SAISA Badminton (and Goals)

This semester, I decided to join the tryout lessons for SAISA badminton (season 4). The tournament is to take place in our school during the first week of April. Although the tournament is very close to our May examinations, I feel I can still be able to commit to the sport since we won't be travelling to the play the tournament.

I have never played badminton at a competitive level or even been to any classes. However, I still decided to to join SAISA badminton because I feel that I will be able to apply the skills I acquired playing tennis in to badminton as well. This is not an easy task because although both sports are played using rackets, there are some significant differences between the two that I need to work on. The first being that badminton is not played with a ball, so the amount of power apply to a shot will be different. Other differences include, tennis involves the movement of the entire arm with a stiff wrist while playing shots, however, badminton involves a loose wrist while playing shots.

I have addressed all these issues and I think I have got a good handle of the game. On the 3rd of February, Our coaches, Mr Pradeep and Mr De Silva, formed two groups, Group A and Group B. Group A consists of player who have good skills and are likely to make the final SAISA squad. Group B consists of everyone else who still needs to work on their skills. People can move up from B to A and they can also go down from A to B. I was placed in Group A which I took as a good achievement and as proof that I was able to address the issues I had in the beginning. Of course, I would have to work hard to keep my place by being consistent and constantly improving.

My Goals for SAISA Badminton:
- Prove that I am capable of getting a place in the final 5 of the SAISA squad.
- Show that I can win matches in the SAISA tournament and reflect on my experience in the tournament.
- Reflect on my overall experience with badminton and compare my skills to the skills I had when I first started out badminton.

Reflection on Grade 12 semester 1 and reviewing of the Goals (part 3)

Service

My first goal for the service is about achieving all tasks given by my service leaders.

Prove that I can follow the examples of the leaders in SOS Orphanage and achieve tasks with my best effort applied to them. Then, reflect on my experiences and of all the self accomplishments in the service sessions.

I feel that I have certainly achieved this goal for semester 1 and I will continue to do so for semester 2 as well. Our basic tasks in SOS Orphanage are to teach the kids some English and Maths, then teach them about a country via a PowerPoint presentation and then finally head down to pool and teach them swimming. I have been able to do 2 out of 3 of these tasks, I have still to give a presentation about a country. This is something I hope to do soon before the end of the interim. Nevertheless, throughout the semester, we have planned and initiated our activities whilst working collaboratively with each other in order to give the SOS children a fun learning experience here at OSC. My biggest accomplishment this semester was probably helping a kid who was very scared of the water, to move away from the sides of the pool and swim a complete lap (width). It took some time but in the end, it was rewarding to see him overcome his fears of the water.

My second and third goals are based on taking part in my own service activity as a leader.

Formulate my own service activity either in school or outside, or take up a leadership role in an already existing service activity.

When the second goal has been accomplished; reflect on my first days' work as a leader as well as prove that I am capable enough to continue my leadership role.

Though I was not able to obtain a leadership role in a service activity, I have however been able to obtain a leadership role in Cricket, which is regarded as a Creative and Action activity. Shwetank, Shubanshu and I became leaders of the After School Activity (ASA) Cricket, which is an activity where students from grades 6 and up can come to play cricket with us whilst learning some cricket skills as well. This was one of my favorite activities I did this year because of my love for Cricket. Since the beginning of the year, my co-leaders and I worked collaboratively and show perseverance and commitment in to being good leaders of this sport at OSC. We got good feedback from the kids in our ASA and I could see their improvement from the beginning of the semester to end of it.

My final goal is:

Reflect on my overall experience of service work by the end of this year and show how I have grown as a service volunteer as well as how it has affected me.

Since this year hasn't ended yet, I have yet to accomplish this goal completely. However, I have had a great experience so far in CAS and I can see that I have changed in terms of my perspective of CAS and its global importance especially in the Service aspect.

Reflection on Grade 12 semester 1 and reviewing of the Goals (part 2)

Action

My first goal for Action is to compare the improvement of my tennis skills over the course of two years.

Compare and reflect on the my skills at tennis by the end of this year with the skills I had when I started out the diploma programme. 

When I first started out the Diploma Programme at OSC, I was not new to tennis. I have mentioned this before as well. I had stopped for a while to focus on exams so I had some warming up to do in order to get back my momentum of the sport. I feel that I have been able to both do this, as well as significantly improve my skills over the past two years. This is mainly due to me showing more perseverance and commitment to tennis since the beginning of IBDP.

My second goal is about taking part in tennis competitions.

Take part in more competitions this year which include contenders with high amounts of skill. The previous year I completed my goal of taking part in a competition organized outside class where my doubles partner (Hemeka) and I made it to the quarter-finals. This year, I hope to take part in that same tournament-which is an annual event. I hope to reflect on my experience as well as evaluate my skills in Tennis and in all the competitions.

I have been able to partially achieve this goal. I did take part in another competition however it was not the same SSC open tennis tournament I played last time. This was a tennis tournament for everyone in my class, along with the more experiences adult students who go for coaching from my teacher as well. The adults proved to be my biggest challenge, but Hemeka and I were able to win quite a few games by the end of the tournament. I was able to work collaboratively with my partner during this tournament and to make an effective team.  

My final goal is about winning in a tennis competition(s).

Obtain a place in the podium by the end of a tournament and then by the end of the year, reflect on my overall experience that I had in Tennis during the course of two years and show the transition from how I stood last year and how I will stand by the end of this year.

This was a goal I made to last to the end of the two years of CAS. However, in that last tournament I played which included everyone in my tennis class, Hemeka and I were able to work collaboratively in order to obtain a third place position by the end of the tournament. This was a points based tournament as opposed to the SSC open knock-out based tournament. I'm proud that I was able to do this and I feel I have increased awareness of my strengths and areas for growth.

Reflection on Grade 12 semester 1 and reviewing of the Goals

Another semester of CAS comes to an end and this is another time for us review back to the August when the our Goals for grade 12 were written up and see where we stand now in terms of which goals we completed.

Creativity

At the beginning of the semester, one of my goals was to learn a total of 10 beats by the end of grade 12.

Continue to work on all the beats I learnt the previous year and apply these skills to this year to show that I can learn a further 5, more complex beats. With the 5 beats I have learnt the previous year (4/4 beat, 3/4 beat, cha-cha, mamba and hustle), this would mean that a total of 10 beats has to be perfected by the end of this year. 

I feel confident that I have certainty been able to achieve this goal as well as exceed in this task as well. I have been able to learn 6 more new beats and also 2 more drum fills with another beat, the 'Baila' beat, currently being learnt as well. I feel that this is a great personal triumph for me because I did not expect to learn this much before the year had even ended. I do know that I was very passionate about drums and I showed perseverance and commitment throughout this learning process, since the beginning of grade 11 however, and buying a new drum set really helped me learn more beats than I expected. I feel that the pursuit of this goal allowed me to increase the awareness of my strengths and areas for growth. One of the greatest challenges I faced during this learning process was switching between drum beats and fills (this can be seen by the video I had previously posted). They all vary in terms of the rhythm and pace, but I have been able to overcome this challenge and I hope to perfect all beats flawlessly by the end of grade 12. 

My second goal deals more with the creative aspect.

Prove that I can compose a range of my own drum beats without the help of my teacher; this goal is a continuation from that of last years, which I plan to accomplish by the end of this year. The goal is to compose 1 or more drum solos (non-stop drumming with different beats played one after another) and present them via video, accompanied with a reflection on how it I got to that point.

This was a chance for me to really test my creative side and to really see whether I had the making of a drummer. I have been able to compose a few beats of my own and I have also posted a video of me drumming everything I have learnt since the beginning of grade 11 to half the first semester of grade 12. The new beats I composed can be seen in the video as well, though of course they need more work done on. I have never composed any piece of music before and so I feel that I have certainly developed new skills. I am not sure however, whether I have truly posted what makes up a drum solo, since I stopped after each beat in the video while usually in a drum solo, all beats must be played without the drummer stopping. This realization has allowed me to increase the awareness for my strengths and areas for growth and so I will continue to work on these beats and hope to perfect them by the end of the year. 

Unfortunately, I could not achieve my third and final goal for creativity yet. 

Play at a few school musical events and/or musical events in or outside school and reflect on my experience and what I accomplished from that experience. Then, compare and evaluate how I was in the beginning of grade 11 and and how I will be by the end of grade 12 in terms of my drumming skills and my confidence in the creative aspect.

This was probably my most challenging goal and as of now, I have not been able to perform in any musical event. Do to the amount of work we were getting since the beginning of grade 12, I feel that I was not able to commit to this goal at all. I had been given the opportunity to play for a couple of school concerts but due to the assignments I had during the time these offers were made, I could not attend any of the practice sessions. Hopefully, there will be another event that I may have the chance to perform in if I feel that I can allocate the time for it. 

New Action and Creativity activities!

I joined the after school sports activity, Badminton and Cricket since the beginning of the semester.

I have taken up a leadership role in Cricket. So, because of this I would not be playing Cricket necessarily, but rather coaching. I would have to plan each lesson with my other two co-leaders, Shwetank and Shubanshu. Both of them have been doing Cricket since last semester as well, so this time, instead of resuming their leadership roles entirely, they have appointed me as the leader and they would act as my mentors. The reason is, I have more experience playing Cricket than they have because I have trained in a Cricket club called NCC for 2 years. I know some strategies which we can apply while in the field and my plan is to teach these strategies to the kids during the Cricket sessions.

I also chose Badminton because I hope to join SAISA Badminton which is to start in Season 4 (January). I have played Badminton before as well but not as rigorously as I play Tennis. By joining the Monday Badminton session, I am able to gain some more practice and hope to develop new skills.

Goals for Cricket:

- Design a proper lesson plan with the help of my co-leaders and show that I possess good leadership skills    in Cricket.

- Reflect on a semesters worth of leadership in Cricket and analyse all the new skills I learnt as a leader.

Goals for Badminton:

- Show that I have greatly improved my skills in Badminton and prove that I have the ability to play at a          competitive level.

- Get chosen for the SAISA Badminton team and reflect on my experience in Badminton at a competitive        level.

Me (in white) umpiring a Cricket match

Me (in white) and Shubanshu (in yellow) giving the kids catching practices

Shwetank helping the kids at the Nets

Me and Shubanshu helping a kid who is a beginner to bat the Nets

Drums: New Drums

On the 9th of November, I went and purchased a new Premier drum kit! With this new kit, I am now able to play drums whenever I want and practice far more often than before (I had to wait till we have lessons to actually practice drums). Also, with more independence I am able to search and try to play different beats than the ones I learn in class. This is very significant for me because this helps better me to accomplish my goals in the Creative field.

As of last year and this semester, this is how the beats learnt compare:

Last year:
- 4/4 basic Rock beat and 2 different drum fills.
- 3/4 Waltz beat
- Cha-Cha beat
- Mumba beat
- Hussle beat

(I completed my last years CAS goal, which was to show that I can learn 5 beats)

This year:
- 4/4 basic Rock beat and 4 different drum fills
- 3/4 Waltz beat
- Cha-Cha beat
- Mumba beat
- Hussle beat
- Bosonova beat
- Oriental beat
- Tango beat
- basic Punk beat*
- 'Funky' beat*
- Variation of the basic rock beat. 

(* indicates beats I learnt on my own)

By getting a new drum set, I was able to undertake new challenges and learn drum beats on my own. It also helped me understand and increase the awareness of awareness of strength and areas for growth, such as in the new drum beats and fills I recently learnt. I have developed new skills, as can be seen by the new beats I learnt and I showed great deals of perseverance and commitment during this very significant learning process. This process wasn't just the learning of new beats, but also the fact that I am able to learn new beats and fills on my own using other resources, other than my drums teacher.

Given below is an unedited video of me drumming (beats from last year).

Tennis matches

Today I went to another session of tennis at SSC, this time, we decided to dedicate the whole lesson to play matches. This was done so that we get enough practice in proper tennis match situation and so that we learn the different techniques, such as good movement around the court, areas where you should stop to play a
shot as well as areas where you should aim to hit the ball in terms of your current position of the court.

Since I was one of the senior players in my class, I was partnered with a someone who was not as experiences during the matches. This helped him to improve his and me to plan and initiate a game plan.

By the end of the matches, I had successfully worked collaboratively with my partner to win most of the matches, and this was due to us showing perseverance and commitment to the matches and with a goal of having a maximum amount wins and in the process, improving out tennis skills as well.