My Yoga Classes

My Yoga classes in the Indian Cultural Center started two weeks ago. So far we learned the basics yoga exercises (aasana's). I like the yoga classes as it makes me feel fresh and my mood gets better. I feel that this is really important now as in this starting stage of IB Diploma, I get lots of assignments and I have to study a lot. This makes me more stressed and tired. But by doing Yoga on Saturday and Sunday, I can feel the change in myself. This new skill that I was developing seemed to be very useful in my life. 

There  are many benefits  by doing yoga. There is more flexibility in our body, strength in body, less stress,  more concentration and better health. Yoga also benefits our body because of all the breathing aasana's we do in our class. Because of the deep, mindful breathing lung capacity often improves. This new strength that I'm now aware of, helped my undertake challenges. 

In my yoga class

Right now, I'm doing the beginners level of yoga which would be for four months. I would like to continue these classes in future if the timings work.

My initiation into the art of making Indian dresses

Learning to make Indian dresses was always one of my wishes which I couldn't fulfill. But now I finally started learning to make them.I was looking forward for my for this class for a long time.

On the first day I learnt the basics of stitching like hemming, plain stitch, stitching buttons and hooks and basting. My first practice was basting the cloth as a temporary stitch and then hemming. The image below shows sketch of what I did and the next image shows the one I did. I was proud that through this CAS activity, I can develop a new skill and get more aware of my culture.

     
I then learnt stitching buttons and hooks on the same cloth. My teacher started of my by teaching everyday useful skills needed. This would help me make dresses like salwaar kameez in future. This creativity required a lot of perseverance and patience. I had to work collaboratively with my teacher.

Photos of my work when I was learning to stitch buttons and hooks. :)

This is what I learnt in my first class. I liked my class a lot as I always enjoyed this art. I would make sure I won't miss any class so that I can learn more.

Service in RCCI

Last week we had RCCI where the children from RCCI came to the school. The children in RCCI look forward for this opportunity. Our team made sure that we show perseverance and commitment in all the activities we do. Any lose of patience can cause ethical implications where the RCCI committee can get disappointed with us. So we had to make sure that they enjoy their visit, so we try playing interesting games with them to make it even more enjoyable. We take them to the gym where we play basketball, football and other ball games with them. Majority of the children doesn't know English, but still communication is not a problem. We make signs so that they can understand what they have to do. Some of them are too shy to play, so we talk to them so that they can learn something. We usually have 15 to 20 children who come every week, we have to make sure everyone is taken care of. This experience made me aware of my  new quality to communicate with children in spite of the language barrier. This challenge seemed difficult at start, but slowly I started enjoying this experience.

I enjoy my time with the RCCI children. I'm happy that I can help them in some way. I want to continue RCCI in future too. We are trying to brainstorm new games for them so that they can have more fun.

We also plan to have a food stall at the primary production so that we can raise money for our CAS.