The Motivation Is There

For the third day in a row, I have decided to use the elliptical machine to keep fit. As I mentioned on my last post regarding this subject, I said I would upgrade the time of calory/cardio by 5 minutes in the several days to come. I have decided to do this at the end of the month so that during this month I get used to a regular time frame which is beneficial for me if I want to improve, I have to master one time frame before moving onto the next one.

Today, I managed to stay above the 7 km/h frame during the free run on the standard difficulty. I think that I started of too quickly which I then felt after a while since I was more worn out than I should have been, nevertheless I was then able to maintain a constant speed I was comfortable at. However, since I see this as too easy I have decided to increase the level of difficulty by one and keep the same time duration and minimum speed. This will help me develop more physical stamina for the proceeding workout which was calory burn this time around.

I did this for 10 minutes and decided to change from last time's course to another one so I can test myself with different challenges. I managed well on this one since I was able to endure the course with a certain ease however my speed was quite variable even during the same difficulty parts of the course which I think I can improve to be more accurate since I would be preserving myself some energy by doing so.

Next time I do this (hopefully tomorrow), I will be doing cardio for 10 minutes varying from the course I did on Sunday and a 5 minute free run before that which I will do for 5 minutes on a level 2 difficulty.

Another Day, Another Workout

As I had mentioned yesterday regarding the elliptical machine and me doing it today, I decided to fill that opportunity with action.

Considering yesterday I did calory burn, today I did cardio for 10 minutes but before that I did a 5 minute free run in order to warm up a little. I tried to stay above 7.0 km/h during the free run since that is where I should be at and it is good motivation to set yourself a bar (it isn't  possible for me to set myself an aim during cardio or calory burn since the difficulty of moving varies however I do try to stay at a constant speed during different difficulties).

As an observation from today's session I think that I will push the time duration by 5 minutes i.e. for 15 mintues since I didn't feel to challenged nor tired today thus I think that doing this for more time may push me a bit more and after maybe a month of practice I will push the time boundary even further accordingly.

I think that today I did well to keep a steady pace in order to preserve energy better though near the end I decide to go faster simulating a race where participants sprint during the last couple of metres (in my case seconds/minute).

Next time I do this, I will be doing calory burning for 15 minutes once having done a 5 minute free run where I will try to stay above 7 km/h.

Change a swim for a run

As a result of being unable to go swimming today, I decided to not leave this day with a lack of productivity CAS wise thus, considering I have an elliptical machine at home, I decided to do some exercise.

Considering that I quite enjoyed doing it and that it was a good way to fulfill the action part of CAS, I am going to do this at least an hour every week. My plan is to do 20 minutes of cardio, 20 minutes of calory burn and 20 of free running where I will see how fast I can go on average which will hopefully help me see if there is an improvement in my average speed. By doing all this, I hope to improve my stamina and fitness which may help me when I play football on Thursdays.

Today, I tried to aquate myself with this piece of technology so that I would know how to properly use it for future sessions. I did 15 minutes of calory burn which was quite challenging since I had never operated such a machine nor tried it before. I also did some free running for which I did for about 10 minutes before stopping as a result of a distraction. I feel like this sort of exercise doesn't just train my fitness but also my mind since whilst I was doing it, I kept on pushing myself to continue even though I felt like I couldn't carry on so I am hoping that through this sort of exercise I become psychologically stronger.

The next time I will do this (most likely tomorrow) I will start with a free run for about 5 minutes which will just help my muscles get ready for the real work out. Then I will either do cardio or calory burning (whichever one I don't pick I will do the next time) which I will do for 15 minutes. I will then end my work out with a 5 minute free run to cool down my muscles.

Week 17

This week, I think I did very well considering I scored 2 hat-tricks and over 10 goals which fulfill the aim I set myself and it pays off for week 16 where I didn't. I think the reason for my success in scoring goals is that I was more active in positioning myself and my dribbling was very smooth which let me get past defenders with reasonable ease and bury my shots in the back of the net. I wasn't hesitant in taking shots at goal when I could see the chance, however I wasn't selfish since I passed the ball very often even though I could have had a shot. I made sure that once I had passed the ball I would move into space or communicate things that they could do e.g. I told Mr Harper to have a shot which resulted in him scoring and, later on, us winning the game. I also assisted several goals as a result of my passing the ball effectively both at short and long ranges.

In order to keep this going, next week, I will try to repeat the same routine and keep passing the ball and moving afterwards to find space so that I can get the ball back and maybe take a shot. However, I think I should try to defend more often since, even though I did come back to defend from time to time, I think I should do it more often to let others have a chance to attack.

Compared to last week, I think my determination and communication have gotten a lot better and my role as a team mate has become better as well in the sense that I make sure to always encourage others which is motivating and helps our team win games.

Moving away from a personal analyse, our team got the most points this week after winning all our games except one that we lost. Our success was primarily due to passing the ball around very well and this was largely because everyone on our team didn't always try to dribble and this influenced us all psychologically.

For our success as a team to endure, this will have to resume so that we don't play selfishly and lose the ball stupidly. Moving the ball around quickly is the key since it makes it harder for the opposition to adjust to the movement of the ball and the ball travels more quickly with passes so we will get more chances at goal and keep winning games.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rlipyPsxDQ&feature=youtu.be

Jordan

During the February break, I went to visit Jordan but that wasn't going to stop me from doing CAS work. I made sure that, when we were going to spend a night in the desert, we would dune board since that is something I would like to experience considering I am good at snowboarding yet I have never got the challenge of doing such a thing on sand. To my surprise it was very difficult since you didn't get the speed you get on snow and it was harder to maintain an upright position but I tried my best and I ended up not being too bad even though I did several mistakes which I later tried to correct with success.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-xlRtvrGA8&feature=youtu.be

I think if I were to dune board again I would try to focus on my position more since that is one of the factors which led me to disequilibrium and thus falling. For this to happen I will make sure that, if the snow stays a bit longer in Moscow, I buy a snowboard and start practicing since it has been a while since I haven't snowboarded even though I love the sport and I am really good at it.

Stepping away from dune boarding, I decided to create a video of my days in Jordan for fun and also to give me more practice and develop my creativity in video editing. I tried to be as creative as possible by making the pictures go by with the rhythm of the music and it ended up looking pleasant to the eye.

Next time, I think I will take more time in editing e.g. music choice, to make the videos more interesting and I need to figure out a way to flip over the videos with the software that I have or download a new one that will enable me to do so.

Further Planning for Sports Day

Today, we fixed a date for this event which was settled to be on the 3rd of July which gives us a lot of time to plan everything out and make sure that everything will run smoothly.

Along side that decision, we decided who among our year would be running the relay sticking by the rules of having a minimum of two girls. As well as that, we started allocating positions to people in our year as to where they will be and what they will be doing, however, we still need to sort a lot of people out for this and make sure they know exactly what they are doing.

When we come back from the half term holidays, we will ask which teachers want to participate since so far we have only asked Mr Gray who was alright with the idea of playing against our year.

My communication skills are improving with this task since I have to constantly talk to people to see who will be doing what and who wants to do what so that everything runs smoothly. This project has also taught me how to be more caring since I always people what they would want to do and what they would like to organise so that the day is also enjoyable for them and not just the people participating.

I think that in the next CAS session we should be more productive and write down ideas of what needs to be done and then delegate certain people in our group to do this so that we are as efficient as possible and that no time is wasted.

Winter Activity Day

For this year's Winter Activity Day, I helped organise a music quiz as well as sharrades to entertain the Year 10s who weren't planned for anything after their outing in the forest. The activity went really well since the Year 10s were very engaged in the activities we offered and it was nice to have an enthusiastic audience.

Organisationally, I was thorough since I always tried to think of things that could go wrong and therefore plan more out so that the activity would run smoothly. For example, I rearranged the tables so that they would be set in groups which could hold a maximum of 6 people in order to facilitate the task of creating groups. Also, I went to get brand new board pens so that there wouldn't be any issues on that front and I also made sure there were enough words for sharrades by creating more than we needed to which ended up being a slight issue since, even though we created more, we were out of words 2 minutes before the end of the session but we were creative enough to make words up on the spot to keep our activity flowing.

If this was to happen again next year, I think we should be more active since once we had finished preparing our activity and still had time on our hands, we should have gone out and helped others out or participated, however, to some extent is was good that we didn't since we actually had to organise more things and it is only after a while that we realised that. So relating to that, we should be more prepared next time and make sure that everything is or almost is perfect for when the group arrives.

Week 16

This week I think I got my head into the game late since it is only during the final matches that I was able to play at a good level, the rest of the time my positioning wasn't very good that is why I could get many changes at goal and some of my passes weren't powerful enough to achieve its destined destination. However, my lobbed passes were extremely good today and I tried doing them several times to get some practice and to see how good the outcome would be for our team.

I think that next week I will play more defensively since, funny enough, that is the way I think I score the most since I am able to be unmarked considering I am further back and I can get more shots at goal and have more momentum when I run up whilst if I stay up front that isn't provided to me so next week I will be sure to do this in order to score more goals.

I think that throughout all these weeks at football my communication has become a lot better since I say where I want the ball to be passed to me and if one of my team mates should take a shot at goal or if there is an opponent near him. This improvement in communication helps our team play better since communication is very important in this sport.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCb4Vw4HrK0&feature=youtu.be

Organising or Participating

Today, we went around asking people in our year whether they wanted to participate in activities or organise them during Sports Day so that we had an idea of how many people could control what was going on in activities and if we had enough people who wanted to play against the teachers. We found that there were enough people willing to organise and enough people who wanted to participate so that we could have three teams in the teacher and year 12 section. This will make things less tiring for that group since there will be alternations giving people the ability to take a break once in a while and recover their energy.

However, we still need to go and see which teachers are willing to organise and if there are some that want to participate so that we are definite that there will be enough people monitoring each station and enough to play against year 12s.

Another Day Swimming

Today, I decided to try to time myself to doing a 50m length so that I have something to help me track my improvement in a quantitative way. My first try with the crawl got me a time of 16 seconds which was better than my brother by 1 second which is something I am proud of since he was always the "fish" in the family. I then tried to do a butterfly length which is very hard since you can only use your feet in a "dolphin way" so to say but I managed pretty well though it is a hard technique to use with a time of 20 seconds.
I hope to improve my times in a month by at least 2 seconds so I plan on constantly pushing myself to my limit so that I can achieve this target.