“Jump and Spike, Look Alive, Lady Geckos Have Arrived!” –
OSC Cheer Squad, SAISA 2018
Badminton has been a part of my life for quite some time now and after moving to OSC, I played for the varsity badminton team in SAISA Badminton, South Asian Inter-Scholastic Association, a tournament held amongst 10 other international schools from across the Indian subcontinent region to compete against one another for the gold medal.
Badminton, however, is not the only SAISA sport.
SAISA sports range from team sports such as football to individual sports such as swimming. OSC offers three sports per season, with badminton being a second season sport. And, finding myself with nothing to do for the first season, I decided to keep my fitness up for badminton by trying out for the SAISA Girls’ Volleyball team, 2018.
Goals and Requirements for SAISA Girls’ Volleyball
Students will be working towards earning a place in a 10-player squad who will compete here in Colombo October 25-27 for the SAISA tournament. They will be expected to practice 3 times per week and work to improve their fitness, skills and tactical understand of the game. Students must sign up for and attend all 3 sessions.
Learning Outcomes:
Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
Show commitment to and perseverance in CAS experiences
Demonstrate the skills and recognize the benefits of working collaboratively
Volleyball Training
Initially, the only reason for me to even sign up for volleyball was for fitness purposes: I wanted to be the best version of myself for the second season and volleyball, being quite similar to badminton, conveniently happened to be in the first season and my coaches and friends encouraged me to try my hand at the sport.
Initially, I found myself transferring many skills from badminton into volleyball: the volleyball upper-hand service was relatively easy for me given how it was just like a clear shot in badminton, except I was hitting using my hand instead of a racket. Hitting and blocking also used some skills from badminton in terms of foot movement: jumping and side-stepping. Other shots, like setting, bumping and spiking, were alien to me.
So, yes, I did have a relatively easy transition into the sport but I found myself needing to practice and learn the concepts from scratch in order to improve my skills and somewhere along this process, I found myself driven to learn the sport and not just as a medium of keeping up my fitness.
I found myself liking volleyball.
I liked it so much that, in the end, when I was just below the cut line when selecting the SAISA team, I found myself disappointed. But my coaches were really encouraging and were proud of my development both in skill and tactic over the season and urged me to try out next year. Given how much I enjoyed it, I surely will!
On a side note, I think the reason I enjoyed volleyball so much is because it was the first team sport I played indoors (my first team sport being football) and my first ever sport that was coached by a female. I am much more familiar playing sports indoors and found it so enjoyable because of the energetic coaches that I had the privilege of polishing my skills with.
Volleyball has been nothing but fun and I can’t wait to try it out next year as well!
