As a part of my cas journey and for the activity strand I completed 4 sessions of rock climbing in the fountainhead school. Doing rock climbing in my school gave me a chance to learn a new activity and gain a new skill where I could use my whole bodys strength and decision making skills to climb a wall. Rock climbing was very engaging and challenged me in several different areas. Rocklimbing not only was intresting but gave me a important life skill which could be benificial for me in the future. This activity helped me realise that we have to keep our whole body health as it fuctions as one to do certian tasks and to succeed in that we need to keep our body strong. Overall, Rock climbing taught me things that I wouldn’t have learned on my own.
LO1 – Identify own strengths and develop areas for growth
In my first session of rock climbing we started with warmup such as full body rotation and streching, then we moved onto cardio such as lunges, pushups, hand rotation exercises and upper body streches. The warmup was very easy and my body was flexible enough for rock climbing which was my area of strength as flexiblity is required in rock climbing to easily reach to the next rock Thus, this strength helped me to clear one part of rock climbing. I was able to do 20 to 40 pushups easily and do all the leg strength workout easily which showed that I had good body strength to push up and climb the rock wall. While I was climbing the was due to my strength of flexiblity and strength I was able to climb the wal. I had a major weakness which was the ability to decide which rock would I hold on to and which would I let go, due to this weakness I was not able to climb the whole wall and was only able to go half way as I was not able to understand how to climb. This weakness held me down. Due to this weakness I foud out that I need to develop my perception which is an area of growth as to know how to progress futher. To overcome this weakness in my third session I analysed the wall before climbing up which helped me to pre plan my moves. While I did not erase my weakness completely I was able to progress further by reducing it.
LO2 – Demonstrate that challenges have been undertaken, developing new skills
Rock climbing was full of challenges and many skills were required to climb the whole wall. The first challenge I found myself troubled with was that I was very scared to climb the wall due to fear of falling and thus, was not able to complete the whole rock wall which was my goal, To overcome this challenge I developed my risk taker skill by trying to climb the wall again and again while trying to eliminate the fear of heights. Developing Risk taker skill helped me to overcome this challenge which used to held me back, by 4th session I was able to fully climb the wall and complete my goal. Another challenge was that the rock climbing sessions used to be in the early morning thus, I used to be very sleepy and tired. This held me back as I was not able to use my whole strength. To overcome this challenge I used the skill “put first things first”. By using this skill I was able to sleep early and eat my breakfast so that I stayed energised which lead to and increase in my performance. These challenges made me stronger and helped me to develop new skills that will help me in the future too.
LO4 – Show perseverance and commitment in CAS experience.
There were two walls in the rock climbing area and one of them was very hard as the wall had a inclination which required immense strength. Thus, I started by completing the easy wall but as this was my first time trying rock climbing the easy wall as was a challenge for me. Thus, I was not able to complete the whole wall in my first sesssion. To complete the first wall I developed my strength and ability to climb walls through using my hand eye coordination. Then after completion of the first wall at the second session I tried the harder wall. After trying for 2 sessions I succeeded in climbing both the walls. All of this required perseverance and commitment as I showed commitment by coming to all of the 4 sessions, doing daily warmups and strength traning and even after failing again and again by sheer commitment and perseverance I was able to climb both the walls.
LO5 – Demonstrate skills and benefits of working collaboratively.
Rock climbing requires collaboration of 2 or more people for one person to climb a wall. When one person climbs the wall two hold the ropes for saftey and to protect the person from falling. When I used to climb the rock wall people used to hold the rope too tightly or sometimes too loose. when the rope used to be tight the rope only used to get me up and not my strength, And when the rope was loose there was the risk of falling. Thus, after trying for several times and using collaborative skills such as coordination we communicated and hold the rope to the optimum level which benifited the climber and assisted them in climbing the wall. Collaboration in rock climbing had many benifits such as enhanced saftey, strengthen communication skills and made progress true.
SDG – Good health and wellbing
rock climbing requires strength and energy which fall under the sdg good health and wellbeing. I used not have full energy and physical wellbeing which impacted my progress. Thus by increasing my energy I worked on this sdg. Rock climbing primarily focuses on this SDG and developes it through its requirements such as strength, energy and wellbeing.
Overall Rock climbing was a benificial and a progressive activity that taught me to overcome my challenges rather than ignoring them. Rock climbing also taught me that small progress everyday leads to big changes overtime. these learnings will help me throughout my life and journey.