walking with me, journey and trainings for Yog opening Aug 14 2010

Konbanchiwa kiki!

I have been spending half of my day today to do some art souvenirs for my spsd:) 4 days had passed since the inauguration of syog 2010 aug 14. My most ever unforgettable experience that i will remember forever! I can tell u that i am still in yog mode and can't believed that the DAY was over. Let me share with u my entire journey while my memories are still so fresh. I'll be writing a lengthy entry and kindly bare with me, u can skip to different chapter to find out more~ To prepare for this opening cremony, i had started training since late march, so is 5 months in total.

Chapter 0
Let me brings u back to from the start when i had my audition for yog opening! 2009 Nov/Dec. I received a call from on of the yog trainers and went for audition alone at syc. I went up with the rest of the many (50) interviewers to the second floor. Remembered that most of them are younger than me..and i seems to be one of the oldest. Not forgetting that the age limit for this performance is 13-21. and I am 19 at that time. We were ask to line up in 10 rows and we were taught about 5 counts of 8 of the dancing steps. Then the music was played, (fast music) and this is how we are interviewed. I believed this is to see if we are able to catch the music tempo correctly and able to move flexibly. I have fun dancing then. After the dance, we are ask to gather. The trainer in charge told us briefly what event is it that we are performing for and that he said that we'll be excepting to play with water and fire. So he ask if anyone is afraid of either water or fire. This actually excite me as this is the very first time i am joining a mass performance.

I am really 100% looking forward to this performance and tried to ask frens around me if they would like to join me. Only 3 of my very best friends are interested.. out of the 3, one of them sadly will have to enter army soon, even though very keen, won't be able to join. For the anthor two of them, i brought them happily to syc for audition few weeks later. To my astonishment, due to some other religion rules, they are unable to join and perform under ssa. I'm truly upset and disappointed. I felt sorry, as i had drag them all the way to syc and they can't join! :'< But then, i requested for a chance for them for the audition dance...

Chapter 1
One month had passed and i still hadn't get any news whether i had passed my interview. During Dec kenshu, being too anxious about the results, i asked some of my comrades. They got accepted and received calls from the yog trainers!! They said they are asked to be fire dancer! Omgomg.. what should i do? My tots runs wild.. they passed and accepted for such a good position!

My expectation for the syog performance role:
Water-> Running and dancing on water, even splashing water for the effects
Fire-> The professionals will be playing it such as the fire breather and we'll be dancing beside or behind them.

Weeks when passed.. I'm really scared! I really want to be able to perform in this event! Desperate! I called the yog trainer that ask me for interview and the result was that I was accepted! He had forgot to inform me :< [could be that too many to inform].

Chapter2 2010 march
My first yog training finally comes and we are ask to go CHIJ toa payo,[secondary school] for out training grounds for every thurs and marina floating platform for every sat. I remembered very clearly when i walk down to the holy feeling school with my junior, feeling nervous for the first training. We were told that those 19 years old and above are allowed to be under fire dancer and we volunteer ourselves. There were about 200 water dancer and 59 fire dancer at that time.

We saw some bornfire professional over there. A show was putted for us and told that this is what we are expected to perform as fire dancer. Romi, who's one of the pro, light up double stuff and started swinging it gracefully. Onlookers us, were awing now and then. We clapped and wow many times. He intro us to stuff weapon, poi and finally fire breathing. I am standing at the front and can reallllli feel the FIRE HEAT! He was soooo coool! My jaw just dropped and out of words. After the spectacular performance, we were told that THIS type of performance, we can only see if we pay at least $30 to watch it! He then used his lid fire short "stick" to get close to the girls, trying to scarred us. We also saw another fire fan performance by a female pro xyn. It was realllli beautiful.. After their performance had ended we were given advised: "As u can see this is a performance which involved high risk, and u will be learning those props with fire, so for those who are afraid please join the water dancer instead". After this warning, some of the girls dropped out and join the water group.

Down deeply in my heart, i can feel that i am really afraid of the fire after the performance.. But thinking that things will go well after 5 months more of trainings and that i really want to break through, grow and really achieve something that I don't dare to do.

We are asked separated into few groups and the first prop i tried is stuff. -> A normal bamboo stick, of cos without fire, about my waist length. Firstly we are asking to do basis spinning actions. I'm really enthusiasts and concentrating on making the circle bigger and smoother. Feeling lucky, one of the trainer gave a acknowledgment knock and i was ask what my name was. I was selected to be in the stuff group.
I tried fans too, it was more of dancing steps and movings of hands, it's pretty interesting too. Sadly, my junior who came with me didn't get selected for the groups at the moment.

Chapter 3
Second practice which is on thurs, marina floating. We were group accordingly and i join the stuff separated with my only friend i know at that time. That day, i got my own stuff and we were taught spinning one circle and two circle which is like drawing 8. The stuff is long for me, as i am rather short, and I got many hits by the stuff many times on my body and even my face >< I went home with some bruises. I know i shouldn't complain. This is what it called the pain and sweat of training process.

We were taught by the pros.. One of them is romi and another one is a really cool looking guy. The trainers are all guys. I was thinking if it is alright for me, weak looking and timid girl to play with this type of props which is normally carter for guys? Nevertheless, I will try my best to surpass the guys! I really enjoy it. I rmb when i was young, i like to imitated those martial arts such as monkey god to swing the stuff around and now i am learning how to play with it! Happily, i brought home the stuff to practice. My 打狗棒！看到kiki就打！Week gone pass, and almost everyday, i will use any similar looking stuff to practice. I hit myself countless times ouch ouch, but it's part of training! few weeks later, i was "promoted" to try using double stuff. My left hand was weaker and it takes me more time to control both at the same time without hitting the two stick. We learnt stall, double 8 inward and outward. Some i have difficulties learning it. And my brother who normally use his badminton racket to swing actually taught me how to imagine and swing it nicely. I truly love and enjoy playing stuff! But sometimes many things doesn't goes smoothly as how we want it to be. That day, one month after that, I was finally praised by one of the cool pro that i had improve and was said not bad. A new fire pro arrive from taiwan and we were ask to drop our props and introduce to try out a new one....All the dart group and other left overs are ask to try out the new prop- dart.


All of us queue up into different groups and try out the new prop named dart. It was told that it's not a easy prop to learn. Even more difficult that stuff of course.
A number of more than 50 of us tried this twirling and shooting. The taiwan pro asked us to imagine there's a bird 45 degree up there and u use the dart to shoot attack and shoot down the bird. I used my most force and swing-throw the dart by aiming at the celling wall. Probably i am lucky, i got in with 4 of my friends and to my delight, my junior initially did not secure a place in any fire props at the moment manage to pass the test and join me in this dart group. Unfortunately, a new friend that my junior met did not get pass the test and was ask to come back to try out another prop -fire fly- during May. Overall there are about 10 people are ask to take a break for a moment. I can really feel that she's very anxious and frustrated..And thinking why other manage to learn and pass a skill so easily and why she can't..This is really the harsh reality that she have to faced.

Still thinking about my stuff, the authorities did not inform us if we will be able to continue stuff or not.. Just for now, i know i have to really do my very best for this difficult prop. Other 2 pro that was teaching us stuff were also in dart group to learn for our taiwan shi fu master.

Chapter 4
Dart is also use for wushu; Chinese marital art weapon. The Taiwan ah bao master looks really shy when he was talking to us girls. The training for dart started and every single day was a huge challenge to me. Every day with 4 hours training was really tiring. After 2-3 lessons, we all got rope cuts from our fingers and hands.. which is worst than playing stuff, just blue blacks. We got blisters and blisters after it busted. April came and I've to go overseas to Australia for 4 days [wed to sat] and so i have to missed a day of the practice.. Every single practice is crucial to me. So when my plane landed back to s'pore on 10 April, sat, 6.20pm, i asked my dad to fetch me all the way to tao payoh for training at 7pm. I reached there late as my dad got lost. When i reach there, to my panic, they were all grouped [10]into how well they fair and i was totally blur..there were about 6 groups at that time. They had learnt new elbow skills, learn shooting and shout at counts and i felt left out. I went to find ah bao master for advise and my junior taught me skills like how to turn when swinging dart. I then joined the group that was one of the weakest. 2 more training passed. I was struggling every practice to catch up with the others dart members who had improved as i know that there will always be "exams" and those who can't pass will have to drop out.They only want 50 fire darts so at least 10 must be out. I was fighting with the fierce competition then. We were told that we will have exams about 2 weeks from now.. Also along with the exam pressure, at the same time, the trainers said two new props will be introduce to us; fire rope[for females] and fire sword[for males]. While we are practicing, ah bao master and other trainers walk pass our different groups and scout outstanding dart players to try out those new props. Meaning that they will be able to perform both fire dart and fire rope/sword on the actual performing day. I'm not as lucky like how i was previous two times. With just 1 practice that i missed, i'm far behind the rest. I'm really afraid that this might means that i still not up to the standard for the exam. Another practice gone. For the following few practices after that, 2 hours are dart training time and another 2 hours is for ropes and sword. The left overs, me and my junior with the rest is only about 10!! I was soooo scared!!!!

I must never let this to discourage me, I must fight harder and pass the exam no matter what, I thought. These are the determinations that i had set for myself:

1) Must improve and master all the skills taught and since every new skills will be taught on each lesson, i have to have the wisdom to be able to learn the fastest on the spot.
2) I must also be scout for the fire rope
3) Never give up on improving no matter how hard the training is.

So to take actions, I trained one more day each week at my house. A minor incident happen one day when i was training my dart outside my house. I was standing outside the lift and shoot the dart, and didn't notice that the ceiling is not high enough, the dart go through the public light on ceiling and there is a whole there. Pieces of glass came falling down on the floor. So subsequently, i went below my block to train and also to train my guts, there'll be "audience" walking pass and looking at what i'm doing. There's one trick i really have difficulty learning which is the needle thread. It involved continuous shooting front and back none stop.

Chapter 5
The day for our dart assignment drew nearer... Ah bao taught us more tricks like kicking soccer, he even pass down to us some leg tricks that he used 3 years to invented it. 1) Dart go down from left leg, turn the direction and shoot out from underneath left leg. 2) More challenging is right leg and turn another direction and shoot out similarly as the first. 3) Soccer is dart go down right leg, and by using left foot to feel it, kick it out like a soccer.

For our assessment, we need to out front and back at first two 8s, change direction and front back at 4s. one the 5th 8s, will do the left leg tricks, followed by right leg tricks on the 6th. By the 7th will be the elbow shooting. and lastly 8th is the soccer kick. Mastering the steps from 5th onwards is already difficult... And if combining all together with the tempo given is really not a overnight training thing to do. While with these 8 steps of 8s, on top of the endurance of the pain caused by rope cuts and muscles stress, There are countless times where i can't control the dart while and the balls came hitting me hard on my face >< It does hurt too. [Imagine if its with fire, My face is burned BLACK!]

Our dear master being a pro have many other mission to do and only will be with us, train us for a month. Two trainings before he left, he taught us dart wrapping on the body waist area as probably it will comes in useful for our actual day choreography and asked us to try and learn at home ourselves. On our last day with ah bao, he demonstrate us his another invention named: Something dart sword =x It requires the dart to go down under the left arms and come out to the right shoulder and catch it, changed direction with ur leg and shoot out 90 degree this time like a straight fierce sword to the enemy in front of u. Before the 4 hours training ended, he showed us his PERFORMANCE with FIRE dart! All his shoot are professionally smooth and sharp , most of it are what he had taught us, when he did the soccer kick, his left foot caught on the fire heat and he just tap his foot few times on his thigh to extinguish it. He did the wrap body and i looks reallly dangerous. There were times he tried to scare us audience by shooting the fire dart toward our face and before it really touches us, he shorten the dart. His fantastic performance made us lost of words to describe it. Dart weapon is the longest and very difficult to control the movement. With just one mistake, it will cause harm to the people, property, and urself on FIRE!!! Lastly, we took picturesss as a byebye to our master~

Few days to go for assessment. We double our concentration and hard work on training and me, my junior and other junior even practice dart in SP near fc 4 one afternoon. Student who walked passed us almost got hit by the dart..lol.

I got many help from my junior that was always with me, she's good at soccer and taught me and many others how to master it.
->The Actual assessment came. After hours of practice for the day, we are group into 5 and each time 5 of us have to perform the 8th steps with the tempo given by trainer. Before it starts, we received a bad news. Trainer inform us that there will only be 30 darts confirm to be in this group and so now almost half who can't perform up to standard will have to disqualified. And good news is that those who can't pass dart is allow to assessment for stuff and fire flies.

The exam started. My junior was one of the first group to be in front and perform. She make some mistakes by not catching up with the beat given by trainer but she completed her 8 steps. After 8 steps they were ask to run with the dart and do the needle treading on the every 5 and 7 counts. She did very well there. After some more groups, it's my turn. I am always been timid at exams, heart was really thumping fast. Remember that i tried to be in time for every tempo and I did my best. However, i'm still bad at the needle threading..After my grp performance, some daties came to me and say that the trainer actually ask what my name was when i was performing just now. So does that means i did well??
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One week passed, May arrived. The result of the assessment is here. All my closed dart friends and i had passed the assessment. To my greatest surprised and mixture of worried and disappointment, my junior who was seems to perform well and taught us was not able to pass the test! How unfortunate! Can't bare to see my junior was ask to go fire flies [who came back start may], a friend of my junior and i went to talk and question our trainer.. I doesn't work in the end. My junior really loves playing dart :( Even one of the pro from stuff did not passed the exam either..

Chapter 6
Fast forward to the training days as confirm dart group.. The training got direction-less without our ah bao looking over us. We have to be independent to improve our skills.. Still in one of my prayers, I put that i must be able to either join stuff or rope on top of my dart. I must improve myself to be one of best in dart, out stand the rest. This is my determination that me and junior friend KL had set for ourselves. We must train for my junior too. So when others are having rest, we must still continue to train. At that time, groups such as poi, fans an breathers had started trying out with fire.. I'm anxious. thinking that less than 3 months to go will i be able to make sure that i am not afraid of fireee?? I heard feedbacks from poi grps, one girl who'll be taking her 'O' lvl writing paper the next day got her right palm burn by the fire. I was damn worried.

The day for me to try out fire came... on that day i saw a member from sp, playing poi got himself almost hurt. the fire poi touches his white sp shirt and the heat cause black patch on the shirt. scary... After seeing many of dart members trying out the fire props, i still don't have the courage to try it. After about two trainings or more gone, i scope up my courage; since almost everyone had tried with fire, i must DO IT TOO! I got hold of the dart rope..it was really long. longer than my usual one. I did shooting front back, keeping the fire as far from me as possible. I can hear the "Swoop swoop" sound of the fire while i turn it. The heat i can totally feel it too. i see the tip of the flames going pass my hands..The smell of smoke and Kerosene. And both my hands and legs are shaking... That's no way i dare to do the elbow or worst the leg tricks.

I even challenge one of the male darties to do the wrap with the fire. And when it's his turn, he is one of the first dare-st ones to do it. The fire ball hit his ribs , hibs and bounce out.

A day at marina floating platform, the trainer ask for 10 volunteers to come out and those will be standing at the front stage and do the body wrapping. Keeping my junior's opportunity for not able to play dart, me and kl volunteered ourselves to be one of them.

From now, those who missed more than 3 practice will be out. Those late must inform one day in advance. All hair must be pin up neatly.

Due to some confusion and arrangement after many darties failed the test, the trainer
says that they need more rope people. I was asked to pair up with kl. I felt really lucky, as most my close friends are in ropes too and my prayers have came true. However without knowing.. those who are not in the rope are ask to be in stuff too. =/ but anyway, i think i did quiet well paring up with kl and we can do double rope easily with pair work.

Our choreography music is ready! The fire retard costume design is out! The music gave me a "chinese" feeling and i can imagine dragons and drums and the fire costume looks like a ranger suit when romi wears it. It also looks like fire fighter suit.

Xyn lead us to sharpen our dart moves by hand sharp and leg stamping actions. Soon, there's a great opportunity for me to gain my another prayers true again; which is out stand the rest dart. They will be choosing 3 best dart players to be on media and perform for one day. The day before the choosing, xyn praised me when i was shooting the dart with grace stamping actions. But one the day when she is looking for media representative, xyn walk beside me, trying to scout for the 3 darties, i lost my courage again.. I'm still timid! My partner kl was chosen. As i practice the dart, when i notice that xyn was watching me, i lost the momentum and the dart came back slapping hard on my face. >.< My fears have overpowered my courage and i lost this very single chance. I heard kl's voice on radio the next day.. I'm felt really happy for her. ^^

June came.. And our trainings will be located at mandai hill camp [for army] and thurs at the same secondary school. The trainer xyn prepare a choro for our darts. it's short, just 9 steps of 8s.