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Celine Soraya Dehbozorgi’s sports career and active living

from 2001-2016

plus vision of my future

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Reflective Biography

Céline S. Dehbozorgi

Hanze University of Applied Science, Groningen

Sport, Health and Management

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Index

1. Abstract…………………………………………………………………………... p.4

2. Personal biography in sports and active living………………………………....p.5-102.1 My sports career, physical activity and lifestyle sports…………………... p.5-82.2 Influence on my own sports career……………………………………….. p.8-10 2.3 My capacities, orientations and competences……………………………...p.10

3. Sports and active living in Germany connected to my own biography………. p. 11-123.1. Most popular sports in Germany………………………………………………p.113.2. Governments role related to sports in Germany……………………………….p.113.3. Sports in Germany compared to sports in the Netherland……………………..p.113.4. How did my home country influence my sports career?....................................p.12

4. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….. p.12

5. Discussion………………………………………………………………………….p. 12

6. Reflection………………………………………………………………………….p.12

7. References…………………………………………………………………………p.13

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1. Abstract

The purpose of this reflective biography due to my sports career and active living is to examine the influence of my culture on my physical activity and mentality. By reflecting, analysing and comparing my own experiences in sports to my German culture I found lots of advantages within the influence due to my own sports career. As a result I created a better view of my future SHM profession. I found out what I expect from an SHM professional and what the less desired features are. This biography shows how much power and influence governments have on individual’s active living. Within supporting recreational sports, sports clubs and sports associations, people get more access to sports and change their behaviour automatically.

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2002-2003 swimming

2.1 My sports career, physical activity and lifestyle sports

My name is Céline Soraya Dehbozorgi. I am 20 years old and I am from Bremen, Germany. I grew up in a multinational family with a French mother and an Iranian father. My parents separated when I was three years old and my older sister Samantha seven. 2016 changed everything my mother moved to France to her new boyfriend, my big sister moved to Austria with her boyfriend for studies, my little sister decided to live by her father and I came to Groningen to study Sport, Health and Management.

Since my 5 years I am sportily active. For my mother it was very important that I do at least one hour sports a week. Which was the reason that she subscribed me at the same gymnastic club as my 4 years older sister Samantha. With the time me and my sister were separated in different groups while she was older and had to go into another course but that was no big deal because a good school friend of mine started in my course. After a year all the rhythmic gymnastic groups of every age presented their dance in front of family and friends. I stayed in this club since I was eleven and had no more fun in this sport there was no big challenge it became boring. Besides that I learned swimming at the age of 6 for about some months to a year. My bigger sister already started Hip-hop on a competition level where I really looked up and wanted to do the same. I started in different courses at the same club as my sister. First of all I learned how to dance and with the time new teachers wanted to create new competition groups and searched for people. I decided to participate in 2 groups. The first group was a small group with 7 people and the second group was with around 20 people. In both groups I had the same two teachers which were sisters. I really began to love dancing but in the group I felt very bad I was the youngest with 11 years and could not find any friends. The people talked about alcohol, partying, smoking in the age of 12-15. I felt very different at that time. Those people also never supported each other, but instead emphasized other people’s errors. I went with them to two competitions. The first one was North German championship where we reached the 8th place with the small group (maximum 7 people) and 14 th place in the formation (big group of maximum 24 people). Due to performing in both groups I had to stay at a hotel in another city of Germany. The problem was that my teachers left us alone and I had no one who wanted to stay with me in the room. I was only eleven at the time and I felt lonely. I was lucky that my older sister was in the same hotel with her dancing teacher who was really kind and told me that one girl from her group also had no one to share the room with. My sister ensured me that the girl was really nice to make me feel better. The next championship was the German championship where my mother came with us first of all because of what happened in the first championship, no teachers who are responsible for us

2014-2016 Fitness2012-2014 Hip-Hop2011-2012 Ballett2007-2011 Hip-Hop2001-2007 Gymnastic

2010-2016 catamaran sailing, diving

2. Personal biography in sports and active living

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and no one who wanted to come with me in a room. This competition changed everything. When we performed our dance I felt very bad, I did not feel well in this group people just told me what I did wrong and they never supported each other. After our performance I looked with my mother how my sister and her team trained before they had to present themselves. Her teacher told me that she saw me and that I was pretty good, she asked me if I enjoyed it. I told her that every time I had to train, perform or be in this group I felt sick and bad. I told my mother that I want to stop dancing that it is no more fun for me. Her first reaction was that she didn’t want me to stop because I just started but when she saw that I felt bad and that I always repeated that I want to stop not because of the sports but because of the group. A few days later my older sister became an e-mail from her teacher Ivetta who told her that I can come in her small group called junior stucks where I first replace danced till someone would leave the group. I appreciated that so much and joined the group directly. The best in this group was that I knew some people already from school. After a year I could participate with them on competitions. That group was totally different than the old one. I had so much fun with my group and my teacher was also funny, responsible and ambitious. Within the years we won the north German championship, the German championship and also participated in European and world championships. Besides that I started to dance ballet for one year with two good friends of mine who already danced ballet before and stopped for a year or two. So we started all together again. For me it was pretty hard because I never danced ballet before. The teacher always told us which dance we would dance and I had no idea how this dances looked like, which causes that I had to copy from others, the hardest part in that was that the teacher wanted me to look straight. I stopped dancing ballet because I personally found it too hard, even my friends who started dancing before me found it difficult to follow.

Every summer we go to my grandparents’ house in La Baule, France which is next to the Atlantic Ocean. We usually stay there around 2 or 3 weeks. For my mother it was important that my sisters and I had an occupation instead of laying on the beach for three weeks. So I decided to try a catamaran sailing course which I really appreciated. After that summer my exchange for 3 months in France started. The best thing was that my exchange student family had their own catamaran boat at their holiday house in Quimiac which is also next to the Atlantic Ocean. This let me practise and appreciate sailing even more. During the year they lived near Paris and in that time I learned how to dive in a pool. Unfortunately, I did not have the time to try it in a real ocean. After my exchange I did not do sports regularly for a year. I went jogging sometimes, but that was it. However, I started missing sports, dancing and my Hip-Hop dance group. This made me continue dancing with my old Hip Hop group until 2014. At that time we actually belonged to the adult’s category and no more to the juniors. We went to several competitions where we were not very successful. With the time we had to change our teacher because our old one went to Spain for a year to work there as a school teacher. Our second choreographer Feriz Sula was very successful in Hip-Hop with his small group Melody. He won second place in the world championship and some of his little students won first place. He was also a student of our ex-choreographer Ivetta which made us feel more comfortable because we knew him from earlier competitions, bus trips and trainings. The problem was that he is from Bremerhaven and we were in Bremen. All of his successful students in Bremerhaven could train every day in comparison to us that could train only on Friday evenings for 2 hours. Firstly, the room was only available on Fridays for two hours and secondly, Feriz was only in Bremen on Fridays to teach our group and two other groups. With the time our choreographer started losing focus on our trainings and was acting like a friend of ours. We talked a lot about everything, but did not really train which was one

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of the reasons I quit dancing hip hop. The second reason is that I knew that I will have my final exams at the same time the competitions will take place and the third reason was that he wanted us to train in Bremerhaven which would cost a lot of money and time. When I stopped dancing I did not stop doing sports. A friend of mine and I joined a fitness club for women only. In this fitness club existed many different sport courses for an hour each day from morning until evening. For example there were Yoga, Body fit, Aerobic, Body and Mind, Core workout etc. These courses were perfect for me. I could go as often as I wanted to and when I had the time to go. I only stopped with these courses when I moved to Groningen. But I joined ACLO where I can do a lot of similar courses like Yoga, Body fit, Body pump, Swimming, Circle training etc. which I really appreciate. Besides that I applied to Release which is a Kitesurfing association in Groningen and it also offers wakeboarding. Until now I could not try kitesurfing but wakeboarding which I really liked. Catamaran sailing is one of my favourites which I started and never stopped. Each summer I sail for at least one week. In France there are sailing levels and no license the license is when you arrive the 5 th level of catamaran sailing. Now I have my 5th level and could make a formation as a sail teacher. When I had my 3rd level I decided to work at my sailing club from 8 in the morning until 8 in the evening which earned me no money, but free sailing. This work was fun for me, I liked the atmosphere the people and of course, sailing.

Catamaran sailing in La Baule, France at the sailing club Yagga, autumn 2015

Wakeboarding summer 2016 in Annecy, France

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2.2 Influence on my sports career and active living

Within the years I changed my interests in sports with physical play (Gymnastics) to physical game (Hip-Hop) and then to physical exercise (fitness courses) and lifestyle sports (sailing). My favourite sports nowadays are sailing (lifestyle sport) and fitness (physical exercise). To understand my changes from one type of sport to the other I will explain the influences on the macro, meso and micro level.Gymnastic was my first sport where I was mostly influenced by my mother who wanted me to do sports at least one hour a week since the age of 5. Secondly, my sister did the same sports

Hip-Hop, Junior Stucks world championship 2010 in Bochum, Germany

Hip-Hop, Junior Stucks European championship 2010 in Amsterdam, Netherlands

North German championship 2011, 1st place Junior Stucks

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at the same club which encouraged me to do the same. Thirdly, with the time I made a lot of friends in the gymnastic club and some friends from school joined me which made it more fun. At that time sports was a fun part of my life, I enjoyed the lessons with friends or even with my sister. It was not about competitions, it was more about us as a team and to present our final work to our parents. The sports club where I did gymnastics was called “Werder” like the famous soccer team in Bremen called “Werder Bremen” that we from Bremen are really proud of. Therefore, it is very famous and I was happy to join this club since it reminds me of the famous and successful football team “Werder Bremen”. As I said before this sport in this club had no competition level which became boring for me in the end because we did not learn many new things and could not measure our success.

I learned swimming at the “Waller Bad” in Bremen for about a year like everyone my age did. This is a sport that everyone has to learn in case of danger related to water. If we did not learn it on our own, it was not a problem because we later learned it at school too. So this sport was influenced by the German culture.At 11 years of age I decided to quit gymnastics to start competing in hip-hop like my older sister. My sister danced hip-hop in the dance school “Leyhausen” where my mother and I sometimes took her to the training or back home and also accompanied her to competitions. On the other hand, I knew a lot of people from my school who danced hip-hop. For me everything looked so cool with the music and the movements. So I started dancing at the same school to since I was looking up to my sister. This dance school was one of the best dance schools in Bremen but 3 years later the owner moved to America since he got a new job. The most of the dance groups did not get lost. We kept all our dance teachers and searched for rooms where we could train which made everything more difficult and unorganised, but we managed.Within the years I lost interest in Hip-Hop dancing because of the atmosphere in the group, the lack energy to train properly within the group and also the non-seriousness of my trainer who just ended up chatting with us. The personal talk in the group became more interesting than the training. Which led me to stop, because at the end I started Hip-Hop training to learn dancing and not to have a nice conversation with my group and the teacher. Sailing was influenced by my mother who wanted me to have an occupation during the summer holidays at my grandmother’s house next to the Atlantic Ocean. What is the best occupation at the Atlantic Ocean? Sailing. So I tried sailing which inspired me because of the beautiful nature and the adrenaline which came with the speed of the catamaran boat influenced by the wind, nature, waves and my position on the boat. Within this sport I met lots of people while the courses where you are always with a second person on a boat. Every year I changed the sailing club in la Baule, because of the variety of sailing clubs. Only the last 3 years I stayed in one club first of all because it was close to my grandmother’s house, secondly the

Logo of my gymnastics club, the same as the famous “Werder Bremen” soccer team’s

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atmosphere in this club was so nice every time I go there it feels like a second family, everyone knows each other and the most important thing I had fun. I met a lot of friends in this sailing club called “Yagga”. The owners were a couple and some teachers where either their children or friends which created the feeling of family and more important also is that a lot of teachers were younger from 18 to 30. In this club there are a lot of people who can help working with a specific sailing level for no money but for free sailing. Which I did of course too. Another influence was my exchange in France for 3 months. My exchange family had their own catamaran sailing boat which led me sail more with my exchange student. Ballet was definitively influenced from two good friends of mine which danced it before. But they were not the only persons. My mom was a really good ballet dancer in her youth. Even today I can see how flexible she is where I really look up too. Other influences are from my grandmother who always said that ballet gives a good attitude/posture and also from the TV-show “Dance academy” which I watched every evening. My fitness choice were shared with a good friend. We both wanted to make more sports. Our choice was mostly influenced from the media like Instagram or YouTube were you can see a lot of videos and pictures of people doing and promoting workouts, yoga practice etc. We both subscribe us in a fitness club for women called “momos” which arranged us because we didn’t liked to see the difference of power which maybe could disappoint ourselves. We liked the big offer of courses which we could all attend at the time we wanted. The next picture shows the big offer for each week where we could attend all lessons.

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Another plus point for this was that it was near the centre and near our houses which made it easier to attempt more courses. We tried to attempt more or less than three courses together for each week. I especially liked it because of the various offers in different exercises and also the own choice of the weekly workout intensity.

2.3 My capacities, orientations and competences

Within the years I learned and created my own mind on sports and active living which will come in favour to my later SHM profession. Within Gymnastic and Hip-Hop I learned to work in a team on a competition level and on a normal level. Within this years I learned how important it is to develop people instead of staying in one level to stabilise the fun part. Another important point for me is the group atmosphere, if a person don’t feel comfortable in his her group she or he will drop out of this sport. Which means that it is important to take care of the atmosphere in the group. Sports help me to get a free mind and to go out of the daily stress. I am an ambitious person related to my self-development or in a development in a group. I need to be occupied instead of talking in a group. Especially within Hip-Hop I could see that I was very good in exact and synchrony dancing which is very good because it is very important for a group. Within swimming I learned that I am very good in diving while I was good to restrain my breath and workouts of course trained me to focus more on myself and how to train on my own whenever I want. All sports taught me mostly power of endurance.

3. Sports and active living in Germany connected to my own biography

3.1 Most favourite and popular sports in Germany

The most favourite sports in Germany in 2015 were Fitness and Workout on first place, hiking on second place, swimming on third place, followed by jogging, Nordic walking, yoga, dancing, soccer, Pilates, cycling, horse riding, volleyball, sailing, tennis, martial arts, basketball, track and field, climbing and rowing. ((2015) Mit welchen Sportarten hältst Du Dich fit? Retrieved 7 November 2016, from https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/38153/umfrage/beliebteste-sportarten/) When we look at the most famous sport in Germany it is of course football. They are one of the best teams in football all around the world. They won 4 times the FIFA world cup and hosted it twice and also won European championship twice and hosted it once and in 2014 they won the world championship. Another really popular sports in Germany is motor sports due to the big car factories like Porsche, BMW and Mercedes. Also very well-known is Michael Schumacher who had set lots of motor sports records and who had won more formula one races then someone else. He was also the highest paid sportsmen at that time. (Wood, R. J. (2014). Sport in Germany. Topendsports.com. Retrieved 8 November 2016, from http://www.topendsports.com/sale-terms.htm). In Germany sports like swimming and cycling are surely teached in school. It is seen as a basic tool for life.

3.2 Government’s role related to sports in Germany

The federal sport policy in Germany says “Germany is a nation of sport enthusiasts. Professional, Olympic and recreational sports have an important place in our society” (The

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Federal Ministry of the Interior, 2016).. The government in Germany sees their task to promote world class sports within promoting recreational sports for everyone. Recreational sports is for the federal government not only a support for athletes it is also a help for social interactions. Germany has in total 91000 sport clubs with in total 27 million members, but besides that there are more million people who are active in sports without participating in sport clubs or associations. The federal government is against doping which causes the effort and help in organised sport clubs and sport associations. “Germany is a world leader in sport, and its expertise is highly sought in European and international sport organizations. In this way, Germany significantly contributes to the development of sport in Europe and around the world.” (The Federal Ministry of the Interior, 2016).

3.3 Sports in Germany compared to sports in the Netherland

In 2004, 40% of the German population did at least once a week sports in comparison to the Netherlands which has 55%. At least both countries are about the average in Europe 38% of physical exercise weekly. The sports infrastructure in the Netherlands as in Germany is determined for the social development. In both countries some sports like swimming and cycling are one of the basic tools you are supposed to learn like walking as a little child. Contrary to Germany, the Netherlands are well known for sailing which can also be seen as a basic tool of the culture.

3.4 How did my home country influence my sports career?

Germany’s school ends in the noon or afternoon which causes that a lot of parents search for an occupation for their children which is mostly related to sports. Besides that the government support and promote recreational sports which influences each individual like me. That causes the various choice in different sport opportunities. While looking at the most favourites sports in Germany I can find myself within Fitness and workout, swimming, jogging, dancing, yoga, cycling as transformational aid and sailing. While referring this to me, I guess that I am following the cultural trend.

4. Conclusion

To conclude, my sports career from 2001-2016 has changed several times and my interests have changed as much as my personal skills. Due to the German sports culture I can be thankful for knowing how to cycle and how to swim – the skills that are one of the basic tools one has to learn whether at home, in sport clubs, or at school. Furthermore, various sports clubs, associations and a lot of free time after school created my active living more intense. While taking a look at the most popular sports in Germany, I can see that I followed the trend of joining the most hip sports which created a relation between me and my friends or me and my family.

5. Discussion

My own sports career and active living taught me important tools for my future life and work. I learned how to work in a group or alone. I learned different sports. I got more self-confidence and sympathy for other people. Within sports I learned how to be focused, to be

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disciplined, respect and how to help other people. It shows me also what I attend from a coach and what led people dropping out from sports, which in my mind is a good tool for my future work. For example it is important for me that a teacher has to take care at the group atmosphere, he shouldn’t lose his goals and also should take a look on the goals of his clients. Within the years I appreciated physical games but only in case they functioned in a good way, which means good atmosphere, success and fun. Physical exercise is another type of sports which became really important to me especially because of our daily stress. Within fitness or workouts it is easier to escape from stress and clear the mind.

6. Reflection

I started my first block by attempting to learn more about my future self, which I want to be related to sports and active living. In the first block of my studies I learned more about myself and gained more self-confidence. I learned or I am still in the process to learn how to write essays, biographies and one page profiles and also how to present a ted talk. The biggest part of this is that I learned how important it is how to present myself that I always have to have in mind my goals and the goals of my future clients and also be critical on my own work. Another important thing is that I have to develop myself in time and always be upgraded what happens around me. I learned a lot of things about new cultures because of the multicultural group which I really appreciate. For my second block I want to learn how I should write all these records properly and also want to learn more about the health and management part.

7. References

(2015). Mit welchen Sportarten hältst Du Dich fit? Statista.com. Retrieved 7 November 2016, from https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/38153/umfrage/beliebteste-sportarten/

The Federal Ministry of the Interior (2016). Federal sport policy. bmi.bund.de. Retrieved 7 November 2016, from http://www.bmi.bund.de/EN/Topics/Sport/Federal-Sport-Policy/federal-sport-policy_node.html

Wood, R. J. (2014). Sport in Germany. Topendsports.com. Retrieved 8 November 2016, from http://www.topendsports.com/sale-terms.htm

Woods, Ronald B. (2016) Social Issues in Sport (3rd ed.). United States: Human Kinetics

Annet Tiessen-Raaphorst, Koen Breedveld (2007). Sport in the Netherland. Retrieved 8 November 2016, fromfile:///C:/Users/admin/Downloads/Sport%20in%20the%20Netherlands.pdf

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