In January 2022, the Greater Princeton Branch of AYLUS Sports Committee continued its volunteer program with Special Olympics New Jersey (SONJ), which is an organization that strives to provide year-round athletic opportunities for children and adults with disabilities.
During the winter, SONJ provides sports such as ice skating for individuals. On January 20th and 27th, for 2 hours each, GPA members Vanessa Zhang, Gloria Wang, and their friends volunteered at the Mercer County Skating Center to help the Mercer County Special Olympics group with aiding skaters around the ice during their practice.
Resuming from last week’s class, this week GPA volunteers taught the same kids as last week:
On January 20th, first, we went over the exercises that we taught last week such as forward and backward swizzles and forward crossovers. We then moved on to backward crossovers, something that the skater was struggling with last week. We made lots of progress, and I taught him how to start doing one foot turns, starting with two foot turns and then moving on to doing the turn while holding on to the boards.
By teaching the skaters we also improved our communication skills – we learned how to be more patient with the skaters and more aware of their actions and words, taking them into account when giving out corrections, along with learning how to understand a person’s emotions and feelings as they might not be capable of expressing them as well as others.
On January 27th, we worked with two kids: the same skater as last week and a new little skater. For the same skater that we worked with last week, we went over the skills that I taught him last week, making sure that he was doing his pushes properly. We then moved onto such new skating skills as backward crossovers, making lots of improvement with the exercise motions. We also touched briefly on two-foot turns and two-foot spins.
We first taught the skater the motions on the boards of the rink, and then he progressed to doing them by himself. As for the younger skater, we went over with him things he already knew how to do, such as crossovers and swizzles, and made some corrections. We then started to work on some one-foot turns, and we ended with practicing the turn motion on the boards and stretching his legs.
It was a very fun and unique experience, and the volunteers learned many beneficial skills while volunteering. This is a weekly event until around March.
