Journal writing experience- task 2b

I have just completed task 2b on reflective writing. The task involved writing about a day based on the frameworks from Reid and Moon. I chose to write about a day I had this weekend as it involved two major elements of my professional practice so I thought it would be useful for me to reflect on this to see if I could learn or discover anything new that may help me in the future. I have to admit that I was sceptical of whether I would get anything from doing this but like most things it turned out to be extremely helpful. I found that this was because I was focusing on writing things that I didn’t actually know, or didn’t realise I knew about the day and things I would not have usually thought about in such depth. This further proves that you can only learn from concentrating on the things you don’t know rather than the things you do know.

I chose to write about a day where I taught two classes in a gym in Wimbledon Village (dance and then body balance) in the morning and then went straight to Twickenham Stadium to do cheerleading and dancing for Harlequin rugby team, sit round pitch for the whole match, and then do promotional work afterwards. It was a long and varied day so I thought there would be plenty to reflect on. I completed the first category ‘description’ detailing ‘where and when’ I was and obviously found that not much emerged that I didn’t already know.

After this I moved on to ‘Initial reflection’. I wrote about my feelings of excitement and nerves, dreading the cold weather in a crop top at Twickenham and looking forward to the day but I didn’t find that much emerged. Then I continued to write and I found myself realising that throughout the day I was constantly thinking about the next thing and not what I was actually doing at the time. When I was teaching I was worrying about getting to the match on time and if I had all my stuff and where I was going to buy another bottle of water on the way etc. During the class I didn’t realise I was doing this as I can take the exercise class almost on auto pilot as I don’t find it particularly challenging. Now I realise I wasn’t giving the class my full attention which it definitely deserves. During the class I was thinking in action as I was constantly doing new steps and routines but I wasn’t even aware of this thinking as I was doing it automatically. Afterwards I did not think on action at all or reflect on how it had gone. I got in my car and went straight to Twickenham just thinking about the next job. This would not have become apparent to me had I not been doing this journal writing task. I have definitely learnt a valuable task in that I will focus more on the task in hand rather than what I am doing next. I am now really looking forward to teaching again next week so I can give them my full attention.

I then went on to making a list of all the things that came in to my mind that day but the same things emerged as what I had already discovered in ‘Initial Reflection’. The words I came up with were:

·         Excited

·         Nervous

·         Cold

·         Tired

·         Long

·         Dancing

·         Music

·         Costume

·         Smile

To be honest I didn’t feel that anything new emerged here and I didn’t find this as useful as the previous category. I then moved on to the ‘Evaluation’ section. It emerged that I thought the class went well (despite my lack of concentration) as everyone came up to me afterwards saying how much they enjoyed it. This didn’t even register with me at the time and I didn’t think much of it but now on reflection I realise it went really well and I am very pleased about that. I also found out something as simple as the fact that I need to avoid a certain road when going to Twickenham. There is always traffic there and every week I forget and go the same way! Now I have been forced to write it down I realise that I got stressed because there was traffic and I know I can avoid it. It is much more cemented in my mind now and I will definitely remember to avoid it next time! It was helpful to evaluate my experiences as new things definitely emerged.

When moving on to the ‘What If?’ section, I wrote about things I would have loved and hated to happen. I found that when writing things I would not like to happen I actually discovered my worries and fears. I found myself writing about; the music not working, no one turning up, forgetting routines in the middle of the pitch, forgetting my pom poms, being late etc. While I was obviously aware that I would not want these things to happen I did not realise they were such big fears. It made me realise that those scenarios could actually happen and are all realistic. On reflection I think I worry too much about an event before it happens and everything that goes on. I think I would be much more relaxed if I thought about all the good things that could happen. Although, having said that it is also important to be prepared for things that could go wrong so the situation doesn’t take you by surprise. However, in the future I am going to try not to worry too much as I realised I found it far too easy to come up with bad things that could have happened!

I wrote about ‘Another View’ from the perspective of a member of my class and then of the choreographer of my cheerleading team. I didn’t really find that much emerged for me apart from the importance of being aware that everyone has a different view on things e.g. the aim of the person in my class was to have a workout not to learn how to dance and this made me reconsider the structure of my class for next time.

I found that the main themes of the day were; providing an experience, dancing, performing, travelling, interacting, communicating, giving direction, taking direction, rehearsing, worrying, stress, thrill and excitement.

I found that the things that made me enthusiastic were:

·         The music

·         The audience

·         Clapping and cheering

·         Big crowds

·         Praise and compliments

·         The thrill of performing

·         The satisfaction of passing on knowledge

·         Being in control and providing an experience

·         Adding to the atmosphere of an event

·         Being part of someone else’s experience/day

·         Being part of a team

·         Encouragement from a teacher/ choreographer

·         Fulfilling a brief to the best of my ability

Overall, I have definitely learnt a lot from completing this task and even more from writing a post about it. It made me ask myself a lot of questions that I wouldn’t normally take the time think about. It made me question my career and day to day life and re evaluate my priorities. I would never have done this had I not had to write everything down. I found most of the categories helpful and would definitely use ‘Initial Reflection’ and ‘Evaluation’ again as these made new ideas emerge. I was surprised by the amount of things I discovered about my day which I already knew but didn’t take the time to think about. It has been useful to my professional practice in that I will change some things the next time I do the activities and it has made me think about my future. I now feel much more able to reflect critically on my day without worrying that it was all a disaster and becoming disheartened! It was definitely a useful thing to do and I think I could learn a lot from applying the same framework to different days when I engage in a completely different activity.