Here is the link to my NYAA mid-stage reflection, done in June of 2020.

This month has been a continuation of the previous two months, but also an incorporation of yoga. My mom has consistently done yoga for the last few years, and decided that it would be a good idea for me to try and work this into my schedule because flexibility and stamina is something that will really be beneficial for the sports that I play competitively. It started out being really hard, but as time went on, I found that my body really started to adapt to the situations that I found myself in, especially some of the harder poses. I think that yoga essentially allows us to become the master of our own minds and bodies, and I found myself slowly gaining control over my muscles and movements a lot more rapidly than before as this month progressed. I think this will really help with court coverage on a tennis/badminton court, and will really allow me to move at speeds and play at levels of rigour that I have not been able to do with much ease before.

This month was not much different to last month, except that I began doing supervised workouts with my dad on hand because he has trained to become a certified physical trainer and he knows the perfect workouts for the type of sports that I play. I was able to incorporate a lot more different exercises into my workout plan, and specifically workouts targeting the upper body and core muscles which are instrumental in a sport such as tennis. It was really important to have my dad around because some of these exercises required proper technique in order to achieve the maximum effect, and any other technique used could have resulted in serious injury. In my opinion, this month has been a lot more beneficial with this additional exercise, and it has really been great for my health because I can notice the evident weight loss as well!

My dad used this website in specific to find some great exercises for me to try out.

These 3 months were a lot different to what we had planned, as a result of the unfortunate pandemic. We had to move all our resources and meetings online; for the initial part of March, we were still able to visit the centre and these sessions were characterised by us doing some of the stuff that we had already did, but not for long before everything had to move into school as a result of the pandemic. We then took this time to really plan for what we would try to implement in this service following the summer break and the foreseeing return to the service partner location anytime soon, without knowing what was in store. We realised that the best way for us to show support for us without actually needing to be physically present was to raise awareness and promote advocacy within the school community itself, through means of online publicity as well as posters, fundraising events, etc. We had some fresh faces with the G9s, and their research was really helpful as it would help us carry our service through to its next phase when everyone would return and it was great to have some new helping hands that were gaining experience as well. In terms of meeting the elders, there was not much opportunity for that in these few months, but I hope that the plans we try to implement that we have brainstormed during these months will really take these relationships to new heights like never before.

These 3 months have been more fruitful and have produced better results than when we started. I think that this is especially evident in the relationships that we have developed with the elders at the centre, and it is especially evident in how we have been able to cater our ideas to some of the aspects of our service that the elders really enjoy while as well making sure that we are ethically and culturally considerate. It has been amazing to see how easy interaction can be between people of such different age groups, and I think that my initial goal of wanting to really develop a great connection between the Pioneer Generation of my home country and myself. We have really been able to build our activities in a contextual manner, so that every time there is a festivity for example around the time that we are visiting the centre, we are able to cater what the activity to that specific festivity; I think the elders were especially excited for the CNY activities as we cut and designed lanterns for one another as well.