I had a coach in secondary three while studying in ACS(I). He was a short man, overly tanned, armed with a muscular upper body and supported by chopstick legs. His name was Mr See Teck Hock a man in his thirties who had a reputation among the student body as a very strict teacher and being a devil canoeing coach. Before I joined the canoeing team I had previously two core curriculum activities (CCAs). I left my second CCA at the end of secondary two with acrimonious feelings that it was just a waste of time. I felt that CCAs was probably going teach me useless skills and I felt that CCAs was not going to support me in the later parts of my life. My peers and also my teachers were often encouraging me to take part in one and that it would benefit me with the PEARLS point that I could accumulate for my Junior College applications.
At that time, I was what my teachers refer to as a problematic student. I do not know what came over me, looking back I guess I had a very short temper and carried with me a kind of anger that stayed with me controlled in between the breaths of air that I took. It was definitely there even in times when I was silent. My form teacher in Secondary Three Ms Siao Lay Kuan, she recognized it and also partly because of my under-performance for my academia. Besides the gifted educational programs offered by my educational institution, my class was considered the best secondary three to four class for academic performances. I never asked to be placed there nor requested for triple science. As a matter of fact I wanted to enter the ordinary two sciences program that the majority of my friends were posted to. The school disagreed with my decision because of my excellent grades I achieved in secondary two and thus left me no choice in the selection of classes. I felt there was no point in doing well if it was going to leave you unhappy with the outcome of it and thus I decided to deliberately do badly. This was a major contribution to the declination of my academic performances and another reason why Siao Lay Kuan often wanted to “talk” to me. I got angry at her for trying to talk to me. I never liked to talk about my feelings and often bottled them up. One day when she called me out for a “talk session” after class, I snapped at her Sotto voce and called her a bitch. After that event she decided to send me for some counselling sessions.
You can imagine how my secondary three life was like. The canoeing club was founded in the February of that year. I remember some of my closer friends joining the club in the beginning of the year. The reason why I decided to join the club later was because I was observing the changes that were going on in the lives of my friends in the club. What I observed was not what the eyes can see. I saw the kind of determination, an inner strength, discipline and focus that they carried throughout everything in their lives ever since they entered the club. After they won a canoeing medal (I think it was bronze), I knew it in my heart that it definitely came from the canoeing club. I was filled by a kind of craze to know what was so special about the canoeing club that can change so many people’s lives so radically in such a short of period of time. It was than that I decided to enter the club too.
I do not wish to talk about the kind of training that we had to undergo. You may be able to picture it in your head once you know that Mr See Teck Hock was a devil coach. But anyways, why I wrote this boring account of my life was because I needed to reminiscence how this was such an important turning point in my life. You see, Mr See was a really special man, it is with great regret that I only realized this recently after reading a sports magazine while having my hair cut. In that magazine, it wrote about various articles about sportsmanship and also about an event when an ACS(I) rugby player, kicked the head of another player and also bit him in the arm while playing a rugby tournament an epitome of bad sportsmanship. In the magazine, it emphasized that too often schools, in the pursuit of winning Gold Medals, have often missed the whole purpose of the game of sports. How true they were on this; too often have I heard that the club was going to be closed because it was draining too much of the school funds and not performing to its expectations and thus it would be a better use of the sports funds to use it more on the higher profile sports such as swimming and rugby. It is pretty ironic that it is the same adults and teachers that are telling us not to give up when the going gets tough and crap like that. But anyways, in the school’s pursuit of these medals, and the coaches increasing pressure to deliver the results expected of them, they forget that the purpose of sports is to cultivate character in the people who participate in them. It is this character that actually wins games and tournaments and commands the respect of the people watching the game. Looking back, Mr See actually understood this. This is why he reprimanded us while we were training for things I did not really understand then.
A lesson I will never forget is this: We had a junior who was doing push ups with us, and halfway through almost at our 4th set, he was at his limit- he just could not move his arms any more while the rest were still okay. All of us decided to just finish up our set of push-ups and be over with it. Yet, Mr See was angry with us for not helping our weaker peers out, nor slowing down for them and like the current electric herd of mindless cattle, for obeying the law of the jungle or Darwin's law of natural selection where the weak perishes and the strong survives. It was an anger that carried a tone of disappointment that you will remember for life. Eight years later as of now, I still do and act on it with great faith, even though it sometimes makes me feel like a loser in life, where to slow down would be going against the flow of the river in an increasingly hostile, competitive and unforgiving environment.
Another lesson he wanted us to know was the importance of punctuality. He told us that while we think that being five minutes late is of little significance, the act of being late can be seen that you do not value the importance of the person that is waiting for you or the importance of them or their dreams. It sounds harsh but I found it true while training in harsh conditions. You see, we only have around two hours of water training each session and being just five minutes late will signify five minutes off the entire team training and the disappointment of them in you for taking the teams goals for granted.
The greatest lesson and also most treasured lesson of mine is this:
The ACS(I) canoeing team with only one year infancy was regarded as the underdogs in the nationals. No schools regarded us as of any challenge and significance. Even worse, we were often intimidated by the other national players from the other schools such as SJI which was indubitably the national champions for many consecutive years. Mr See he knew of our concerns and he would often use as an anecdote a story of the puffer fish and the shark in the sea. In his opinion, we were the little puffer fish in the sea and SJI were the sharks. He wanted us to, just like the puffer fish, if it was being threatened by the shark to give it one hell of a fight and not to go down without letting our opponents know that just because of our small size, we are not to be taken lightly.
There were many more lessons but these were the ones most important to me. Mr See truly believed in first cultivating character to enable a person to succeed in sports and eventually become a winner later in life. The reason why I am here today is because of everything he taught. I do not believe I would have made it through my O’ levels if it were not for him. It was because Mr See insisted on seeing each member’s report card after every examination even though he was not in charge of my class of any subjects that I took my studies seriously.
The most significant part of my life was actually the result of all the training we endured. At the day of the canoeing nationals around August of my secondary 4 year, our team managed to win a gold metal, securing the overall championship for the entire B division team. If there is such a thing as miracles in this world we live, that was my miracle. A miracle so intense and of which we knew we did not win by being merely a stronger team, but by grace of which we were undeserving of, that the entire team broke down in tears that streamed like a wave of unrestrained influenza as we gathered around in a circle offering our prayers of thanks after the nationals. I do not believe that words can fairly describe those feelings of undeserving joie de vivre euphoria. It was like planned chained of events from somewhere, somewhere out of our control, from above that won us the championships. We knew it from all the trainings in which there was a heavy downpour that lasted only as long as we were travelling from the school to our training ground where it would miraculously stop and leave us rainbows that ended where we gathered our canoes in the Kallang waters. The rainbows whispered into our hearts, and required us to cup our ears into the voices of the forgotten, that encouraged us and fuelled us with strength knowing that we were not alone. If it is true that the end of rainbows lays a pot of gold, than we were the gold for the moment it lasted. The time where we lost our winged pedal which was going to be used in the coming race, and three days later we found it lying buried in the sand, in an impeccable condition. What are the chances of that happening? The time in our doubles race that lay the decisive outcome that we were to win in the competition by merely one enigmatic point, where our SJI’s opponents pedal broke into two that left everyone's jaw gaping wide, encircling the two victims of circumstances with an ambiguous question mark. It is almost physically impossible to break a racing pedal consciously and even more impossible to break it while rowing. How is it not possible that we won by grace and grace alone? How is it possible that this is not a miracle and since it is one, would it be strange for the entire canoeing team to break down and cry and cry and cry. . .?
How far have I fallen from back then? Looking back it is amazing to know that whatever achievements I have received thus far was the result of using what coach taught me and by applying it to my every day life. It fills me with nostalgia and acts us my prophylactic for my sick longing of what was, that makes me feel like throwing up whenever I think of how miracles to me now is like a distant memory, an archaic word from a language no one here speaks of, except in the memories of what coach taught us in his lessons of life, to never falter, never give up, to be the puffer fish we are in every challenges we face and to make good the saying that in adversities, some people break down, while others . . . break away.
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