After doing my homework for the past hour or so I have decided to post another blog. Sighz. I guess its about training yesterday....24th April 2003. Yesterdays training was very unlike the previous trainings I had ever attended in my school. It started out like this. My friend is really into the sport and partly due to the upcoming tournament, seem to have an adrenaline rush everytime there is training. See, he is the vice-captain (don't ask me how he got there) and I sort of felt that..well maybe I should really put in some effort into training. See, the thing about me being very focused into doing something is such that I really want to get it right. Sort of like a perfectionist. That bad attribute about me surfaced when we were doing our program (or whatever you call ji4 hua4). See, I was very frustrated with myself because I couldn't take alot of the shots that my friends gave me. To make matters worse, I told myself that even IF I couldn't take those shots the least I could do is TRY!! But to my utter disappointment, my legs refused to bulge whenever I was given those shots. So i tried really hard to at least move my legs and not stand there like a total idiot but I just couldn't do it. I became extremely pissed off with myself and sort of started scolding myself. Right. This might sound kind of natural to most people or to none...but the point is. After becoming all angry, frustrated and agitated with myself, I realised that I had broken the 1 major rule that I had set for myself whenever I play. The rule is to never ever lose my temper. Ok, I'm not blaming anybody for it but I really have this nasty temper that regularly goes unchecked in the past. Since temper is a bad attribute, I tried to change myself by promising that I will never be angry as long as I play my sport and to control my temper out of the court. Well, I haven't lost my temper on court for the past 3 years and when I realised I had just broken one of my major major promises, I was extremely disappointed and sad with my self. Mix that with anger and frustration and fatigue and you'll get one messed up kid. Nobody will ever want to go through this experience. I mean. I really couldn't think straight. I was totally scolding myself verbally. Everybody who looked at me that day..1. Thought that I am insane and 2. Thought that I had just fried a wire in my head. But the nice part was I was very very relieved that 2 of my good friends conforted me and hey I managed to pull through. (Guys that really really meant alot).

But the idiotic part about training was what happened later. You see, I don't mind being sad and angry if it would mean that one of my good friends could become happy (not ALWAYS though). One of my good friends was supposed to play an inportant match that would enable him or his opponent to get selected into the school team. See, he lost the match and was very very very disappointed with himself. I really didn't know how to console him. I mean after all he has done for me easlier, all I could do what sit beside him and tell him that "Hey, no problem. A match doesn't decide who wins and who lost. Its just points. What matters is you learn from the match and become a stronger person". I know I know. Lame advice. But I'm not much of an advisor and I really didn't know how to cheer a friend THAT down in the dumps!! Sighz. But the end of the training was kind of the nicest part I guess. After I played with and lost to our new coach, he gave me sound advice that I sorely needed. He told me that the competition is just like a big race. He said that he, including me and the team is in it together and that everything we do, be it training, get together sessions, talking in school will help us to run the race. He told me that when we complete the race, he didn't care if we won or lost. All he cared about was when we looked back at the track, we could pat each other on the backs and say "we gave it all we had and we could give no more". We had run a good race and we should feel pround of ourselves. He said that he has talked to alot of my other teammates and he said that they found me a nice guy and they trust me alot (right..he is just being diplomatic here). He said that to win a match, I need to have 3 qualities. Desire, determination and most importantly, I must possess self believe. He said that there is no use in your teammates believing in you if you do not even believe in yourself. You know, after hearing his words, I decided to write it down here so that I can always look at it and be inspired by how someone could say so little and yet touch me so much.

Oh well, on a lighter note, we finally received our competition attires. Not that pretty but I still have the same patriotic feeling I had 6 years ago when I forst donned my school colours and played for them. Its so nice to see the words inscribed on the back of the t-shirt bearing the school name. Oh well, Guess I should stop here.