PERSONAL PROJECT EXHIBITION
By Rebecca de Jong
DESCRIPTIONS
For my personal project, I did a research project where I explored the cultures behind two martial arts; Taekwondo and Pencak Silat. Taekwondo is a Korean martial art while Pencak Silat originates from Indonesia.
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THE PLANNING
The idea making
I have trained the Korean martial art Taekwondo since I was 7 years old. Traveling is also something that I love. I know I wanted to focus on these two things, but how would I associate them with each other? I thought about the different countries that I have visited and came to Indonesia. I have traveled to Indonesia a couple of times and I always loved it there. But it was still not in the same category. Thinking, even more, I finally knew what to do; make a product with the Korean martial art Taekwondo, and the Indonesian Pencak Silat.
Planning
When I had my idea, I needed to start planning on what I should actually research. I have always loved the culture of Indonesia so I decided to find out what the culture behind the two martial arts was. I formed my research question which was: is a sport influenced by the culture in which it grows?
While talking to my supervisor about my idea, she told me to plan so that I could be 3/4 done when school begins again. So this meant that I would have to work during the summer break and I planned to do so too. Two weeks into the summer break, I borrowed two books from the library about the cultures of Korea and Indonesia. A few weeks later I borrowed one book about Pencak Silat. I did not need a book of Taekwondo since I already knew a lot about it through training Taekwondo.
GLOBAL CONTEXT
Personal and Cultural Expression
CRITERIA
When we started working on our personal projects, I wrote that I wanted to achieve:
~I hope to have learned more about the culture behind both Pencak Silat and Taekwondo
~I want to be able to understand how and why different cultures can form a sport
TIPS
Time management
It is important that you manage your time well for your product. In the beginning, I had planned to do most of the research during the summer. This did not happen since I pushed the task to the next day and later on to the next week. I ended up doing a majority of the research work and the product one month before the due date.
Do not procrastinate
This has to do with time management, but do not procrastinate on the work. There will be lots of work for the normal subjects and on top of that personal project. If you procrastinate your personal project you will notice that the closer you get to the due date, the more stressed you become.
Ask supervisor
If you are not sure about something, ask your supervisor! This is important as not being sure about something for your product can lead to not doing the work and then procrastinating it.