entails which is a real good starting point and then as far as I'll get a two-person lesson that's oftentimes a partnership there's a tournament coming up oh, the two of us just want to get reps together no one else just you know you can serve us you can do drills working together so there's just different formats and they all work well three-person lesson two sometimes I jump in there and hit the ball around as the fourth and then the fourth kind of the common one because it's two against two and I'm on the side feeding in balls and keep them moving I mean most people know you come to me for an hour it's going to be a better workout than playing for two or three hours just because I got a whole bucket of balls and I'm just firing away you know you play a game you serve the ball to play ends someone goes and grabs the ball hand the ball to their partner are they serving and lots of stop and go but with my groups you know we're moving we're getting the workout we're getting the touches as far as my contact I have a website and it's pretty easy it's HoonakaiHai.com so HoonakaiHI short for Hawaii.com and all my contact info is on there my phone number, my email so you know if you know anybody or anybody's watching this check it out HoonakaiHai.com and you can always come down to Hoonakai Park in Kahala too I'm there five days a week so I'm there a lot the guy with the mask on and the hat and the shades on that's me on most days yeah no it's great I'm glad I'm glad to I'm glad we're doing this show too because you know I don't think I really sent many of my patients to play beach volleyball as a fitness or a well-being kind of thing and so talking to you talking to you before the show and today as the physical therapy for a lifestyle and talking about all those things I think I have a lot of patients who would really love to get a lesson and it would really improve so much of their core strength and everything just to be doing like you said the drills passing 100 balls there's so much every muscle in your body is working to pass 100 balls and you're not even jumping you're just standing rounding your shoulders working certain muscles and passing a ball again and again is so beneficial to every muscle in the body if that's all they did for an hour yeah it's great yeah and I think too just it's such a volleyball especially beach volleyball so unique because it is a team sport but it's also not it's just you and one other person it's more like a partnership a relationship and sometimes that that can be tough that I've seen partnerships well especially on the you know as you get higher and higher level you get some bad breakups as we call them yeah but you know if you're out there having fun and you like your group of friends and it's just three other people that you're buddies with I mean there's no better way you can go play basketball in a league or you can go play soccer you can go play you know lacrosse or whatever everybody's doing and it's just a very different different animal and you can just kind of bang out your workout with four people you know you move it along you play your games fast get your sweat in pack it up go home and then if you want to take it to the next level there are tournaments out there to play in but it's a very special sport and keep going back to the lifestyle it's that correlates to lifestyle and not to sound biased but I think the lifestyle of these volleyball it's much greater than those other sports I talked about as far as just that kind of core group of people you have and you can always go play other people too so you can mix it up so and on the court too a lot you know it's just you and me right just the two of us got to work together and I don't know be on the same page you can even an indoor volleyball you can kind of deflect the energy off of someone by going elsewhere to another teammate another personality but yeah not me at all special I love that you're talking about that we have like one minute left and I just want to tell every point one thing out that you reminded me when you were talking about the teamwork and the partnership and the relationship and I know there's times when I can't use my right arm and so I'm lefty and I remember playing at the outrigger one time and talking to my partner I said I don't care which side I play usually I like both sides because of different strengths I have but I said to my partner for some reason I'm having trouble with this can you do this she's like or she said I'm having trouble with this I'm sorry she goes what can I do to help and I love I'm getting goosebumps I love that that partnership it's not about me being good and you being good it's us being able to make up for some of the weaknesses of our partner and helping that person succeed in what they're good at and so I remember telling her you know what if you could set me here she's like done and it was great and I said or if you could stay back because I'm tending to set you a little bit off that she's like done and I felt so supported I'll never forget it I felt so supported and it's that partnership that teamwork and if you are seeking something like that it's not like oh my God I'm terrible which I get into that too it's just the telling your partner I'm having such trouble doing this and they're like what can I do to help stay off the net and because I'm setting you off and I feel bad you're like gonna hurt yourself and so I just wanted to say that too for everybody that's thinking about doing it that it is they elevate each other you know what I mean and help the other person out too it's not all about you know I think that it really carries over with these girls that play indoor with six people and they're on a team of 12 and there's coaches you know they're not real community yet but you come play beach you get communicative and then things are so much easier and indoor you know it's just like such a great cross trainer for indoor and communication and aggressiveness and alert and being in the right spot it's just such a great thing to do to benefit one's indoor game which is what a lot of these girls are trying to do they're trying to go play college indoor and best way to do this play on the beach kind of sounds weird sounds funny but that's the bottom line life is better when you play beach volleyball and we need to wrap it up Alika so thank you so much for coming on that was amazing we'll do it again thank you so much for coming out and thanks for everyone who's tuning in to the show today and to think tech Hawaii for allowing us to be here as always remember life is better when you listen to your physical therapist and your beach volleyball coach or trainer Aloha everyone Thank you Marlos TechHawaii.com Mahalo