Feliz Navidad Guatemalan Children!

This creativity task was something that I enjoyed doing the most since making videos is one of my passions and I believe I'm good at that! 

So when my Spanish teacher asked to create something for Guatemalan Kids that live in a shelter with no parents as a Christmas present I took this as a challenge to myself and my creativity and abilities! Christmas is the time for magic, family, love and being grateful for things we have.. Considering that I come from a privileged family, live in Portugal near the beach and go to one of the best schools in the country, I decided to share this with the kids. At first, I felt like I was bragging about my luck, since we don't choose the families we were born in.. However my teacher assured me that this was a good idea because it gives hope to the kids that one day they might be adopted into a good family! 

I began by planning out my words, which had to be simple, grammatically correct and also, just prepared so that during filming I don't stop to think and don't mumble. 

Next step was to plan the video. I believe for something to be done well it must be planned so I planned places, car rides, a moment with my 3 brothers. I decided to add an international touch, since after all, its a Russian family, doing a video in Portugal, speaking in Spanish and sending it to Guatemala. We are 4 kids in my family, and we know 4 languages, so I decided to make one part of the video of me and brothers, saying "Marry Christmas" in Spanish, Portuguese, English and Russian!

After that was planned, We chose a day when the weather was good, my brothers didn't have extra curriculum activities and we were ready to do it.

 When one person does something that they love, they don't feel pressure nor they get tired of doing it. Making this video seemed effortless since I was doing something kind, a message of Marry christmas to the kids, that have no family and live in different continent. If i had more time, I would probably show them Lisbon, show them food and traditions because If i get an opportunity to make someone happy, to give someone hope and wish for the best, I will take it. I think I managed to do a pretty good job, the video is encouraging and happy, it has great scenery and music, different places and many good things are said! 10 hors of planning, writing, filming and making flew by in a blink of an eye! 

Hope you enjoy watching it:) 

Canoeing

Last week of Action had come upon us, and teachers surprised us with very interesting and exciting activity! Canoeing! 

More activities in water (which i love), made me inpatient for the Wednesday afternoon! When the day came, we had to walk in the heat of summer sun in Portugal until the place which took us around 25 minutes. The canoes were already waiting for us to put the safety vests, suncream and get the "papagaios" or paddles. After we were put in pairs, we were ready to go! Martim and I joined together, placing Martim at the back, since he has more strength and Myself at the front to help him complete manoeuvres, turns and also, so i could rest sometimes and depend on him. It was a good pair for me, since he had done canoeing already and knew the basics.

Teacher had warned us that on our way to the beach we will be going against the current and wind, but on our way back, we will be going in the same direction which will make it easier, after all the work we had done on our way to the beach. 

At first, full of energy we got to the entrance of the bay and were about to enter the "ocean" when the teacher told us to wait, for everyone to sort things out. Since the current was already going against us, to keep us closer to each other and closer to the rocks, we all grabbed each others canoes and grouped in a big mass of canoes, waiting for the loud "GO" from the teacher. 

When that happened, pairs of boys were striking forwards, girls were floundered along behind us, and Martim and I were in the middle, performing very coordinated movements. It was helpful saying out loud "Left" and "Right" to keep the pace and avoid hitting each others paddles. After some experimentation we figured that paddling both on the same side was more efficient and fast. Any time we needed to turn, it would be double Left or Right, when to stop we had to place the paddle perpendicular to the flow on the side we want to tern to and it would stop the canoe and turn us to the direction we need. 

I feel like this activity was all about teamwork and coordination, as well as persistence and motivation from one to another, as in the middle of our way, i was so tired padding against the current, if Martim hadn't motivated me to continue paddling all along, wed be pushed backwards and never reach the beach. 

When we finally reached it, it was pure happiness and relaxation! We stayed there around 10-15 min, diving into waves and laying in the sand. 

After we realised we had no towels, we had to go back, all though it was with the current we faced the problem of wind, which made me freeze. Plus, everyone got very thrilled and relaxed of the benefits of the current and started splashing everyone, which was fun indeed :) 

This is how we ended the Action section of the CAS!

Surfing in Carcavelos Beach

Last wednesday the activity for Action CAS was SURFING! 

Four years ago, as i moved to Portugal, I couldn't not take advantage of living near the perfect beach with perfect waves al year around, so i had surfing classes for over a year, bought my wetsuit and got on a pretty god stage of it, but as i stopped and never had time to it, i lost all the skills i learned so fast. Lately I had the biggest nostalgia for that feeling of riding a wave, so when i heard we were going to do a surfing class, it was truly the best news before exams! 

When everyone was dressed in their wetsuits, we were ready to go! 

First stage: Warm up!

It is important to warm up before you enter the water, as not well warmed up muscles can get cramps and knots inside the cold water, which can also lead to paralysing you, and when you're in open ocean with big waves it can misbalance you and lead to very bad injuries, simply caused by not spending 5-10 minutes stretching and warming the muscles. To avoid that we had to : run few minutes to start up the cardio, and then going head to toes, rotating, flexing and stretching the muscles. 

Second stage: Technique!

Since Ive done that so many times, I picked up the technique faster, and now could focus on more efficient and faster way to do the take off. As you can see on the photo there are 3 stages: 

First you paddle. It is a great deal of feeling the wave so that you don't stand up too early and wave passes by you.. The your back leg goes up and front leg must quickly move from laying position to the stage position in the front of the board. Then as you get up, you must kneel a little to lower your centre of mass and of gravity making you more stable!

It is important that 1. you don't put too much weight and pressure on your hands and top of the board while taking off because it can go under water and make you fall with your board flying over you, and  2. you don't place your knee at the second stage, which makes your board go out of balance, and you fall again!  

After 2 hours, i managed to get some great waves and great falls! I'm feeling very motivated to spend some more time surfing this summer, and get my skills on point :) 

Here you can see the video of my "relatively successful" wave :)

Dancing + Gym!

Dancing for CAS? Just like Business and Pleasure :) 

Ive been dancing my whole life, and i can't imagine my life without the "8", a pumping rhythm, favourite sounds and a good choreo! 

Personally, I consider dancing - a sport, all though some people might say it is not and that it is easy etc etc, but its truly not that simple! Good dancing is not that simple, but this time, I knew from the beginning, it was gonna be the basics of the basics and I was scared i was going to get bored, as other girls in m team, didn't really dance, unless on parties where you don't even need a sense of rhythm.. 

As we got to the gym, we got changed for sporty clothes and met the Teacher. 

Like any other sport, we must start with warm up. It consisted of a short run around the small room surrounded with mirrors, very VERY simple movements, claps and steps and few stretches. As we got "Warm", teacher told us she would teach us simple choreos with the "commercial" songs we liked! So this was a pleasing part! As we started to learn the choreo, i felt a great advantage, even of the teacher herself.. After 13 years of my life dancing: Contemporary, Modern, few of Ballet and later Hip-hop and Female R&N styles, the choreography we were being taught felt like a gym class! Which isn't bad anyways, as we got to burn some calories and REALLY warm up before we got to go to the gym for the 30 min before we left!

By the end of the lesson, we learned around 5 choreographies with popular songs different styles, but sadly, even if styles were different, the movements were really similar. I don't feel the teacher challenged all of us to our maximum technique-wise, but the mood of the songs was very intimate and sexy even, which for some others was a bit of a challenge... Throughout the lesson, as a person who can catch information quickly and process a coordinated outcome in a short time, I learned all the steps easily and I can proudly say i put my maximum energy even in the simplest movements, and enjoyed myself doing great!

After dancing class, we headed to the gym, where I spent those 30 min running and continuing with the cardio. 

Tennis Week 3

On the third week, weather allowed us to do an outdoor activity and the best choice was the Tennis class in the tennis club near our school! 

In the beginnig we did a warm up and then go straight to the point, practicing left and right shots. unfortunatelly, teaching didnt quite explain us the best ways or even teach us, assuming we were all good, which made it harder in the beginning to find out how not to hurt your wrists, but eventuslly i did! Teacher decided to separate us ito groups of experienced and not experienced and wed be rotating! It was good at the beginning but when it was the turn of the experinced to play with the coach, we - non experienced - stayed aside watching, as plying a game wasnt something we did succesfully! 

With no strentgh in my arms  i needed some time to get used to my ball never going to the other side, but practice makes perfect and by the end of the session, Martim and I took a coart for our selves and enjoyed the passing! 

I cant say it was a learning experience, but it was a fun one indeed! Not many challenges or techniques actually learned, but i liked it anyways! 

Kickboxing - week 2

On out second week we visited a Kickboxing Class!

It was one of the funniest and empowering experience! 

At the beginning we had a warm up, which was important so we dont stretch our muscles while lifting our legs as high as you can see me doing on the picture! After that we played more games which also had some little bits of techniques. When we were warm and ready, coach showed us the way to move our hands in 3 manners, front "punch", side "punch" and below the chin "punch". As a girl i was at first embarassed and not giving my full potential and strentgh while doing those "punches", but my inner mad character made me more and more excited about this experince and encouranging in this activity so i made myself be better than some of the boys even! 

Next step were paired activities, such as First one holds a "pillow" and the other one punces in the middle of it! After that, we got to punch those bag! 

Coach took me for a demosntration after i showed so much effort and dedication to the practice! :)

I learned the bag at the bottom was harder than in the middle due to gravity and that you have to kick higher not to hurt yourself!

teacher told us, if we dont feel confortable with the pain we recieve from kicking and punching we could stop, but that pain was stress reveling for me and very calming! i figured, Id continue the lessons or even purche a punching bag for the stressful exam week! :) 

This experience was unique and very interesting! I challenged myself to try something girls usually scared of doing and i liked it, opening a new interest of mine! 

Week 1 - Action! Ultimate Frisbee & Beach Football

With good weather comes the time to go outside and its the perfect time to start the Action section of our School CAS activities!

This week we took it to the beach, even though it was very windy but it didn't stop us playing frisbee and getting to the tie of 4 - 4! 

Frisbee was something i never played as i never really saw a point in that game, but after teacher introduced us to the basic techniques and rules, playing 5 vs 5 was a very fun activity! We had to pay even more attention with the wind! But actually, it didn't take us that long to realise some tricks taking the windy weather as an advantage for some manoeuvres! 

After half of the lesson, we had to swap with boys and take over the football! The rules are well known so we started the game and didn't see the time passing to the end of the lesson when we headed back up to school! 

Overall, the first activity was more about communication and adaptation to the environment! Wind had to be taken under our control and our eyes had to be wide open to see to whom we could pass the frisbee!

Football, was more about fun and team work, all though running on the sand made us pretty exhausted very fast, we continued and finished the game with 3-2!