IB Friday Wellness Day

Coronavirus has once again spread across the country, causing schools around the country to once again close. Our school was no different and we went back to the distance-learning plan and where we once again constantly stare at our laptops many hours on top of that the immense workload that keeps me stuck staring and my laptop screen. This also lowered my physical activity  as I used to do some exercises before or after school everyday to keep myself but now I had to spend more time sitting or standing staring at my screen for majority of my day which doesn’t really improve my physical activity. The only days where I was able to get a decent exercise was during the weekends but even that was filled with assignments to do. So when an IB Wellness day was announced on Friday the 13th. An IB wellness is a day to keep ourselves away from the screen and put focus and care on our physical and mental health.

So I decided to take this as an opportunity to stay away from my screen and focus on my CAS. So during that Friday I went straight to an exercise. I started off with a 5 min jog around my house followed up with some dynamic stretching. Since I haven’t been going to my badminton classes due to the pandemic, I decided to practice, my underarm, clears and smash shots, this was done by doing shadow matches, I did one shadow match to focus on my underarm shots, another on my smash shots and so on. A shadow match is a minute long with 7 min breaks in between. This not only helped me regain some muscle memory on my shots but it also helped me regain some of my agility as I had been doing not that much exercises to improve my agility for the past month.

I then moved into some gardening by watering the plants on the top floor garden and the outside garden. I also planted some chilies.

I then moved to my daily 30 min piano practice to calm my mind, as I focused on moving myself to new pieces. I tried new pieces such as the “Mazurka” and “Santa Lucia”.

To end this IB wellness day I chose to do 7 min mediation period. I did this meditation by focusing on my breathing on how air goes in and out nose. I then move on to the sounds that I hear such as the AC fan, and some bird songs.

Learning Outcomes

Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth

• I need to work on more on my agility and endurance so these need to be improved through playing badminton and longer jog time.

Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences

• When I was playing shadow matches I try to do as much shots moving up and down the field during that 1 min period, and I strive to increase those number of shots during that period as it would improve on my agility.

Demonstrate how to initiate and plan a CAS experience

• I planned to continue with my current badminton exercise until December but will making a few modification such as adding a longer jogging period and a plank session. If classes continue then I can have proper matches and see which areas I need to improve.