PE

Man-to-man defense is where you pick a player and you mark them for the whole game or depending on what your team and your coach thinks you might change person during the game or at the beginning of each quarter. Zone defense is where you have your point guard and your shooting guard on the corners of the free-throw line and your power forward and your small forward behind the PG and SG near the hoop, and your center (which is the tallest person) in the middle. So say that someone from the opposing team comes up with the ball and tries to go in-between the PG and SG, the PG and SG will close together like elevator doors. Something my basketball coach told me was that we were the elevator and the opposing team were the customers, we can’t let the customers in.

What are advantages and disadvantages of each defense strategy?
The advantages in doing man-to-man are that it is easier to intercept when a teammate is passing the ball to them and that it puts more pressure on them so they are more likely to make a mistake. Also you can corner one person so that they can’t do anything and your team will get the ball. The disadvantages are that if you take your eye off them for a second then they will be sprinting in-front of you and you won’t be able to catch them so the other team will get the ball. Also if someone screens you then you can’t get past the opponent screening you so the opposition gets the ball and scores. Also it involves a lot more stamina so you will lose your energy quicker. With zone defense, you don’t use as much energy so you can sprint down the court easily, it is much easier to block the ball, you don’t get as many fouls but a bad thing is that if you let someone inside and and they get the ball then they are bound to score. Also people can just lob the pass over your head. If I was coaching my own basketball team, I would do zone defense and then if we score the other team has to pass it from the opposite side to where they are shooting, I would have the shooting guard and the point guard up defending the opposing team while they pass so that if we get the ball we can pass and then shoot and we will get a load of points.

In P.E we have just finished a unit all about gymnastics. For the end of the unit we had to do a performance that showed the skills we had learned during the unit. For example I learned how to do a 180 on the vault and I learned how to do a cart wheel for the first time. The people in my group were Alina, Helen and Aruna. Sadly for the performance Aruna was sick but during practices made the routine perfect. For the first couple of weeks of the unit we did individual skills. The skills we mainly did were forward rolls, backward rolls, log rolls, etc. The backwards roll was difficult for me because it hurt my neck a lot! Later in the practices we started working on the vault. I liked doing the vault because it seemed nice and fun but the only thing that I didn’t like about the vault was that if you do one thing wrong then your going to hurt yourself. For example. When I tried to get up on to the vault, my foot slipped and I fell on my face and then flipped over forwards and I hurt my back and neck so I wasn’t able to do any of the backwards rolls or the forwards rolls for the whole time.

In our routine we used a range of different skills. The mat skills we used were forwards rolls, backwards rolls, cartwheels, round-offs, bridges and skipping across the mat. Helen did the forward roll, Alina did the round-off and the bridge and I did the log roll and the cartwheel, (Aruna did the backwards rolls). Our vault skills were the star jump summersault, 180 twist and a knee touch. Helen and Alina did the summersault and a star jump. Alina also did a 180 and so did Helen and I. I also did a star jump and a knee touch. I like the way we planned everything out because it was organized so it was easy to remember what was next in the routine. Also it just all seemed to flow perfectly and I didn’t hesitate trying to remember the movement. The only part that confused me was what I should do whilst waiting for Helen to finish her vault stuff so that I don’t have to stand still and make it look boring.

The skill that I found most challenging was trying to land the cartwheel and make my legs straight so that it won’t look ugly. I kept practicing and practicing but I couldn’t do it. But in the performance I think that my cartwheel was quite good (for a beginner at least) because I managed to land it without falling and my legs were reasonably straight. I overcame this challenge by practicing a lot and videotaping myself to see if I got my handwork was right and if my feet were straight so that I can watch it and then try again to make it better. The skill that I enjoyed the most was the log roll because it is nice and easy but also is a lot of fun because it makes you dizzy.

I think that we worked quite well in the practice sessions and that we didn’t waste our time so we made good progression. The thing we practiced the most was our rolls and my cartwheel. All the work paid off and made our performance look really good. If we were to improve something in our performance I would choose passing time or doing something whilst waiting for other people to finish what they are doing. E.g; Whilst I was waiting for Helen to finish the vault I could have done something other then standing around doing nothing.

This is our performance on YouTube: