Experiencing a new Sport

As the students of room 20 paced themselves to the courts for our Kiwi Kick session, a gust of wind blew strongly towards our way. My teeth were chattering, I couldn’t keep still and goosebumps were slowly appearing around my body. We finally reach our destination and I then murmur to myself “This is going to be a disaster”.

To start our session, the tutors asked us kindly to be seated facing and listening their way. Samwich, Anita and Mikey all introduced themselves and gave a little speech about ARL to introduce us to the sport. While our tutors were explaining the rules to the students in our class, mixed thoughts were going through my head.

“Tag” was the only word I could hear around me. Continuous tag was our warm up before any of us were allowed to learn anything and it seemed to be the most important thing. The aim of the game was not to get tagged and have fun I guess. All I could see after a few games were people panting, weezing and breathing very loud. Samwich blew the whistle, which only meant one thing, ‘GAME TIME!’

I wouldn’t know, but part of being in a sports team, you have to know what the skills are to accomplish anything. Skill 1: ‘Drop Punt’, if you are getting ready to kick a ball, alway remember, ‘Laces away from Faces’. Another thing, Skill 2: ‘Hand Pass’. In this sport, many people have difficulties doing this skill, so it’s easier if you move with the ball and hit it with your fist. We got told that we have a chance to learn skills every week, so it wasn’t a problem at all.

To finish off our day, Samwich said we had more final thing to do to end our session. We were able to practice and do our best to ace the kicks one last time. In our partners we had to aim for our targets, which were Samwich and Mike. “You can do this! You can do this!” was all I could say in my head during the time. I kicked the ball softly and with great success, I jumped up and down with laughter.


AFL was better than I imagined. Our tutors are the best, we learnt really cool skills and I had a great time! I think next week when we go again, I will know what I'm doing which means I can have much more FUN!