Sports Council Newsletter #8

NLCS JEJU SPORTS COUNCIL

December 7, 2020

NJSC NLCS Jeju | Sports

General Notices

No Upcoming Fixtures Due to COVID-19

NJSC will also be available through the school website.

If you would like individual achievements to be mentioned, send details to yjchung22@pupils.nlcsjeju.kr

Contacts Chair: Alex Yoonjae Chung Link Teacher: Ms J Forster Sports Council Email: sportscouncil@pupils.nlcsjeju.kr What would you like us to write about? Tell us through: Instagram: @nlcsjeju_sc Facebook: NLCS Jeju Sports Council ……………………………………

RIP. DIEGO MARADONA

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NLCS JEJU SPORTS COUNCIL

December 7, 2020

What motivates me to play sports?

Alex Chung (Head of Sports Council) What kept me to playing for the U-16 national Taekwondo team at the age of 15 was perseverance. At the age of 3, my first step to the world of martial arts has kicked off which became something that I can’t live without. Every day after school I’ve ran to the arena and practised for 6~8 hours. This regulated lifestyle continued until I reached my first year as a teenager. Competing in tournaments and championships, what kept me to reconsider my dream of becoming an athlete was the constant taste of defeat.

Years of practice couldn’t help me achieve a gold medal from hundreds and thousands of competitions which eventually made me discuss with my coach. Without any doubt, I can easily say that my coach was the key in my life of sports. He knew me better than anyone else.

“Giving up means your defeating yourself.”

The quote above was and is my motivation for playing sports. In fact, it is my motivation in life. My competitiveness was eminently displayed by my behaviour whilst sparring. My coach pulled out my potential, and after years of perpetual defeat, at the age of 10, I won my first gold medal.

There are a variety of factors that motivate me to play sports but above all, the most central and fundamental thing for me would be endurance and perseverance. It puts me into a situation where I can express my strongest strength and gives me the ability to reach further than the extremity.

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Phillip Kim (Mentoring Team) My passion for sports started when I was very young. Ever since then, sports have helped me acquire life skills and a sense of purpose in life.

Teamwork and communication are the two most important skills that I have acquired from playing sports. All competitive sports require communication with teammates, interaction with them to optimize the best possible outcome. When I play sports, I go through the process of communication over and over again.

Even when I play sports with strangers or with someone I have never spoken with, I need to communicate. This process allows me to be more of an extrovert and be more outgoing, which eventually leads me to be more confident in myself and allows me to take more risks and make better decisions. How sports changed my personality is fascinating. I believe that the key skills in life, communication and teamwork are best acquired through playing sports and this is one of the main reasons why I am motivated to play sports.

Sports have also helped me gain a sense of purpose in life. What I mean by this is that sport makes my life much more meaningful. School life, which is sometimes just repetition of the same routine, could be quite boring to students. However, sports make a big difference in the tedious routine. While everything I do in normal routines is monotonous, sports is always something so lively and dynamic. There are always challenges for me to overcome and there are always targets for me to achieve while playing sports. These variations make the real difference. It is like a comfort zone in my life and which helps my life pleasurable and entertaining.

So, sport is something that makes me always learn new things and is something that makes me gain a sense of purpose in life, so this is how sport motivates me.

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Sekyong Hwang (Media Team) When I think of sports, words such as courage, passion, enjoyment, and competition come to my mind. I hadn’t much thought about sports before, but I recently got to know and experience various sports since I joined the sports council. Sports is the opportunity to utilize different strategies, gain different learning experiences, and feel liveliness as well as excitement. “There may be people that have more talent than you, but there’s no excuse for anyone to work harder than you do.” by Derek Jeter. Sports is a long journey and is a real challenge. However, this challenge allowed me to overcome every obstacle and grow both mentally and physically. Sports isn’t an individual work but is an opportunity to meet and cooperate with new people with similar interests. I cannot forget the moment when I became family and teammates with the people who I’ve never met before. All of us become one when we laugh, cry, and scream. These days, the whole COVID-19 situation limits our sports experience. We are now able to appreciate sport even more than before. Our memories are all the more precious now.

Sunny Wonjin Choi (Poster Team) For me, the desire for collaboration and stress relief motivated me to play sports.

When I play netball, for example, I feel like I interact with the team members to a deeper extent, rather than simply communicating through conversations. When playing sports, we have to observe what the other members of the team are doing, and constantly think through the possibilities, which significantly increases the interaction between the members. Also, sports is the only time when I can get my mind of the huge workloads and the upcoming due dates of the assignments. I solely enjoy the time when I play sports and I often find myself genuinely feeling like I am free of all the academic stress.

When I was young, I didn’t play a lot of sports because I thought it would be exhausting and no fun. However, when I tried basketball when I was in year 7, it shifted my paradigm of sports. I didn’t expect to fall this hard much for any sports. I loved how everybody in our team was heading for the same goal, and once that goal is done, the sense of achievement is shared among the team members, which amplifies the happiness of playing sports.

Teamwork is the most important thing that I have learnt from playing sports. If there is a lack of teamwork, there is no way that the team will improve. One of the attractive aspects of sports is that every member of the team matters. The team has to care for each other and improve all together in order to perform the best the team can.

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NLCS JEJU SPORTS COUNCIL

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Alison Hyeyun Song (Marketing Team) Since I was young, I always loved to play sports during my free time. My mum initially suggested that learning how to swim will be very useful for me, which was my starting point of playing sports. Even though my mum was the first influential person on my love of sport, I started to love the sports itself as I realised the beauty of sports.

As I came to NLCS Jeju in year 7, I was interested in joining the netball and basketball squad. I didn’t know any skills or tactics to play netball or basketball, but it really made me want to challenge myself. As time went on, I wanted to improve the standard abilities required to be part of a member of the netball and basketball squad. I’ve visited the Sports Hall during break-out times and participated in pick-up games which really improved my passing and shooting skills. The fact that students from different backgrounds play the same sport as the same team in one particular court was fascinating. Thus, what made me overcome the fear of playing with strangers was the passion and love towards sports I can view from every senior student.

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Gender and Sports Sumatra Marty Dillon With movements like #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, it is clear we live in an age where one of our main goals is striving for egalitarianism in the face of inequality and oppression. Where a majority of the wider population is disadvantaged by societal and judicial forces, the drive for equality colours several aspects of our daily life. Feminism is one such movement that is pushing for gender equality. Women have been disadvantaged in a society that values masculine virtues and the patriarchy, and feminism hopes to correct this injustice.

Many were shocked when the US women’s soccer team filed a lawsuit due to unequal pay in 2018. While the US men’s soccer team was not of poor quality, the US women’s soccer team outmatched them in terms of skill, popularity, and were consistently featured in international tournaments, where the men’s team was not. The lawsuit argued that “the female players have been consistently paid less money than their male counterparts. This is true even though their performance has been superior to that of the male players." The players who are part of the suit claim that the US Soccer Federation engage in institutionalized gender discrimination towards the women’s team. This suit caused international outrage, with a crowd chanting “Equal pay!” in Lyon, France during one of their games. Many celebrities, including Serena Williams, Eva Longoria, Natalie Portman, and more, have shared their support towards the women’s soccer team. This year, the federal judge in charge of the case dismissed the claims of the women’s soccer team.

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NLCS JEJU SPORTS COUNCIL

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While sports have been consistent in human history, women’s position in sports was not truly established until the 19th century, when more women in the upper class began to enjoy sports such as archery, horseback riding, tennis, golf, skiing, and skating. Shortly after the Olympic Games were reborn, women were invited to participate in the 1900 Olympic Games. Out of 1066 athletes, only 12 were women. Only men were permitted to participate in the 1st modern Olympic Games, and only men were permitted to participate in the ancient Olympic Games. In the last 2018 Winter Olympics, 58.6% of the athletes were men, with only 41.4% of athletes being women. This is an increase from the 2016 Summer Olympics, where male athletes made up 60% and female athletes made up 40% of those invited.

Over time, women have begun to anchor their position in sports and have begun to earn the respect that they deserve, and now rather than being viewed solely as women in sports, they are being seen as athletes. This is an incredible step, but we are still a ways away from equality. What we do know is that humans are incredibly strong and we will not stop fighting for equal rights and justice for all genders.

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NLCS JEJU SPORTS COUNCIL

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Interview with Mr. Sayam Kathuria Nick Oh This week, I would like to introduce to you Mr Sayam Kathuria, who is a Halla East graduate student who takes on countless sports related activities as part of our school’s sports department. He has an astonishing sports career which I would also like to share with you. I hope you enjoy this interview.

Can you give us an overview of your sports career so far?

I grew up watching my brother play football. Despite the fact I started to play tennis before starting any other sport, my brother’s influence ultimately led me to begin football. This is how my sports journey all began.

As I played more and more football, I came to really like the sport. Constant efforts to the game eventually allowed me to represent my home city, Pune, as a teenager. Then, I found myself representing my state, Maharashtra and then even my home country, India.

Representing India’s National U-18 A Football team, I played in both the 2015 and 2016 Asian Games at the age of 16 and 17 respectively. My experiences as a professional football player 8

NLCS JEJU SPORTS COUNCIL

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helped him to get a sports / academic scholarship to Swansea University. While studying Sports Science at university, I also represented my university football team in the Welsh league.

In university, I studied Sports Science and throughout the course I worked with several professional swimmers at Swansea university.

What led you to come to NLCS Jeju?

After earning an undergraduate degree in Sports Science, I decided to come straight to NLCS Jeju for mainly one reason. Firstly, throughout my childhood, there was hardly any proper support for young people playing sports and I believe my friends and I could have improved much more if there was professional help. Even now, I believe that there is a lack of support for young people around the world. Therefore, I was motivated and wanted to give sports advice to young people, and the fact that I could do just that in NLCS Jeju compelled me to come here the most.

What activities are you involved in at our school?

I, as part of the sports department, lead most of the strength & conditioning and health related PE lessons. I try to structure the strength & conditioning PE sessions so that it is suitable for all students at different fitness levels. I try to motivate students by testing their maximum ability in different exercises so that they can see their improvements over the course of the term.

I also run the Strength & Conditioning CCA with Yr 5s and 6s. The CCA focuses on fundamental movement skills.

Lastly, I also help coach football in school. I am involved in coaching a large group of students ranging from Yr 5 to Yr 11.

What was your first impression of sports in NLCS Jeju?

When I first came to this school, I was impressed by how well structured the curriculum was.

The PE lessons were nothing like what I was used to as a teenager. Also, the CCA program in this school seemed to allow many students to try out so many different activities. Actually, the CCA program allows not only the students but also the staff members like me to get involved in various activities. For example, I got to try out golf by joining one of the golf bryants as a staff member.

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I was also very impressed by the facilities available for use in this school. The swimming pool, astro turf, track field, basketball hall, fitness suite, tennis courts, and many more. It definitely made me feel it was a great place to get involved in sports.

What is your most memorable sports moment in our school?

My most memorable moment in NLCS was last year as a coach when the middle school football team went to the Songdo 7s in Incheon. Last year, I was fortunate to be able to teach such a great bunch of excited Yr 7s. Accompanying these Yr7s, we headed to Incheon for a football tournament called Songdo 7s. Our team managed to reach the finals while beating all the teams that we lost to last year. Unfortunately, we got beaten in the finals. However, regardless of the outcome, I was so proud of how my players worked as a team and the atmosphere formed at the field by the parents and the audience was so memorable and heart warming at the same time. It was one of those gold moments that helped me to realise the reasons we have for putting in all the hard work.

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NLCS JEJU SPORTS COUNCIL

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Merry Christmas!! — The Sports Council

🎅🎄

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