February 15th to February 23rd

Although we're having midterms this week, some activities were still continued.

Cheerleading~ On the 23rd we had our last cheerleading session under this coach. We did the usual warmup routine and also tried some double dutch skipping. i could enter the skipping rope but i couldn't follow up with the jumping. When we did some stretching today, the coach tried stretching us more than usual by forcibly spiltting our legs and making us do a mountain-shape to push us down and improve our flexibility. Later on, we tried to learn the basic manuover for doing a back flip. This is done by flapping your arms very quickly on a mat, and jumping so that you land on the small of your back, not your waist. We also did some bridges, and i can now do a bridge standing up, whereas previously i could only do it from downwards to up. One important thing we learnt today was how to fall stiffly, so that you don't hurt yourself. Its also a good training for strengthening the wrist.

Piano~ Piano this week was as per normal. The same pieces were played.

Solfege~Solfege was also normal. The piece we had to do for dictation though was really hard, and it had many strings of running notes. I think i did relatively okay, and my dictation is much better than it was when i first started.

Theory~ This week was spent practising for the performance of my composition piece. The performance was on Sunday and Penang Road, and it was recorded by my teacher. One lady later came up to me and told me that she really enjoyed the piece. For me, the best thing about my performance was getting to know her through her appreciation of my music. And it was very encouraging to know that she liked my piece. Most of the local people there seemed uninterested.

Badminton~ This week i learnt to smash. The coach threw shuttlecocks for us in the air and we would just hit them down. He would then correct our mistakes. And i also asked peter about how you deflect smashes and he showed me how you shift your grip to get more control over the racket so as to be able to flick the shuttle cock. We had to run 8 rounds around the court to practise different types of footwork, and also practise a stroke that trains the wrist 100 times. I'm trying to improve my stamina by playing continuously for the whole two hours.