Final reflection

After taking swimming back up for a year now, I have been able to reflect on the past couple of months. I have come across issues regarding the commitment I have made to the sport, and have had to deal with them. Although I have been able to learn and develop some of my skills in swimming, I have come across challenges that seem to be getting in the way a little bit as well. These challenges are many regarding my commitment to the activity.(LO2) As I can choose the days that I go, I find that I have been not as regular in my training as I would have liked. With lots of work from school, I have found that once I get home from school, I would much rather prefer to take a nap than go to swimming. Although this is the case, my mother does remind me that this is a commitment that I have made and I need to be more present in trainings. My participation in the activity has not been very good recently, as even when I do go to training, I don’t seem to be as engaged as my other team members as my head is normally somewhere else. When it comes to sport or exercise, I tend to enjoying working alone and focusing on myself rather than working as a team, which is something that I have had to work on the past few years, being part of a team. I find that during trainings, I am more detached than my teammates, not as involved as they are, or as interesting and dedicated than them. In order to improve on these issues, I think I need to work on my time management at home, making sure I have enough time for everything, and still leaving time to go to training. Managing my time to make sure that I have time for a nap if I need one, without disrupting my scheduled activists, such as swimming. This is going to be a difficult job to do as I tend to be a procrastinator and put work till last minute, which is when I have to go swimming, but then I have work to do that takes up that time.

Initial Reflection

After taking a year and a half off of nor swimming, I have recently decided to restart swimming this year. I grew up swimming at the Hollandse Club ever since I’ve lived in Singapore which started in Grade 4. I was quite good at swimming as I grew up training around 2-3 times a week but I never found it that interesting or enjoyable to do, my main motivation was my parents as they kept me dedicated to the sport as I grew up by making sure I went to my training as often as I physically could, which is a good lesson of perseverance they could teach me at that age. Ever since I’ve restarted swimming I find it a bit easier to stay motivated than when I was younger as I find the exercise more rewarding as I did before as I am more educated on the positive outcomes of exercise. Before I took my break from swimming last year, I swam with a friend which was a good way for motivation for both of us as we both were never too thrilled about training, we would make sure the other showed up so that we could train together as it made it more bearable. I aim to train 3 times a week but especially during IB as the workload is increasing ,I find it more difficult to keep up with my schedule of 3 trainings a week. Another thing that motivates me to go to training is the feeling after of healthy fatigue, I’m generally happier after I do exercise such as swimming due to the neurological effects of exercise, this is another reason of motivation for me as I enjoy that feeling afterwards(LO4). During the past one and a half months, my mother especially has been helping me to stick to this schedule and motivate me, by just making sure that I go and don’t make silly excuses to skip a training. Although my mom is trying to motivate me as much as she can, I never really feel as committed as I used to, finding it harder and harder to tell myself that I should go to training rather than taking a nap for example. Another aspect of swimming I have been struggling with is the planning. As I am now much older and have been part of the team for a long time, I have more responsibilities now, meeting with my coaches and planning sessions, even planning how to teach the younger kids on the weekend. Coming in on Saturdays to teach infants how to swim, where I have to come early to plan with my fellow coaches(LO3).