Tennis/ Zumba reflection:

Last year for my sophomore year, my sister and I joined the ISK tennis team tryouts and made the junior varsity, we were 12 players in total and practiced 3 times a week. Luckily I made it to the Ethiopia Tennis Tournament IITT in November last year and ISK girls came first. Because I have been playing tennis for over 5 years now in and out of school and because it is my favorite sport, I decided to join the team tryouts this year. This year, there were tryouts for about a week and a half every day. There were 30 players trying out and only 20 would make either one of the 2 varsity teams. In the middle of the tryouts they separated us into 2 groups and fortunately I was in the better group. And now, I am so happy that I made it in the Blue varsity team which is the A team at ISK. We practiced 4 times a week either morning of after school: Mondays and Thursdays from 3:30 until 4:40, and Tuesday and Fridays from 6:50 until 8:00, which is really hard work because I am an IB student.  There were 10 players in my team, half girls and half boys.

Every year, the tennis teams of different schools in Nairobi play the AISK tournament locally. I was part of the varsity team this year, which was great because I was in the junior varsity last year. 

This year, for these games against the following schools: Rosslyn, Hillcrest, Peponi, West nairobi and RVA, I played single sometimes which was tired and intense but fun as well, the other times I played first doubles with my partner Binoy, who was the captain of our team, he was the best player on the team so it was kind of a challenge to play with him. It turned out to be so much fun and we got a lot closer as well, we would always not only play as best as we could, but enjoy the game and laugh.

We got to the semi-finals this year and had to play our team's biggest rival, Hillcrest. I played doubles with Binoy again, but we lost even though we had practiced a lot earlier. The whole team lost as well. We were all quite disappointed but I thought that overall the season was really fun, I enjoyed it and made new friends which was awesome and I knew that even though we didn't win, we did everything we could and at least had fun which is the most important thing.

This year, since I was in the school's varsity tennis team, I got picked to go with seven other players of our team to Addis Ababa for the International Invitational Tennis Tournament in Ethiopia's International school: ICS (international community school). We travelled there for 5days, and we played three days total. In the competition there was our school, ISK, ICS red and ICS white, the greek school of Addis and the Pilot club of Addis, so five teams in total. I was playing at the seed 3, just like last year, so some of the people I was playing I already knew. We, overall as a team came third out of five, but as the girls, we came first and I honestly think we killed it, we won every single game except for me, I lost one tiebreak and was really disappointed, but even so, ISK girls came first easily but at least 60 points. We also as a team got a trophy for sportsmanship. 

As individuals, we all got medals. I got first place for my category which was awesome, and for doubles, my partner Shivy and I came third overall and we were really proud of ourselves because we had to play our own girl double team from ISK and did the best we could.

The tournament was really really fun and I enjoyed it a lot more than last year, we laughed and played as best as we could. I learned that the score doesn't matter, but how much fun you had during the game mattered the most. I also think that I have improved since last year and I really hope that I will be coming back next year and play even better.

Since tennis season was over, my sister and I decided to continue playing and improve our skills through playing twice a week with the Varsity Tennis coach Peter Nyamandi. We have lessons each saturday (12pm to 1pm) and sometimes two hours depending on his schedule. I have noticed a huge improvement since the beginning of these lessons and I also learned the proper technique to serve the ball. Adding to that my cardio has improved because of Coach Peter that makes us run quite often. 
Adding to tennis, as I said in previous posts, I take Zumba classes every weekend (1 hour every weekend). I go with my mother and we dance with other ladies. What I like most about Zumba is that it is not only a creative outlet, but also physically demanding! It sounds strange, but one hour of Zumba can be extremely intense and tiring. 

Im not that big of an athlete, but I swim, I do Zumba, I gym sometimes, I run, I play badminton but my favorite sport has always been tennis. In fact I have been playing since I was 10 when my mom convinced me. I’m not perfect at it and I don’t play to win, I play because I really like the game, it is entertaining and amusing, and really good action and training. Also, one of my main other reasons of playing tennis and taking Zumba classes in my free time this often is due to the fact that I am an IB student and at times very susceptible to stress. Tennis and Zumba in general help me relieve it, and provide a temporary isolation from all the academics.

Being part of a team at ISK for two years in a row now has just been great, interacting and playing with other people has really helped me improve and make new friends and relationships. The difficulties were that sometimes I would feel as though I’m not as good as the rest of the team which was really amazing this year, but as a group we always cheer each other up and it helps us build self-confidence and such for the future. During every game we cheer for each other no matter what, even if we are losing, and keep reminding each other that we can do this but most importantly that we should have fun! I have learned group integrity and spirit is really important and no matter what be there for each other and never let anyone down.