After carefully preparing with the videos provided by their group class teachers, SMAHK students and parents participated in the first Suzuki Olympics Online! Each group class held its own olympics in their designated Zoom room.

The opening event was the Torch Ceremony. Everyone balanced an object on their head. More advanced students played a level-appropriate piece while trying to keep the object from falling. The youngest students had beautiful posture with their bodies and instruments and balanced the object while listening to the music. One student commented that “I think balancing the stuffed animal was my favourite because we got to balance a stuffed animal on our head.”

Another event was the Balance Beam, which had students balance on one foot while playing or singing a piece. In some of the classes, parents made comments about the students’ efforts. Some of the comments included “Not an easy task, but everyone was trying their best” and “Most of them are standing stable“. One student commented that “My favourite one was the balance beam. I was wearing high heels. That made it hard to balance.”

During the Rings, students worked on the position of their hands and arms. Some students had the chance to watch a recording of an olympic athlete competing in the rings at the olympics. It was fun to hear the reactions of the students and parents to seeing the “real” olympic event for the first time: “How did they do tha…the...this is impossible!”

We also had Rhythmic Gymnastics, where students were challenged to use their bodies to match with the beat in unexpected ways.

Another event that was about pulse and pace was the Marathon! Parents commented that the students were “Impressive keeping in time and matching the changing tempo.” while one student said “I think changing speed when stamping feet and playing is the hardest.”

The Parallel Bars allowed students to engage in working on having their body relaxed and stable and ready to support the instrument and its appropriate playing position. In one of the groups, the students needed to shake hands with their parents every time they played an open string. One student commented “I liked the exercise where we had to shake hands. It was very fun!”

The final event was Archery: students tried to use the focus of their eyes, mind and ear to figure out what piece the teacher was “air playing” using just their bow or hands, without making sound. It was interesting that the student comments on this event were the most diverse, ranging from “The archery was easy” to “I think the archery was kind of hard to do, but I think it was fun to do. I hope we can do it again next time.”

Students’ comments about the olympic event included “I think the olympic group class was the most exciting group class ever!” “Fun, and made the most of the available resources. I would do it again next year!” One student even commented “I think today’s olympics is fun because it’s not the real one, but it’s the violin version.”

All in all, the first Suzuki Olympics Online were a great success, and all of the students, parents and teachers definitely deserve gold medals for their efforts!

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