FROschTOsch

by Frauke Brecko (BvA)

Many people think athletics is not for them, because they would rather go for a group sport, but since I have done athletics for over eight years I can say you aren’t lonesome at all!

Athletics is a group sport, even if you do mostly single disciplines. There are workouts you need in each discipline and they are usually gone through with the whole group.

When I was 9, I went to training for the first time  and I was lovingly received by the others. At that time it was more about fun than success. We were a large group that sometimes also met off the practise and did something together.

After a few years it was more about success and the group dwindled. Now we were still a little group, we always trained together and went to all the competitions together. During training we laughed a lot and we met not only for training and we became very good friends.

Even in a contest, where we were actually competitors, we were clearly a team and were always together. We always supported and congratulated  each other on our victories, and encouraged each other when things were not like we wanted. Even if it was not going so well for yourself, you were happy for the others and celebrated with them.

I would say that the competition brought us even closer together, because if someone was injured or delivered ​​a bad performance, we were always there for each other and taught ourselves to laugh again. In addition, there is also the team score and the relay races in which you are competing as a team and succeed or fail together.

Even with those sports clubs, which we clearly see as our competitors usually, we have come to establish friendly relations. So we inform each other about competitions one club has missed,  laugh a lot together and always congratulate the other clubs to successful performances at competitions.

Athletics is boring and always the same? Absolutely not! Depending on the discipline, there are very different techniques which take differently long to learn. For the last two years I – for example – was mostly into shot put. You are not only in the ring all the time, pushing one “ball” after another, but you also do a lot of sprinting, jumping, improving your strength and much more.
Within these two years I have changed the technique three times, each of the three has taken its time and concentration, since they are sometimes very difficult to bring to perfection.

In addition, I also trained – “by the way” – for all other disciplines, but mainly for high jump and throwing the discus because I’ve done those in competitions.

Even if I had a lot of fun competing, I must admit that you need strong nerves for this. You have to cope with the expectations that you and your coach put into yourself . Because if you do not show the performance you  have expected, the coach is not the “nice guy”, and it also frustrates yourself.

However, if you look for a sport where you can prove your own ability to perform well and  also have fun and team spirit, you are exactly right at athletics.

by Julita Kowalów, Karolina Krukowska, Magdalena Mańkowska, Katarzyna Sielaczek (LOG)

Sport is one of the most famous way of spending free time in our school. It’s very important for young people’s health and mental condition.

Our students take part in many competitions and they attend many extra ordinary lessons after school. They devote their time for improving their sport skills. Also our teachers commit themselves to training pupils.

We have 3 school representations: volleyball team, football team and basketball team. They achieve many successes in regional competitions. Our biggest achievement is the fact that we have been champions in our region for 7 years in volleyball and basketball as well.

We are proud of our sportsmen and we wish them more and more success.

by Julita Kowalów, Karolina Krukowska, Magdalena Mańkowska, Katarzyna Sielaczek (LOG)

Euro 2012 is  organised in Poland for the first time. As we all know it’s associated with many changes and improvements in our country’s infrastructure.  It’s  a great opportunity to promote our country in the world. It is  also a great entertainment for football supporters.

The sports stadiums are being built in Gdańsk, Warsaw, Poznań and Wrocław. These buildings were designed not only for sports competitions but for other kind of entertainment like concerts or shows. We also started to renovate our railway stations and airports. For example we built a new terminal in Łódź and we are building many motorways.

Euro 2012 is a chance to cooperate with neighbouring countries mainly  Ukraine. Poland and Ukraine are planning to organize  the final together. During the sport event in our country there will be about 3500 journalists who will be reporting championship for millions of people all over the world. Communication network area’s preparation are connected with cooperation with Ukraine, therefore it is a task  which must be mastered together.

On the other hand, it is a big responsibility to cope with such a duty. There are some complications with infrastructure. There are some delays, the motorways may not be built in time. Chinese consortium which is building motorways in Poland doesn’t  pay Polish subcontractors on time so they went on strike. Problems are also appearing in roads’ investments and building of National Stadium. The disparity between official work plan  and actual situation is 16 per cent. But authorities think that these problems won’t disturb in completing the task on time.

There are 361 days left to the Europe Championship and despite of some complications we hope that everything will be successful.

 by Niklas Altgen (BvA)

It’s the year 2006, summer, Germany. The whole world was looking to my country. One huge event took place in the summer of 2006 in Germany: the FIFA World Championship. An event, when the whole world was looking onto Germany for a month. A world championship always has a political implication somehow. What I mean is the patriotism that you feel especially at this time. More than in “normal” times. When your country is playing, you walk around covered all over with flags tattoos or face paintings in your national colours. Usually, nearly everyone has got a flag in his window or these funny flags for the outside mirrors of his car.

Well, that’s what it is like in most of the countries, which take part in the tournament. But not in Germany. For many years it wasn’t acceptable for many Germans to show such big patriotism, because of our history. This has changed with the 2006 World Championship. Germany was a complete black-red-gold country for a whole month. Everyone was proud to show “See, I’m German and love my country.”. I mean, why shouldn’t it be okay as a German to show, that you’re proud to be German? Every time I’m in England, I can see lots and lots of English flags or the “Union Jack” in the windows, even when there is not any kind of tournament.

And I think that is okay. You should be proud of being what you are and you should be able to show it, without having a guilty conscience. You don’t do anything wrong or forbidden, do you? I’ve seen every single match of the German team on the public viewing screen in the park with thousands of other fans. Everywhere, virtually on every single square centimetre of the park, you could see flags. Not just German flags, also English, Polish or Argentinean flags, depending on what country our opponent in the match was. This was an absolutely gorgeous and overwhelming atmosphere. We were partying peacefully together with the other fans and had so much fun. No one had problems with the patriotism of other nationalities.

Nowadays, that should be normal. Even for us Germans with the load of our history. You see, the thing with history is, that it is history. We are living now and shouldn’t let us control by our history for all times. That’s why I think that it is totally correct and acceptable, that even we Germans may show our love for our country.

In this sense, we are allowed to say:

I love England

Kocham Polska

Ich liebe Deutschland

by Niklas (BvA)

You could discuss this topic for days and days. For the majority of the boys, being a dancer is boring, stupid or not masculine. The majority of the girls has got a different opinion. If a boy can dance, he is very grown-up, masculine and interesting in the eyes of most girls.

I’m a ballroom and hip hop dancer for more than two years now. I started when I was 15 with a standard course. I had never heard of “Quickstep” or “Rumba” before. But I’ve quickly started loving it. Not just because of the nice girls who where in my group . Dancing is a real sport. People who have never danced before would think it isn’t, but it really is. You can compare 90 minutes of dancing with half an hour of running. Hip hop is even harder than ballroom dancing. After one hour of hip hop training, you’re totally exhausted.

The good thing is not only the dancing itself, it’s the feeling of doing something different. If you ask around, you’ll hear “Oh, I play football” or ”I’m into basketball” or whatever. Dancing is still something special nowadays.

You also get to know many things, you’ll need in job interviews or on occasions like that. Part of the standard course is a behaviour training and “Dining-Seminar” where you learn, how to behave when you’re dining out and how to avoid all the traps that reveal “bad manners”. Another point is that you learn to control your body and get a better feeling for it. On top of that people say dancing improves your ability to concentrate and your memory.

All in all you can say, dancing is a sport for everyone who loves being active in a modern and fancy way. Especially for young people. So, don’t be a fool and say “Being a dancer is boring!” Get up, go to your local dancing school and take a look. You’ll love it!