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 13th, for 3 hours (including 1 hour to help promote AYLUS), GPA members Vanessa Zhang, Youyi Peng, 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.
After several weeks of inactivity due to Covid, SONJ reopened up. This session GPA members worked with a different skater. We started the session off the ice, working on different ways to warm up the body before getting on the ice, such as rolling your ankles. Once we got on the ice, weI took a look at what the skater could do already. We then moved on to learning how to do crossovers. We first focused on forward crossovers, teaching him different ways to practice the motions of the exercise and doing crossovers alongside him. After he showed proficiency in forward crossovers, we moved to learning how to do backward crossovers. Just like the forward crossovers, we gave the skater different static exercises to practice the different parts of a backward crossover, and then we progressed to doing the move on the circle. We also took a look at the skaters forward and backward swizzles, just to make sure that they were technically correct. Once the session was over, we told the skater a couple of ways to stretch after skating.
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.
