In an effort of promoting sports among high school and elementary school pupils in the local community, the Roller-skate Hockey Club of TKU goes around to Taipei First Girls High School and Ta-tung Senior High School as well as Danshui Yu-ying Elementary School for two hours each week to teach kids how to roller skate. This effort is part of the project organized jointly by TKU and the Ministry of Education in having university clubs to guide the development of clubs in elementary and middle schools.

Roller-skate Club has been on the project for two years. During this time, Lee Chen Yan, the chair of the club has gone to Yu-ying, Chen Yi-cun, another club member to Taipei First Girls, and Tsai Pao-chuan to Ta-tung Senior High School. In Tai-tung, where there is a hockey team, Tsai in fact has been coaching roller-skate hockey.

These schools have been chosen by the club for various reasons. Ta-tung, for example, is the Alma Master of Chen Yi-cun, and it happens to have a hockey team, whose members have already a good grasp of roller-skating. Therefore, for Tsai, it has been a delight teaching this team the basic skills of hockey. As for Taipei First Girls, some of the club members were active roller skaters during high school and got to know some members of the similar club at this all-girls school in numerous club activities, so it was a natural progression that they would like to keep the tie going even at college.

At this school and Yu-ying Elementary School, as skill levels vary, the coaches from TKU will adjust difficulty according to the ability of the pupils. They are taught mainly how to turn, brake and even fall with the roller blade safely. Video clips are sometimes shown to enhance learning.

Lee sees the important role his club is playing in today’s modern society where young children have been deprived of the space and opportunity of sports. Some kids do not even know how to ride a bike, he claims. Furthermore, many people have grown up not even knowing how to skate! The fact that there are only 10 members on his club is a case in point. He would like to recruit more members who will in turn ensure that more people in Taiwan will enjoy this wonderful sport. Interested? Please call him at 0928269322. (Ying-hsueh Hu)

UPDATE： 2010/09/27 CLICKS： 1346 DOWNLOADS：