Epiphany

When Stephan Wiltshire came to Singapore in July 2014, I took the opportunity to go down to watch him draw at Paragon. I have watched him in  a documentary before on TV. He could draw from memory after an hour up in the air on a helicopter. It was just amazing seeing him draw. Stephan Wiltshire in action at Paragon drawing Singapore Art is probably the only subject I am able to fail in secondary school. Drawing is something I never thought of ever being able to do. I have asked my athletes who showed interest in drawing to come up with logos or T-shirt designs but most do not have the time to get something significant out. I have ruled myself out in designing or drawing. There are not many sculptures which depicts sports in action and I thought maybe I should give it a try.  When I picked up books from the library on sculptures, the books' advice is to do lots of drawing first before trying out working on sculptures. So back to square one. I went to the library a...

It was not so long ago on the first of Jan 2011, my close friend from university, Siew Noi, invited me to Pulau Ubin. She rented a chalet there and invited a few of our friends including some hostel mates of ours back in the NUS KEKR days. As usual she had some surprizes. She got hold of a wake boarding operator to come over. The instructor Paul managed to get her 9 year kid to wakeboard and it looked fun. I have never tried it before and I gave it a go. It was not easy and some of my friends failed to stand while the boat pulled us out of the water. I failed too at first but after a few attempts, I managed to get one run standing on the wakeboard for around 80m before I lost the grip and ended in the water. I was 47 years old then and it felt great learning something new. In 2014 a cycling trip with my athletes to Ubin and the chalets are no longer in operation. How things can change in just a few years. I am afraid of heights but in 2014 at the age of 50, I managed my first attemp...

Most coaches will tell you that "Coaching is a mix of art and science". A layman may misunderstand the statement and think that coaching is an easy job that anyone can do. After all, how could one argue with those who say running is as natural to humans as flying is to birds. Running has not changed much over the years even though the understanding and knowledge has increased. It thus came as no surprise that RI has not renewed the contract of its long distance running coach Mr. Steven Quek even though he has brought much success to the team. The news and information that I have is from Soh Rui Yong's posting on facebook. Rui Yong was coached by Mr Quek while he was in Singapore and he is Mr Quek's most accomplished athlete. Rui Yong is also the holder of Singapore's 10km record. I do not know Mr Quek well or even the details of why his contract with RI was not renewed. Running by itself or even as a social activity is indeed not difficult. As some of the athlet...

             Teaching is the best form of learning and learning to improve teaching brings great satisfaction.  Feedback Feedback and reflection helps both the educators and students. Educators need feedback from students just as students need feedback on their own work to improve. I learn from students, books, educators, workshop, seminars etc. and try to apply what I have learnt along the way. One can also learn many things by just watching the famous dog trainer, Cesar Millan, on TV training dogs. In Ceasar's own words "I rehabilitate the dogs and train the people". His immediate feedback to his charges (dogs) in training does wonders even to dogs deemed unfit to be trained. The people he trains to handle the dogs are like the teachers learning to manage their students. My attempt at feedback was to get students in my lectures to fill a feedback form as shown below. Students are to write the content covered in the lectures. T...