Sec 3 Debate Finals

Today was the finals of the Sec 3 Debate.
The motion that was presented was "This house believes that rehabilitation is more useful than retribution in the judicial system"

Third speaker of the proposition, Haoling gave us an impassioned plea for the propositions case:


This was followed by a blazing rebuttal from Eusebio as the final speaker for the Opposition:


Our proposition came back with their guns blazing with a humourous and self-deprecating blow to the opponents use of statistical evidence:


Who won the debate?
Well, for those of you who missed it, here are the results:

38th East Zone Colors Awards (2008)

Today, was the presentation ceremony for the East Zone Sports Colors Awards.
This year was a special year for Victoria School in many ways.

First off, the cover design for the backdrop and program (seen above) was chosen from artwork submitted by students in the East Zone. Our very own Victorian,Ong Kang Sheng from Sec 2D, had his design selected to grace the cover and the facade for the ceremony.

In all we took 11 Team awards and 15 Individual awards.



It was a fitting welcome for our new VP Mr Anith who just reccently joined VS in June. In his short time with us, Mr Anith has already made himself an integral part of the Victorian family and his presence at the award ceremony made it all the more special for the boys.


This year's award ceremony was special for another reason. In the short time that Wushu was introduced in VS, we have managed to break through into National Top-4 ini both the B and C Divisions.

The B-Div boys managed to take National 3rd place.


While the C-Div boys managed to clinch National 2nd.


This means that next year, we will have to keep working harder to push ourselves.
With the potential in the team and the effort that we know we can put in, I am sure that next year we will be able to do better.

Let us work together boys, all the sports, all the CCAs and make tomorrow better than today.
Nil Sine Labore

My September Holidays

After a hectic Term 3 followed by immediate Wushu Camp, I was exhausted.

Luckily, I managed to get sometime off with my wife, Geri.
We went to Port Dickson, to chill-out and relax


All the camp planning and team-building activities I've done came in handy when we showed off our sand-castle building skills at the beach there. I've brought students for team-building activities quite a number of times to East Coast where Castle Beach runs sand-castle building workshops.


Now, I finally get a chance to do some good team-building activities and spend some quality time with my wife after being so busy :)

Nice to be appreciated :)

It's nice to be appreciated.
I've been running around since Friday preparing for Wushu Camp (see post below) on Sat. So that meant no weekend, no Teachers Day rest. But I felt it was worth it.

So when Peixiang and the gang kept asking me when I would be back, I kept asking why.
So it was a nice gesture when I walked back to my floor to find the whole jing-gang there with pizza and satay waiting for me for supper.

Usually, when they are waiting for me for supper, they are waiting for me TO BRING supper. Today, they were waiting to INVITE me for supper to celebrate a belated Teacher's Day with me. :)

That was a great gesture and I really appreciated it.

The pizza tastes better, the satay tastes juicer and the Pepsi tastes sweeter.
Thank you for making me feel special today, boys.
Thank you for making a difference to me.

Day 2 of "Aspire- 我武维扬" VS Wushu Talent Development Camp

Today is Day 2 of our camp, so bright and early we got the boys and girls to wake up and begin the day with some sports and games:

The VS boys introduced our Primary School friends to a favourate VS sport- Floorball.
In no time at all, our little wushu juniors had picked it up and were going at it with their hearts out.


After that, we began with more stretching. Darren had a taste of what it meant to undergo 'hard core' partner stretching exercise.


After that is was back to our fundamentals. Although the boys and girls were tired, I was glad to see some pronouced improvement in some of the VS boys. I'm sure that the presence of their little juniors working hard must have spurred some of them on.




We ended the day with the small competition. All participants were divided into groups. Each group was given a task to choreograph a short 15-30sec routine for their group.

Here we have Zhen yu's Group



Next we have Ryan's Group



After that came Yuda's Group



The winner of the this little mini-contest was Jinjies' group. Jinjie and group showed the most dedication and in the short time they had, they managed to stay focus and work on their routine to showcase the best of their abilities.



It has indeed been a fulfilling camp and today being Teacher's Day, I couldn't think of a more fulfilling way to spend the day :)

Thank you to all our little boys and girls from the various primary schools, we definitely enjoyed your presence here. We hope you'll all join us for future events and we can learn and train together again!

Day 1 of "Aspire- 我武维扬" VS Wushu Talent Development Camp

Today Victoria School Wushu team hosted 20+ students from various Primary Schools in the East Zone for a Wushu Talent Development Camp.

The camp was sponsored by South East CDC

Judging from the eager faces and excited chatter, I'm sure that many of the Primary School students had been looking forward to the camp.

It was the first time VS Wushu Team had invited guests to join us during our training and we were equally excited at hosting the lively boys and girls from the various Primary Schools.

We began immediately with the basics:

Yup, ssstretching!!!


Joining me in running this camp, was Coach Di Guangwen and Madam Ge Chunyan, both of whom were highly accomplished athletes when they were competing during their time in the Beijing Wushu Team.
Here see Coach Di leading the group in explaining the finer details of how to execute the basic fundamental movements of Wushu- our 基本功.


As flexibility is an important part of all martial arts training, we wanted to make sure that we spent adequate time stretching. This will improve their flexibility and allow them to accomplish more technically complex movements. More importantly, it will also help them to avoid injury from sudden movements or during their jumping/aerial techniques. So let's see how low we can all go!


After a sumptous lunch (Sphagetti and Honey Glazed Chicken!), we took the boys to East Coast for some games and team-building activities. Victoria School is located right next to the beach, so we had a nice stroll across to the sea via the underpath at ECP leading to the lagoon:


At the beach, we started out with a traditional game of 'Dog and Bone'. Tried and tested, it never fails to get a large group of people to start bonding quickly:


Later, we had the kind services of Alvin Lee and the great people from CastleBeach - Beautiful Minds to show us how to use their innovative Beach Works sandcastle building kit to make sandcastles. Alvin and team run free workshops on sandcastle building every weekend at East Coast Park from 3.30pm onwards. To find out more, see his website here www.castlebeach.org

Here we see Alvin give the kids a lively and interesting introduction to Sandcastle building. Good to go back to good, old-fashion fun in a natural environment, ya?
I'm sure many parents will miss the good ole kampung days:)


So after the demo, we broke the students into 4 groups and gave them 45 min to see which group could come up with the best Sandcastle in that time:


Here are the final products of our budding new wushu architects. Let's see what they came up with:

1)Tan Yuda's Group


2)Ryan Goh's Group


3)Fung Jin Jie's Group


4)Jin Zhenyu's Group


And the Winner of the Best Sand Castle goes to Ryan Goh's Group! Well done, boys (and girls- sorry, so used to only teaching boys that I kept refering to everyone as 'boys'!)

In the evening, Miss Atiqah Halim from South-East CDC came over to talk to our kids on community involvement and giving back to society. They might be young, but we figured that learning to give and having good character should be a core component of any martial arts training.


It's been a hectic first day with lots to do and I'm sure all the boys (and girls) had loads of fun. I could see the older VS boys enjoy themselves being Big Brothers to their younger wushu friends from the various Primary Schools.

To my VS Team, I hope that as you grow stronger, you gain strength in character as well. And as you grow in skill, you also grow in care and concern for others.

Always remember boys, that Victorian's are Gentlemen, Professionals and Sportsmen.
Nil Sine Labore