I subscribe to what Xinhui has opined in her blog post; ‘Initially, going for competition is just to enjoy the process. Since when has it become so competitive already? If we go competition, the most important thing is that we ENJOY! You all have made it sound like if we didnt get medal it will be over for all of us. Is getting a medal so important? So what if we did not get overall? SO?’
Like her, I disagree that we are compelled to win if we want to compete. The mentality of ‘ trashing others’ is at large, is it targeted towards proving who is superior or the best, to compensate for the lost/humiliation suffered? If so, I rather your vibe be channelled towards striving for the satisfaction gained from enjoyment of the game and being able to push yourself to your limits.
I’m not minimizing the importance of your innate desire to win for self-interest or to prove otherwise. I feel it’s best left as it is, where it resides in you that can bring about an outburst of energy, raging fire whatever you call that, focusing on training hard in the smart way.
Projecting ‘trash whoever’ as a club goal presents a twofold. In a positvie light (and hopefully) it would create a sense of belongingness to ‘打天下’, on the downside medals are being ‘accquainted’ to competitions, therefore eschewing the normalcy that it’s okay not to win. What happens after that? The latter clearly is not the focus but still somehow intended if you get what I mean. This, is not the direction to be heading, and certainly not the best foot forward.
To all those in my batch, I do not know if you feel the same way as I do. Three years ago, we had our first ever 5D4N Wushu Training Camp. It doesn’t deter us to turn up for the camp no matter how our seniors desribed it as ‘hellish’, we took it head-on, we simply don’t give a damn. The treat was that a magical bond was formed; we train much, we laughed hard, we enjoyed the sufferings (damn physicals), we sweat, we eat and sleep together. And we came back for more! (I must credit myself for the positive learning attitude which stems from the urge to reignite my “long- lost passion” which I eargerly joined SPWC for).
I didn’t come from a background where competition strives (that much). Here referring to Wushu. We ‘live’ in harmony. I think this is suffice.
Year by year, seniors graduated batch by batch, there’s somehow a feeling that something’s missing, only to my realisation that we have to have something in order to be able to lose it. From being: motivated myself to train and to train even harder where you come to a point that you have learnt to tolerate physical pain and to focus and discipline yourself; focus-beyond the pain- to the opportunity of gain. The ever so goody good feeling enthralls and keeps you coming back for more to becoming less garang, less gung-ho and less motivated to keep pushing myself…
Moral of the story: you take a little longer than others when you don’t put the right (as opposed to best) foot forward.
am i making sense? idk where’im heading to. what i’m drivin’ at =p
