Lessons for Beach Volleyball for Healthy Relationships & Marriages

The sand was just warming under my feet last Saturday morning, the ocean breeze cutting across the beach as I walked toward my usual court. I’ve played beach volleyball with the same group (mostly men, a few women) for more than fifteen years. We only play two-on-two (no fours or sixes), and it’s one of my favorite parts of the week.

Frustratingly, my skill level changes from week to week, and it took me years to realize that when I focus on just two things—especially when a serve is coming in—everything flows better. Those two things are:

Keep my knees bent and expect to move.
Keep my eyes on the ball all the way until I make contact.

Simple, right? But doing those two things when my left knee is sore from HIIT class, my lower back aches from that old hip injury, and my visual tracking wants to quit a second too early … not so simple.

When I forget to keep my knees bent, I’m slower and less responsive. I can’t dive forward quickly or make the drop step I need for a ball over my head. And when I take my eyes off the ball too soon, I’m more likely to shank it—especially with the wind, the server’s spin, and the unpredictability of outdoor play.

So I have a mantra I whisper to myself before serves: Knees bent, eyes on the ball. Knees bent, eyes on the ball. Over and over again.

A few months ago, while repeating that mantra, I realized this isn’t just for volleyball. It’s for relationships too.

What if, instead of trying to work on everything at once—communication, patience, scheduling, quality time, desire, tone of voice, daily rituals, planning, exercise—I chose just two things that would most improve my relationship? Two things within my control that I could return to again and again, like a quiet mantra.

For lasting personal growth change, simplicity works. It gives the nervous system space to settle. When we stop trying to fix everything at once, we can actually notice progress. Change happens in the small, repeatable moments of attention, not in grand overhauls. Grand overhauls rarely stick; small, repeatable moments do.

For me, those two things were:

My tone of voice.
My patience in certain situations.

My boyfriend had gently (and sometimes not so gently) told me that my tone and lack of patience around certain topics were triggering for him. Hearing that wasn’t easy—frankly, it annoyed me at first—but he was mostly right. My words might have been reasonable and logical, but the way I said them carried frustration and tension.

So I treated this like practice. I took a five-week Yoga Nidra class online that helped regulate my nervous system so I could be less reactive. I started noticing when my voice rose or when my chest tensed during a conversation. When I caught it, I’d pause, breathe, and stop talking for a few seconds.

If a tough conversation came up when I was tired or emotionally drained, I started saying, “Can we come back to this tomorrow?” instead of pushing through.

After about four weeks, my boyfriend told me he could feel the difference. He said it was easier to stay present with me, even when we disagreed. Since then, he’s thanked me multiple times for the shifts I’ve made and for doing the work not just for me, but for us.

It feels good to be appreciated for quiet, unglamorous growth. Like in volleyball, it’s about small, consistent adjustments—knees bent, eyes on the ball—that make me more grounded, more responsive, more able to handle what comes my way.

Because love, like volleyball, isn’t about control. It’s about staying grounded enough to move with whatever comes your way.

Put This Into Action for Yourself

What are your two things? Take a few minutes to reflect and write down:

What two behaviors, if you practiced them regularly, would most improve the health of one of your closest relationships?

How will you remind yourself, like a mantra, to return to them when stress, fatigue, or old habits creep in?

Then share them with your partner (or another close relationship). Let them know what you’re working on and ask what their two things might be. Growth doesn’t happen through perfection; it happens in partnership, through small, repeated acts of awareness and care.

~Dr. Jenn Gunsaullus — San Diego Keynote Speaker, Marriage Coach, Intimacy Expert