The Yoga Craze is Catching

The Yoga Craze is Catching

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Being born into a family with an older brother who is obsessed with fitness and body building, I used to think that anything other than running and weight training was for sissies. I'm the first to admit I honestly believed that Yoga was for people that didn't know how to do real exercise. In fact, I only enrolled in the ASA just to heckle my friends who genuinely wanted to do it. I know, that's terrible of me but... sorry not sorry. It was not until my first Yoga session that I figured out that in order to do Yoga, you not only need to be extremely fit but you must also posses a great deal of self control.

In the very first session itself I found myself in the deep end, learning new skills, having never had a Yoga class before. By the end of the session I had not only pushed at my strengths but I also painfully highlighting my weaknesses. Needless to say, I quickly learned that Yoga is most definitely not for sissies. In fact, although I could hold my own in muscle strength exercises such as planks and open-hip lunges, I couldn't stretch half as much as I should be able to. To illustrate this, here is an embarrassing picture of me trying to touch my toes in the triangle position. Key word being trying for obvious reasons.

(I know, I know, it's pretty bad that I could only reach that far... 

Photo credits; Ms. Neiderman)

Anyway, although the skill level that Yoga required pleasantly surprised me, and pleasantly knocked me on my butt, I have to say that I'm hooked on it. The Yoga craze is indeed catching on and me, as someone who used to focus only on running and weights, find it an incredibly freeing activity. I've even found myself practising at home, often giving up an extra 30 minutes after my daily run to try and execute a shoulder stand or stretch out my back, demonstrating perseverance when I fail but try and try again to hold a 30 second shoulder stand. 

It's ineresting, this Yoga, and I'm hoping that by the end of the lessons I'll be able to hold my shoulder stands for extended periods of time along with learning a full routine to practise at home. But first I'll need to learn to touch my toes so here it goes, one step at a time!

Peace, Love and Yoga :)

❂ Alzheimers ❂

❂Alzheimer's Service❂

This month was spent recruiting some Grade 10 students for our service group. I was happy to see that we got  5 people signed up, 4 boys and one girl. A nice thing I noted was that one of the guys (Amit) that signed up was in Alzheimer's last year as well so it was good to see a returning face. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of input the newbies put into the meetings, in fact, they had some great ideas for the things we could do at food and fun fair. This included a memory match up game for kids, an idea made in response to the question how to raise funds to buy basic materials for the Alzheimer's patients.

We also had out monthly visit to the Alzheimer's Center which I unfortunately missed due to some work that needed to be done for English class. I'm starting to find that as a Senior, it's incredibly hard to find time to do things, specially with finals looming on the horizon. However, I did get to participate by making 40 mini cupcakes for the patients to decorate as previously planned and now initiated on the Tuesday night before the visit :)

I thought I did a good job on the cupcakes because not only are they colourful and cheerful looking, but I kept in mind that some of the patients needed healthy food and so used a 50/50 mix of wholemeal and white flour, considering the ethical implications of feeding old people unhealthy food. Unfortunately the cupcakes were a bit too sweet, specially with the amount of icing they put on but it was a good effort nonetheless.

And although I didn't go, I heard that this visit was one of the very best we've had. Apparently the noob 10th graders did an excellent job in dancing with the patients, undertaking a new challenge since a lot of them were shy. As well as this, they showed that they could work collaboratively with the patients and the people who run the Alzheimer's association. The new kids are shaping up to be pretty cool actually, I'm really proud of them. I've managed to get some pictures of how the visit went, courtesy of Anjleen our great and mighty leader.

The mighty Anjleen (pictured above) made waaay too much icing for too little cupcakes XD

                    Carla, one of our trusty grade 11's, (left) can be spotted with her usual smile :)

                            And Yannis, another grade 11 proves to be a hit with the ladies ;)

 

Need I explain the wonder that is sprinkles?

And here are the awesome little Grade 10's getting some quality time with the patients. They've actually surprised me by staying committed to the service, arriving on time and contributing useful ideas to the group. They're also learning new people skills and learning to be better conversationalists with the patients, a skill I'm sure they'll need in the future.

Khartikiya                                      

Khallis

                                                                                                 

Shloak                                                 

Ika

                                                                                                   




This is a special picture of Amit, also from Grade 10, since I don't have an individual one of him. If you look closely you can spot him dancing in the background :D And also, our supervisor Ms. Ramberg is lurking around in the picture, let's see who can spot her...
                                                                                                                                  

And finally, the full Alzheimer's Service team excluding me :)

S A I S A BADMINTON

S A I S A               BADMINTON

I'm more than willing to admit that on our last night in Dhaka after the SAISA Badminton tournament, I was not willing to leave. In fact, the thought of returning to Colombo was not a pleasant one because of the strength of the attachment I formed with my team and to Badminton in general. In fact, the SAISA tournament this year was beyond just a game; it was about the experience of the tournament... and I have to say I could not have asked for a better team to spend my last SAISA tournament with. 

(The extended team)

From the very first day of training to the final day of the tournament, this was a season that demanded our absolute 100% as individuals and also as a team. Our collective efforts and collaboration with each other on the training courts (ranging from coaching each other to learning new skills and improving areas of weakness) paid off on the game days. At the end of the day we returned to Sri Lanka with a 3rd place medal and trophy, claiming a team bronze medal in Dhaka. Individually we excelled as well with the following wins; Athena for girls single (silver), Laurens and Arnold for boys doubles (gold) and Laurens and Rishika for mixed doubles (silver).

But quite honestly, I couldn't care less about the wins. Although I am over the moon that we got a place in the tournament, I value this season because of the team I played with and the experiences that I got to be a part of. So first of all, I need to say thank you to all my team members for being the amazing individuals that they are. Together, we showed the perseverance needed to get a placing in the tournament and commitment not only to each other but to the game by not losing hope in our matches and constantly supporting each other.

So here's the fabulous team who I now consider family :) A huge thank you to all of you for making this the best SAISA ever! 

Arnold, for being the most supportive and frustratingly annoying but awesome guy on the team. 

Ceola, for being a great doubles partner who never gave up and always keeping us entertained. 

Jun Min, for 10 points against Kevin and shaking off your nervousness in the end. 

Laurens, for UNO sessions, taking the time to help us between games and really bad jokes.

Athena, the newbie and resident badass who made it into the championship rounds.

Yannis, for failed backhand smashes, the successful smashes, and our Kinder-egg mania.

Rishika, who moved 3-4 steps per point and still won the most matches out of all of us.

On a very positive note, our team was the one with the most S-pins (for sportsmanship) proving that we were friendly and cheerful both on and off the court. In fact, the Lahore and Dhaka teams can attest to that given the amount of time we spent playing dodgeball in the MPR and goofing around on skype. The people we met and the friendships we made were ones that are going to last a lifetime.

 

(The three main SAISA teams; photos from AISD)

I have just one last point to make before I wrap up the Badminton reflection. As one of the two seniors on the team (the other being Laurens) I believe that this SAISA was the most successful and enjoyable one I've been one. It wouldn't have been half as good without our coaches Mr. Pradeep and Mr. De Silva who coached us till the very and of course Mrs. Raina who was an unbelievably huge source of encouragement throughout all our games.

And finally, best of luck for next year! Hope it's gold :P

GO GECKOS!

*o. Semester Reflections .o*

*o. Semester Reflections .o*

Service + Creativity :

As the semester is wrapping up, so is my service activity for this year. Throughout the semester in Alzheimer's Awareness, my group and I have worked diligently with the patients, proving ourselves to be competent communicators, capable of handling ethical issues that may have been brought about in the course of the program. Such instances brought out our best communicative skills when we had to collaborate with patients and carers to ensure the best outcome for everyone. Furthermore, perseverance and commitment was shown throughout the semester when we gave up school mornings to go work down at the center. In planning and initiating different activities for the patients we fulfilled the creativity component of our activity, drawing and making Christmas cards for the patients. Working independently without relying on a supervisor we learnt new skills in time management. In our group we also discovered areas of strengths as well as areas to grow in when we split up our roles to play to each member's strong points.

Action :

Although the year is coming to an end, SAISA Badminton doesn't actually end till after the Grade 9-11 Week Without Walls. Due to this, the members of the team will be practicing badminton at least once a week over the holidays demonstrating perseverance and remaining fully committed to the game. We will also be undertaking new challenges during this time as we will be practicing on specific drills and shots that we personally feel we lack strenght in whilst maintaining and improving on strengths. Hopefully this will lead us to learning new skills as there are still several sections of the game we can all improve in. As a team, we will be collaborating with each other, not just as a whole but also as partners in our doubles and mixed doubles games which we will be practicing for, eagerly looking forward to the actual tournament towards the end of January. GO GECKOS!

❦ Service and Creativity in Alzheimer's ❦

❦ Service and Creativity in Alzheimer's ❦

So, two weeks ago, we sat down with the 6th grade kids and discussed their opinions of their visit to the Alzheimer's center. We debriefed on what happened and, after brainstorming and reflecting on the events of the previous week, we gave the class over to Ms. Lenk (our supervisor at the moment). She came up with the great idea to have the kids write 6-word-stories about their experience. We did this to identify areas of weakness and of strengths. For those of you that are interested, a 6-word-story basically gets people to write their feeling and thoughts about a situation in exactly six words. The kids were asked to write six words each about one challenge during the visit, one fun thing, and one thing they learned.

Here are 5 of the best, most awesome, hilarious, and sometimes concerning responses that we got from the kids when we collected in and read what they wrote. The pictures are all the authors own and any sentences/words written in brackets are basically my running commentary). Here's hoping you have as much fun reading them as we did!

" Two ladies did not speak English.
I got to watch her paint.
The Alzheimer's lady painted very well. "

(how sweet) 

" The man could not hear me.
I liked playing carom with them.
The center is a nice place. "

(not bad)

" First I thought she was dead.
It was fun playing carom board.
People enjoy while suffering from Alzheimer's. "

(I'm not sure what to say...)

" They would sometimes talking without speaking.
We painted with cool water colours.
Always be nice no matter anything. "

(the first one is a bit fishy but nice overall)

" They would not talk to me.
We played carom with a gang.
They like to talk to people. "

(one and three contradict each other)

 On another note, for the creativity section of the service, we planned and initiated and activity where we got the kids make the Alzheimer's patients Christmas cards for the coming holidays. They were told to design the cards, colour them in and write a warm message inside them and finally sign them with their names. I unfortunately don't have the pictures as they're still in a WIP (work in progress) but I'll get them asap. It was quite fun because we too made some cards for the patients. We also told the kids that if they weren't Christians or particularly religious they could simply have 'Happy Holidays' instead of 'Merry Christmas' which shows consideration of ethical issues,

♕ Action and Service Updates ♕

Action:

Soooo, it's been a couple of weeks in SAISA Badminton for me and I'm actually pretty happy with how everything is going. The team hasn't been chosen yet, duh, so we're working on skills training at the moment. We've focused a lot on serving, specially short serves which I find incredible hard to be honest. Long serves however are a lot easier for me so I haven't paid much attention to those. We've also worked on drop shots and placing these shots since a lot of people keep playing right back into the opponents hand. The best part so far about training would probably be the fact that now, as a senior and a returning player, Mr. Pradeep gets us to instruct the newer members should they need help. I find this awesome cus well, I like helping people haha but also because it helps me understand the techniques of the game when I need to explain it to others. So yeah... Here's a picture of us warming up before the session starts. I'll get more pictures over the next few weeks for a cool as picture post :)

 (Warm up - photo credits : Lawrence)

Service:

Well, I have service this afternoon and we're going to take the time to talk to the kids about how they found the Alzheimer's visit was. We'll have them talk about the reflections and we were also considering getting the kids to make some cute Christmas cards that can be given to the patients when we go next. We will most probably start this activity and plan out the things we need before we get paper, glitter, etc to make the best cards ever :)

SAISA Badminton

Hey guys,

So yeah, sorry if this post is a little lackluster but I have a sorethroat/cold thing so I don't really feel up to doing very much... Anyway, I'm just trying to update my action activity which is something I'm actually very very excited about. If you couldn't guess from the title, my activity is SAISA Badminton XD It's badminton season again so yeah, much excitement!

I'm trying out for the school team again because frankly, I loved the experience last year. This year I'm hoping to make it into the top 3 in girls singles (which I missed by one game last year -_-) as well as place in doubles and these two are going to be my goals for the season.

To achieve these goals I know that I have to learn and improve my already existing short serv, polish it up till I can nail it every single time. This is porbably my biggest area of weakness in the game as I can't get flat, slow short serves which means I lose points within the first few shots. I'll also need to practice getting my drops/saving drop shots from high up s that I don't lose easy points trying to dive for those shots.

As well as this, I will work on my areas of strengths which are usually my long serves and my smashes (if you can call  them that). I need to keep practicing these particular shots in order to improve my game and make it to the top.

I am, quite honestly, surprising myself with how committed to the game I am this year and how much I've been preserving in my need to improve my game. I've got my game face on. I realize that this is my last chance to play a SAISA sport (I won't be traveling after January due to exams) so I'm giving it my all. I'm making every single practice on time with all my gear (including shoes haha since I like playing barefoot) so that's three days a week for 2 and a half hours each session. We'll soon start Saturday morning practices as well and I'm looking forward to it :) I've also been on top of my fitness, running with my dog every day I don't have practice and doing 4K on Saturday evenings.

So, aside from the physical aspect, I've found badminton to be a fairly mentally challenging game this year. Not just strategy wise but with the team, it takes a lot of willpower to play the game and survive practices. Our team was reduced to just 4 members from last year once the seniors left last year and now I find myself having to collaborate with the other members to help in practices and sometimes plan and initiate activities when we play with the new kids which is as annoying as it is fun. That is to say, as a senior player I'm expected to help the new player and teach them some skills. I love doing this when people are willing to learn but I do have a short fuse when people muck around when I'm trying to be serious so playing the game is teaching me to be mindful of other people's opinions and feelings which is considered a bit of a challenge for me personally. Apparently I'm intimidating (pshhh as if, I'm adorbs :P) on the court so I'm trying to work on that too. I'm really looking forward to this season, I'm ready to play the game and I just really want to do my best. I can't wait to start the team practices and start playing doubles with both the guys and girls. 

Well, I guess that's what badminton is about in a nutshell. It's pretty hard balancing it with studies but at the same time it helps because I have limited time to do things so I do my work rather than procrastinating. It's the type of game that gives me a pleasantly swooping feeling in my stomach when I think about it and I look forward to a successful season ahead.

Fingers crossed for the tournament~!

Have a great weeks guys, stay safe, stay healthy and talk to you soon! :D