Frisbe!

Frisbee is a sport i enjoy to play and that seems to be way I feel with many invasion games such as football and basketball. To me Frisbee screams summertime fun with the friends in the park or at a BBQ. well we got to the fieldhouse and since it was a little cold due to that amazing Ellensburg wind we stayed inside for the most part. we practiced our Frisbee skills with multiple activities. Were did some Frisbee bowling where we had to knock down some pins, hang time where you had to see how far you can throw a Frisbee and run it down and catch it, and we also did a activity where you run parallel to a partner and throw back and forth to each other without stopping or dropping the Frisbee which made us practice leading throws to our partner. we then played 3 0n 3 Ultimate Frisbee which was really fun to compete with the class mates and the intensity, fun, and skills go way up when playing against each other. We then went outside to play Frisbee golf where Sean, Jason, Carl and I got to fight the lovely wind but we had a lot of fun picking out targets as holes and at every hole we had to work on a different throw so we could work on our backhand, forehand, and vertical throws. Frisbee golf was eventful from when we had to fight the wind our rolling throw in which it seemed our throws would go about 20 feet and the take a right turn with the wind! lol We then had to work though the sprinklers that were going off, the Frisbee landing on a video filming tower and a lovely forehand pass that slipped out of my hand that hit Sean in the shoulder and sent him to the ground.! it was a great time but we ended back inside working on the advanced and intermediate level skills to finish out class.

http://www.upa.org/

PEAK

Over the weekend The Physical Education program Hosted the 9th annual Physical Education Activity Kaleidoscope (PEAK)! it was held at the Ellensburg High School. I went to the one last year as a student and attended this one as more of a volunteer to help the Physical education program. The best part about PEAK is that you get to see many teachers and students from all over the state to talk to and interact with about Physical Education and the sessions of the day. the most entertaining sessions of the day are the dancing, Geo fitness, and circus arts. with our movement 3 class we got meet with a current student teacher though Eastern Washington University named holly who showed us what Indo Boards are the day before she presented at the conference in the field house. At first I thought this is all balance which is not my strongest suit but me and mike hopped on and worked with them for and hour asking holly questions as she answered them and showed us a progression and many, many things you can do with a Indo Board. By the end mike and I were having fun with the boards while getting a workout.

http://www.pelinks4u.org/peak/peak.htm

Everyday!

I have really never put in so much work for a class! With this class I have had to put in a good amount of time every day. Besides the class which is 4 hours every Tuesday and Thursday, I have had to practice outside of class. For instance in the last day I have taken home a Diablo to work on tricks, I went played Frisbee and worked on throws yesterday for an hour with my roommates, and besides that I have to plan out activities for the honors camp but when all of the people in my group are really busy and have literally no time to get together due to work, class, and sport obligations to attend to which makes it hard to get together even though i am very excited about the camp. Our group meet today for 30 minutes to go over the overall plan of our activities which will consist of a team scavenger hunt with a pirate theme where the group will go from spot to spot taking on challenges such as the human knot and trust falling activity to work though the treasure map to get to the end. Then of course I have to stay up on my blog for the class which I don’t mind at cause I really enjoy it. It just seems like if this movement class is not on my to do list for everyday that I am falling behind so it has become priority number 1 for the quarter. I already realize with the activities we have to do in this class that I am already behind because I have had no prior experience with anything in the class and I know that rock wall climbing, Diablo, flower sticks, juggling, unicycling, bicycling, in line skating, orienteering, rappelling and archery will be hard to pick up on in a quarter. I will have to spend many hours working on these skills to get success but that i am willing to do to get the success. If I spend time everyday on this then maybe just maybe by the end I will show success in all of the areas.

Archery!

Today we got to go out to Dr. Mathias place on the Southside of Ellensburg and shoot some arrows. Was the 1st time I got to pull back an arrow and let it rip but I must say I felt a little like Robin Hood! We got to take turns with the Bows and take 3 consecutive shots at the targets from about 25 - 30 feet away. Sounded easy enough but it was difficult enough just to stay consistent with your accuracy but the biggest factor was that lovely Ellensburg wind which would come over the hillside in nice burst and stayed pretty consistent throughout the class. Mike, Sean and I took turns sharing a target in which we showed progress after the 1st few trial runs and were hitting the targets constantly by the end. I didn’t get a bull’s eye during the class but my accuracy did get better from hitting the target with 2 out of the 1st 3 arrows to being able to hit red circle that surrounded the yellow bull’s eye. The experience overall was fun, I got to spend some time out in the sun with the cohort taking on archery which I felt like was a big game of darts, or at least that’s how I saw it!...I also gained a lovely sunburn on my forearm in the shape of the forearm guard which looks pretty funny!

Rock Wall Climbing

This was most defiantly a first for me! The prior experience I had with this would be climbing on trees way back when in my days in elementary school, but the biggest difference back then was that I was much smaller and had whole branches to grab on to instead little colored knobs that my size 13 shoes are suppose to climb on! On another note, it is a workout! I don’t think my forearms have ever been so worked in my life! This comes from a little improper form I was using, at first I climbed with my body close to the wall and really worked my arms but I soon learned from Dr. Mathias to loosen my arms and hang more away from the wall which was less stressful on the arms and allowed for more abilities to move.

5 pointers I learned about Rock wall Climbing was:

1. Climb with loose arms to keep your muscles less tense and your body away from the wall

2. When needed you can use a technique called matching to help get to the next knob, this is where you put both hands on one knob so your lead hand can get to the next knob.

3. Be a cat not a cow! A cow climber (like me at least at 1st! lol) you can hear hit the wall with their feet and hands, where as a cat climber is quiet and makes each move smoothly.

4. When needing another spot to put your feet you can use a technique called smear. This is similar to matching because you only use this when you need to move your body to get to the next knob except this is with your feet. What you do is when moving to your right you can put your right foot above the knob it is on to the wall generate friction to use the wall as a temporary knob so you can move your left foot over to the knob your right foot was on to move your body enough to get your right foot to the next knob

5. The last item I learned was to never line up your feet and hands straight up and down because you become more like a barnyard door and swing back and forth where instead you want to constantly have a wide base to keep balance on the wall.

Circus Arts!

Circus Arts, to sum it up ...it's harder then it looks! Being in the Physical Education major and a high school athlete I am used to having success in traditional sports such as basketball, football, baseball, and volleyball, but circus arts is a totally different ball game! Everything in this class I can honestly say I am a 1st timer except for messing around with the Diabolo's (pictured to the right) at last years peak conference held at Ellensburg High School. The summary of this class for me so far has been frustrating! What has come easiest was the flower sticks which are not that difficult in comparison to the other arts. The diabolo is probably the most fun because it is still very much challenging but it is more entertaining and flashy! I can currently only do 3 tricks which are the whip, throw and catch, and the trampoline. I did the the trampoline for the 1st time today and I have to say when you are able to get a trick down it is a great feeling! Circus arts calls for a lot of creativity which I think I got the imagination for just not exactly the skills to back it yet! The other arts will need much more practicing such as unicycling and juggling.....much more practicing!!!

Lake Wenatchee 8th Grade Honors Camp!

Found out today that our cohort gets to participate in a 8th grade Honors Camp that is held at Lake Wenatchee! it seems like we will have a lot of freedom in planning activities for the camp! we all got into small groups and i am grouped with Mary and Mike. We instantly started brainstorming ideas on what to do. We came to some conclusion in that we are going to do a team scavenger hunt of some sort in which the students will have to take on challenges and finish activities to get to the end! Challenges could be undoing the human knot or completing a obstacle course together where as the activities could be egg tosses or Tye dye bandannas! still a ways off but it it is really fun to think about! any good ideas shoot them my way!

http://www.lwycamp.org/

Getting going in Movement 3!

To be honest I got a late start on the quarter due to the national AAHPERD conference in Tampa Bay, Florida! But, I got back to ellensburg and back to being a student. The 1st day of movement 3 for me was at Ellensburg High School where we participated in the challenge course. I felt really excited and nervous for the day but I knew were were in good hands with Dr. Kirk Mathias, Mrs. Leanne Semprimoznik, and Mr. Brian Hagbo who teaches at Ellensburg High School. The challenges were based on teamwork and strategy. My favorite part was when a group of 12 of us were behind a line and stood about 10 feet away from a hanging rope which was about 10 feet away from a wooden platform that was probably 4 feet by 4 feet. The goal was to get all of us on to that wooden platform some how some way knowing that no one or no thing could touch the floor and we had to hold all of us on there for 10 seconds! We stepped back and we talked about as a group and decided to tie our shoes together to use to get the rope over to us. i had the challenge of using the shoes to hook the rope and get it back to us which was actually really fun! In our 1st try we got 2 people over but i went and dropped the ball when I swung across i gained to much momentum and knocked one of our group members off the platform(My Bad!) alright second try! i hooked the rope back over just fine but i went 1st this round and went over just fine and got my right foot on the platform but couldn't get my left foot out of the loop and couldn't stay on the platform ( My Bad again!) alright well 3rd times the charm right! I once again hooked the rope back over to us and went 1st again but this time I just lifted my feet high and kept it out of the loop. That opened it up to the rest of the group and we just started swinging over and were standing there with 6 people on the platform thinking that there is no way we can fit double the amount of people we had on there already! But we just kept swinging over and next thing ya know we had 12 over and on the platform as i had a death grip on 2 people on each side of me! we held that for 10 seconds! what relief! .....next up unicycling and circus arts?

http://www.aahperd.org/