This term, the FSA, or Faculty Sponsored Activity, program is as popular as ever, allowing students to pursue an activity they are interested in as their afternoon activity. These FSAs span a wide array of activities, including:

Horseback Riding: This term, Sandra Redjali ’19 is doing a horseback riding FSA with Ms. Preston. This FSA emphasizes bareback riding, a form of horseback riding in which the rider does not have a saddle. This form of riding is difficult because the rider has to have skill and precision because there is no saddle to compensate for any errors. For this FSA, she rides three times a week, with one lesson a week in bareback riding. On her off-days, she does yoga, runs, or reads about natural horsemanship.

Mountain Biking: Jon Lamson ‘18 and Ben Milliken ’18 are undertaking a mountain biking FSA this term, with Mr. Hall as their faculty sponsor. Three times a week, they go out to Groton Town Forest for between one and two hours. Depending on the day, they either go for a normal ride, do intervals to practice speed training and catching up to each other, or bike hills. On Thursdays, they join the Ultimate Frisbee FSA, and on Mondays or rainy days they do core and back workouts. Both Ben and Jon have biked for many years, and enjoy it immensely. They love challenging themselves while biking, and Jon loves to follow his biking mantra, “mo’ danger mo’ better.”

Rugby: The rugby FSA, now in its fifth year, is going strong. This season the FSA consists of all experienced players; they and their faculty sponsor Madame Stanton hope to build on the progress they made last year. They plan to have many games against different club and high school teams, along with competing in the Massachusetts tournament. In practice, they condition and run rugby lines, trying to improve their skills. An outside coach from the Massachusetts Youth Rugby Organization comes twice a week to instruct them in tackling form, and on other days they play two-hand touch.

Figure Skating: This term, Lucy Gund ’19 is continuing figure skating. Her FSA is sponsored by Mr. Francis. Her FSA consists of six days per week of on-ice training, along with strength and conditioning exercises. She is planning the club ice show to benefit a non-profit dedicated to helping families of children with cancer. Spring is also the start of competitions, so she is working with a choreographer to develop new programs for her performances in the coming weeks.

Ultimate Frisbee: In its second year, the Ultimate Frisbee FSA is extremely popular. During practice, they run drills and scrimmage to improve. Last year, many members of the team had not played much Ultimate before, but this year the team consists of all seasoned players. They hope to continue playing some of the best Ultimate teams in New England. They have many more games planned with their next matchup being Andover. They were victorious in their first game, winning 15-0.