00:00You sort of get this responsibility to sort of uphold the standard of touch and sync
00:09floor. I always had that desire that I wanted to be the best player, the best
00:23person on the field. It's been about four years now. I first started as a freshman
00:38in NUS. That's when I first picked up the touch. Originally I came from a rugby
00:42background. It was a really high intensity sport. Fewer players on the field means
00:47you're doing more than traditional rugby. All six players on the field are
00:54involved in any one play at a given time. So it's essentially just one hour of
01:01non-stop running and and this is like every time you run a set you have to be
01:06running at like your 90 to 100 percent. Usually for the second hour of training
01:12that's when we really gas out the tank and yeah it's really physically demanding.
01:17As a player we have lots of additional fitness sessions on top of our club
01:30trainings and Singapore trainings. We end up just training pretty much six seven
01:34days a week including all of our gym and physical sessions. It was easier for me
01:42to pick up because coming from a rugby background I had all of the basic skills
01:46down but there was still a lot for me to learn. But gradually after that I
01:49started falling in love with the sport and sticking around. Being in the national
01:53team of course a lot more is required of you on the physical level. You sort of get
01:57this responsibility to sort of uphold the standard of touching Singapore.
02:02I always had that desire that I wanted to be the best player the best person on the
02:10field no matter which category or which whichever situation I'm putting. In my
02:15free time I would be doing my own fitness sessions I would be you know studying
02:20game footage in my hall room just to try to learn the game as much as possible.
02:24That mentality carried through moving up to club which was a bigger level and of course the
02:29international level which was the biggest jump off of them all.
02:36That mentality of being the best player on the field I pretty much apply it to like every
02:41other aspect of my life. I have this thing where I'm not always the fastest
02:46person to pick something up but I always make it a point that I have to put in the
02:51work to you know pick something up. It applies to things like work and even the
02:56small things I think it's like you know if I'm gonna do something I may as well be
03:02putting in my 110 percent.
03:08Performance I think is definitely one of the pillars of sports excellence.
03:15This is the first initiative that we're trying to kickstart our preparation post World Cup.
03:22So we had our recent World Cup in 2024. It's a four-year cycle as we prepare for the next World Cup.
03:27The vision is actually to allow more players more opportunities to compete. So we want to kickstart
03:35this high performance camp to align certain standards and start a campaign a little bit earlier.
03:41Identify young talents.
03:43I participated in my first Dutch World Cup when I was 22. It was an eye-opening experience like just
03:53being part of the whole national program back then. I had so many seniors and mentors to guide me and
03:59help me and I think just being able to represent my country at the highest level like made me super
04:07motivated to continue my journey. Yeah, so I'm just really hoping to do what I can in the next two years
04:15to help out in transition like what my seniors did for me.
04:20I think what I want like the younger players to know is that they can dream big you know and the value of
04:27hard work will one day bring them to their goals. We train so hard like our whole life just to compete and
04:39win right and then at the same time there's certain things that you want to make sure that you are not
04:46compromising. So sometimes when I coach the younger kids like you also try to teach them the correct values
04:54you know like how we win is important, how you carry yourself is important and how you stand up
05:00after a loss or after a defeat is as important as that. When we compete at the highest level your values
05:07will get challenged you know your challenge and that to me is the true essence of sporting excellence to
05:16uphold your values and to play with integrity like to to compete even at the highest level.
05:25There's so much potential you know to represent the country and I think touch is a sport that
05:31we are able to compete. I really hope that we have a large pool of players across all genders
05:38yeah and across all age group. That will be the goal and I'm trying to push us in that direction
05:44so more opportunities, more camps, more outreach yeah hopefully we get more people interested in sport.
05:55Right now what we have in Roderick Secondary Touch Rugby is one of the SILs or student initiated
06:03learning or essentially it's a special interest group. Students voluntarily sign up for these
06:10groups and they take and they train in it once a week and they are given the opportunity to represent
06:16schools in competitions as well. It's compulsory for every student join a CCA whereas for SIL they sign
06:23up on their own. I have students coming from uniform groups coming from the performing arts so it's it's
06:29an opportunity to try something different for them. The ability for them to actually learn a new sport to
06:35actually represent the school for them to don on that t-shirt actually makes a big deal for these students
06:41because that's that's something different that's a new group that they're belonging to. Personally for me
06:47I think I've been very fortunate as well in my current role as a senior teacher. I don't have any
06:53CCA in particular that I have to be in charge of so I take this as my own personal CCA. For me it's the joy
07:02when they learn something and the joy of achievement right when they do well you can see how much they
07:10want it how much they train for it. We're a small group but I'm very proud of them. There's a saying
07:15in education is that we don't teach subjects we teach students. At the end of it regardless of
07:22whichever subjects we're building up for life right I think for us we are really focusing on developing
07:29the characters. For me as a physical educator I really want them to love sports. I mean up to now
07:36I'm still playing and I still love to play right. I think it's so important especially in this day and
07:42age yeah so I think this is key values in which all these students need to learn in which they're
07:50developing their character through actual situations right even though when emotions are high
07:56things like stakes you know you might lose that important game but you keep your values. I think
08:03as as a touch rugby community we've gone through quite a fair bit of changes and quite a bit fair
08:09bit of challenges so on my end I would love to give back to the sport that's given so much to me
08:16and I think the best way that I know how to is to really to pay it forward.
08:20If my students can eventually go on to represent Singapore, hey I've done my job yeah
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