what is the meaning of tests & exams ?

I recall back when I was a student, I probably faced the same situation of tests and exams as students of today. Reflecting back, I can see clearly how I was stuck in this “score the As” and “If I don’t do well it automatically means ____ (insert word i.e. stupid)”. However all of these thoughts does not give perspective to the true meaning of tests and exams!

In my opinion, tests and exams are means to grade a student’s proficiency in a subject. And there are two major factors a test can determine

1) A student’s proficiency at understanding a subject

2) A student’s proficiency at remembering a subject

A point to note is that a good test – in my opinion – should consist of 20% 2) and 80% 1). That’s because if a test’s focus on testing a student’s memory, then it can be quite certain to say that the student will well forget what he memorised after the test.

Following on this path of testing, students find themselves having to memorise more and more stuff as the semester year digs in, for example:

Common Test One : Chapter 1 2 3

Mid Year : Chapter 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Common Test Two : Chapter 8 9 10

End Of Year : 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Everytime a test or exam surfaces , the student starts from scratch! And what happens when the “big exam” (“O” levels, “A” levels etc) drops? The student has to memorise everything he has learnt in the past 2 years, its no wonder if tests are set in such a format(to test memory) – most if not all students will find it stressful to study.

However, if tests are set in such a way that it directly tests a student’s understanding of a subject, such a scenario as depicted above is less likely to occur. Instead , students will find that simply by reading through the earlier chapters that they understood, they can quickly grasp the concepts and move on to the next chapter/subject.

Because when you understand something ,it sticks with you longer – if not forever.

Hence, as a student, never ever try to memorise something if it can be understood. Remember, when you understand something it’s automatically memorised. It’s so important i’ll repeat it here

Never Ever Try To Memorise Something

If It Can Be Understood

For When You Understand

You Remember

So you may ask, how do I understand ?! This is a subject where books has been written about it and a blog post isn’t enough to cover the entire subject, however if you would like to learn more, please leave a comment (below this post) or msn me and we could have a discussion.

Last but not least, doing well or badly in a test doesn’t show anything except how good you are in grasping concepts and/or remember concepts. To be honest, understanding a subject matter is just one skill (and not ranked very high) in doing well in life.

It is not to say it’s not important, it’s a reminder to you that grades are not everything. Do not think your future is gone just because you do not do well in school ! Your future is determined by so many other factors and in fact, many people who did not do well in school also managed to succeed in life! (there are also those who do well and succeed).

So remember, the true meaning of tests and exams is nothing but a test of your proficiency in understanding and remembering a subject matter. or simply translate

It’s your ability to retain what you’ve read

Its not that big of a deal ! For those of you who work and went for an interview, you definitely know that the above skill is not very much sought after as compared to stuff like..

* HardWorking

* Willing To Learn

* Social Skills

I’ll end this post with a final note, tests and exams is just here to test your proficiency in a subject – it does not fully determine your future or your life.

Keep your focus right here

Alot of us pass through life without ever fully enjoying it. We always find that happiness is somewhere in the near future, when A B C will fall into place or somewhere in the past, where  X Y Z had fallen into place but is somehow distorted now. And the kind of happiness in the future is one that has not taken place yet, and the one in the past is one that could’ve taken place (i.e. regret)

 

 

It is this kind of thinking that causes us to find peace and happiness ever so elusive. Such internal dialogue may include ..

* If only I had live in such and such a way when I was younger

* When I live in such and such a way I’ll be happier

While such thinking has it’s own payoffs, it largely isnt worth what could’ve been better. The payoffs of thinking like that is that it is never the best yet, the “best” has yet to come and we always have something to look forward towards. The sad part of the above is that the “best” never comes.

Such thinking is generated out of a fear that if we truly attain “happiness” or “the best thing in life” , there would be nothing more to look forward to anymore! Now isn’t that scary?! Living a life that could never get better! (Which means it can only get worst)

I was exposed to the above logic a while back and I agreed with how they potray the scenario , and my solution to it is fairly simple.

Keep your focus on the present moment , right here.

Why? Just as the flowers bloom in certain seasons and wither in another (season), there is no guarantee whether life will be for better or for worst. So we should embrace every moment life presents and to live through it. Clearly understanding that by focusing on the moment – right here, thats the only moment we can live in. Don’t follow your thoughts into the future and the past , because they bear no meaning (its okay to “think” about the future if that’s your focus , but do not allow your mind to heedlessly slip into the future or past without you knowing it).

Just as the wise has said “there are 2 days in a week that I never rest in , they are “yesterday” and “tomorrow” “ . Live wisely, life isn’t about what has past or what is coming, its about whats happening – now.

Is playing basketball daily a good thing?

As a young player, I’ve never been exposed to the art of training basketball. After all, training is – just training. Working hard was all I could think of and nothing was going to stop me from playing basketball on a daily basis – well almost nothing. Until the day I realised how playing basketball daily wasn’t doing me any good – no matter how I looked at it.

 

 

 

In order to be able to appreciate the benefits of not playing basketball daily, one can only do it. The analogy of being able to improve more and benefit one’s own basketball development is that of planting a tree. Even trees don’t need to be watered daily and fertilised every day! They too need time to absorb the nutrients given to it and not be drown in it’s own vitamins.

The first time I managed to stop basketball completely for a week or so– I cannot remember clearly. I remember having periods where I stopped playing physically, but I didnt stop on a mental level. The period I stopped both physically and mentally just for a couple of days, I realised a few things..

* Increased Energy Levels

* Renew Drive For The Game

* Creativity Sparks – more creative in the game

* Able To Better Appreciate The Game

I am a huge believer of a metaphor of the human being like the sun and it’s happenings like the solar system. Planets revolves around the sun , just as the various priorities in our life’s revolve around us. Never let yourself revolve around anything in your life – or else you’re going to suffer badly.

This you revolving around the planet metaphor is commonly termed as “addiction” . Although on a minor scale, its called routine habits. Have you ever felt life was meaningless? doing the same thing daily, weekly, monthly.. etc. Think about this.. are you letting yourself spin around something? Not always but often, people who are happy and fulfilled in life dont revolve around things, they let things revolve around them, setting proper priorities in life.

So why do people want to revolve around things?

Because most are afraid to face what is on the other side of the island.

I remember being addicted to computer gaming in secondary 3, I was subconsciously aware that I was addicted. I didnt face up to the reality.. until one day I decided to.. what was I really afraid of?

I was afraid of facing my failing grades and mountains of homework.

Are you letting something revolve in your life? Do you find yourself doing the same thing day after day and you seem to have lost interest in the thing you were once passionate about (but you keep doing them because you don’t know what else you can do)

Maybe its time, to break the habit. It takes one instant to decide to just break off the habit for one day or two, the rewards is for a life time. Try it, let me know how it worked out for you ^^

How do i handle my money? – part 5

Welcome to weekly series of How Do I Handle My Money?. It’ll be featured every Monday on a weekly basis. If you haven’t read the first four parts, please do so at the right side bar under “Favourites” =)

So in this series, I’ve like to show you what you can potentially accomplish with what we’ve talked about in the first four series namely ,

* Record And Plan Your Expenditure

*Take Action To Cut Un-Needed Expenses

*Pay Yourself First

 

 

Many readers may ask, What does all this leads to? What does this promises in the future?

That’s what we’re going to talk about today, in adam khoo’s secrets of self made millionaires , he touched on the 4 levels of wealth a person can accomplish , today we’re going to talk about the first level of wealth which is ,

Financial Stability

To achieve this, adam states that you need to..

*1* Achieve enough liquid assets to cover 6 months of your current expenses

*2* Enough insurance(life and hospital) for you and your family should anything untoward happen to you

Please note that the amount you “pay yourself” does not contribute to covering your 6 months expenses! That’s for your future investments.

Hence I would encourage all of my readers to aim for this level of wealth as soon as possible, it is akin to having your own “reserve pool” of cash, so that even in times of economic downturn, you have a “buffer” created to tide you through the possible crisis.

So now, it’ve be good to sit down in front of a piece of paper or a blank excel sheet and start planning how you’ll achieve financial stability. It may take you one year or two (or even more) and remember the journey of a thousand steps starts with the first – you gotta start somewhere!

Go ahead, take action.

Going with the flow for awhile

Having taught my 08-09 group basketball group, i’ve came to realise one thing that I’ve repeatedly done and could potentially result in very negative results. I’ve been way too proactive – desperate – towards my players. For example..

* I call up my players to ask if they want to train bball

* I try and convince them to come for bball

In my opinion , this is a taboo for coaches if done excessively

 

Until recently, outsiders has commented that I want to improve my players skills more than the players themselves. I’ve often dismissed this notion as I find that all my players want to improve to the best of their ability – and I truly believe that even till now. However, I have to realise that by constantly pressuring them – even if its for their own good – to come for trainings, what it does is that this places unnecessary on the players themselves.

Hence I’ve decided to go with the flow – I will revert back to my old rule of accepting players ( i came up with this rule to prevent myself from being overly desperate, but still it happened – so it’s best these rules apply again)

1) I shall leave my players to contact me and ask me when they would like to train– now I place all my training dates on the bottom right of the blog , so my players will know if there’s any “preferred” training dates (the date will be set when someone asks me to train them for bball (i.e. sean calls me and ask if mon I can work with him on his skills)

2) If no players want to come – thats fine with me. I’ll just practice on my own

I hope this “going with the flow” approach will bring our basketball team to greater heights

the real price of being great…

There is always a price tag attached to most things.. and today, I wanna talk about the price tag of being great at [something] . In this particular post, i’ll talk about basketball !

What is your view of how to become a great basketball player? yes many of you would have already known some.. let’s try listing them…

 

1) Practice

2) Knowledge

3) Discipline

4) Ecetera

But do you truly understand what these are ? my dear readers, all of the above is nothing without one thing

Consistency

You can’t be good for one day, or practice for a month or get knowledge from one source.. , in order to be great at basketball, all of the qualities you know of must be woven into

A LifeStyle – Your LifeStyle

That is why most players are good at most.. I once had a player who shot 1000 shots and practiced 6 hours a day.. and he asked me “coach, i’ve given so much.. why am i still so lousy?” My answer to him would be “because you haven’t integrate it into a lifestyle – its still practice to you” .

Many players don’t understand this.. they think that by being able to do a particular drill or perform a certain move – it means they’ve mastered it.. thats not true.. being able to do a fade away doesnt make you a great fade away shooter.. you gotta work at it.. – consistently! All this takes time.. on the court, alone – when no one is watching , you gotta practice man! Stay focused , keep going at it.. master it, as tim duncan said

Good , Better , Best , Never Let It Rest, Till Your Good Is Better, And Your Better Best

This quote – along with many others meant so much to me.. I bought a permanent marker and wrote it on my basketball and told myself, until I practice using this basketball till the words fade, I will not play another basketball pick up game. And I stuck to it – results? My basketball pals was all stunned when I return from my “retreat” – because i pushed myself so hard just to get the marks off , just to play another pick up game (took me ~ 2 weeks). So how do we make something consistent? 

Think of something you’re good at.. something you feel confident of.. do you think about it? do you consider it as “chore” or its just “doing what I am doing’ kinda thing.. let me give you an example.. some people are really good at watching tv serials.. they can tell you 7pm channel U has this program and its about.. and then at 8pm.. oh and if you don’t wanna watch this you can choose from channel 5 which covers…

Is watching TV a chore? (oh its 7pm! time to go to watch tv.. AGAIN=.=) – I Doubt So

So you’ll ask me, but coach , training basketball is so not enjoyable!? its so boring!

let me help you out.. lets take the tv serial as an example again.. if you switch to a channel which speaks in a language you dont understand.. the graphics are distorted.. try watching it for an hour.. – and enjoy it! go ahead.. do it.. what? you already know its boring? so what do u instinctively do? oh right switch channels

That’s right.. if something is boring.. make it interesting.. switch channels!

Think of ways to make it fun.. enjoy the process.. switch channels..

Ask yourself.. how can i make this fun? how can i enjoy this process? Initially, you’ve probably say.. nothing is going to make this fun! but hey stop there.. keep asking.. if there’s gonna be something really fun about training basketball , what would it be?

Keep at it, get out of that comfort zone. keep practicing, till your good is better, and your better best.

How Do i handle my money? – part 4

Welcome to the fourth part of how to handle my money? If you haven’t already ready the first 3 parts, please do so by navigating to the right side-bar , under “popular stuff” ^^

So in this fourth series, I would like to start on the theme of “paying oneself first”. Now what does that mean?

You see, every time we receive our allowance or salary, who do we pay? lets look at it

we pay..

 

the hawker, the barber, the technician , the entertainment stores . etc . But do we ever pay ourselves? Hardly, every cent that goes into our left hand, is paid to others from our right hand. Even if we do “save” up some money, we eventually spend it on something “big”.

Ultimately, none of the money we get ever stays with us.

So you may ask, why do we need to pay ourselves? The answer is simple, we cannot always be exchanging time for money. or for some, we simply do not want to change time for money. Let’s look at the typical mindset of modern day typical citizen..

Time <—> Money <—> Spend

This formula gets us stuck, because once we dont have time  ,we dont have money and we dont have money to spend ?!

That’s not what we want… If we expect to live a life of greater quality , we need to build momentum towards that goal, we have to slowly eliminate exchanging time for money, so we can spend time on more meaningful things.. Eventually, we hope to achieve the following

Money ----> More Money ---> Spend

Simply put, we let our money make us money. I know this may sound “idealistic” , but let me paint you a very simple picture ,(please note that this takes TIME), you save enough money to buy a bungalow , but instead of buying one bungalow, you bought 2 HDB flats, one for rent and one for personal stay.

You have effectively make your money work for you, because your cash is generating cash for you! Every month you get rental (automatically) without doing anything! now isnt that wonderful?

I know this is a very simplistic concept, so let me share with you something more substantial – something I just came across today.

I came across the opening of a cafe with a brand new concept and solid business model, in the opening, the senior consultant of the cafe mention that anyone interested could buy the “preference” shares for the cafe and would be entitled to monthly returns (as such is the nature of a preference share). At the end of 90 months (approx 8 years) , you would earn about 3 times what you put in, amazing? the best part, in this 90 months, you do not need to do anything.

Although you may think its “too good to be true”, to be honest, the company would’ve used this 90 months to gain leverage on the cash you put in and earned more than 3 times its original value – feel free to skip this part if you do not understand.

So part 4 of this series is simple – if you want to live a life of abundance and one that gives you more freedom , more time and more “life” , start paying yourself today. It doesn’t matter how small the amount is, start somewhere, and make sure you never spend this money on anything else other than making it work for you (not applicable to emergency cases).

Pay Yourself First

My Journey back as a player

Through the years of basketball, i’ve been constantly surrounded by people who is constantly saying how “old” they have became – at the age of 25 or 26 – to play basketball. How they were once much better than they were and many other interesting stories . Although I do not deny that they were once great players , I feel that what they are really saying is this , “You ought to respect me for who I was, not who I am” . – it was really an excuse .

I can back that statement up because I am one of the people who did that (as described above). I would often tell my players how good I was, how smart I was and stuff like that. As a coach, I had that “Right”. I am more senior, older , I have a job commitment , I need to start a family soon , etc. Also my current level of basketball play does reflect shades of my old self. But hey , i told myself, “your students are busy too, they have homework , they need to deal with lack of freedom etc”.

I’ve always taught my players to exercise time management, I guess its time I did the same to myself, I have to stop giving excuses , stop talking about who I was.

Instead, I should focus who I am , how can I be a living example for my players? Look , i’ve seen 60 year olds playing basketball at a remarkable standard for their age – I am 21, no excuses.

Hence began the journey for me back as a player , in fact, this insight came when I ordered the DVD from ganon baker “How to survive and thrive as an undersized” , ganon baker is 35 yrs old… and he works out like no other player I’ve ever seen. “talk about being old? whos older here” – i asked myself .

I’ve learned to stop focusing on the past.. I’ve moved on, to the present. I do not know what the future holds for me, but that’s beside the point. I want to live in the moment, for the moment.

Comparing myself to who I was before will not get me to who I was nor will it get me to who I want to become. As we journey through the sands of time, I came to understand that at every stage in our lives, we mature and grow. We’ll never be who we were, we gain some stuff along the way, we lose some stuff along the way.

Accepting what we’ve gained (experience, wisdom, maturity) and making the best use of it and accepting what we’ve lost (physical stamina , energy , drive) is the key to living one’s life. It’s never really about what we have, but more of how we use them. (note: Losing something doesn’t equate to not being able to get it back, I am just citing examples of stuff we can gain and lose – it doesn’t mean that in order to gain something, you need to lose something and vice versa)

Michael Jordan broke the record of most points scored for a 40 year old, he scored 51 points. Scoring 51 points was not something out-of-the-norm for jordan at all. But when he did that, I am sure he was always thinking about what he could do with what he had(jump shots, directing traffic, etc), not who he was(the high flying dunker).

I am glad I moved on to learn to let go of my past.. Readers, do you have a similar experience? Share it with me in the comment box. Here’s a video that illustrates what I just mentioned in the previous paragraph (last sentence)

“To be better basketball player …. you just have to be

smart to utilise the skills that have been given (to you”

-Michael Jordan

Basketball timeline – Sneak Peek

Hey all, i’ll be releasing a sneak preview of my “basketball time line” here =)

It’ll eventually be posted in full on a dedicated server of it’s own =)

enjoy!

Time Line Excerpt

During 2^nd half of 2003, I heard news that a renowned coach was opening a new youth team (Under 18s) playing for part of our constituency. Excited to hear this, I quickly began to ask all my friends whether they were interested to join in the training, in total these are the people whom join the team, Long , Gid , Ping , Wayne & me .

I remember training at a remarkable level at this stage of my life, I can’t remember how many things I broke at home (including my photo frame) just training on my basic cross over and behind the back passing – which I nearly broke my buddha’s image on the altar table.

Then there were days where I would train so hard on the court that all I saw was black & white. One significant drill was the full court lay ups with a few variations on the way to the basket. There were about 8 of us at beginning the drill , our coach didn’t gave us a specific number to complete , we just kept doing it until there were only 3 of us left. Coach continued to signal to us to continue and we just kept running and running and running up and down the floor – I must’ve ran 50 times up and down the floor alone – continuously.

After that particular training, I remember specifically seeing the basketball rim in black and white! I know I was close to fainting and vomiting, however I persevered and finished my free throws before proceeding to rest .

During my school holidays, I would rise to earlier than the sun and began having breakfast then proceeding down to the court to work on my game alone, went home had my lunch, and then go down on the court to play again in regular pick up games – I also studied the concept of the game and fundamentals when I reached home at night.

That kind of fire I possessed back then was so strong, I would just keep working on my game every chance I had. I would bring the ball everywhere I went – dribbling it whenever I can or doing some hand drills – the only place I didn’t bring my ball to was probably the toilet and the movies.

My studies didn’t suffer because my love for the game of basketball just propelled me beyond my comfort zone even in my studies. Everytime I would want to procrastinate on my studies , I would think “If I rest now, will it affect my basketball game?” .

This deep love for the game just drove me to eventually uncover the “genius” in me and to study the smart way – not the hardest way but the smartest way! In fact, during my mid year exams in 2003 , I topped my class !

BBall dilemma

Been rather busy recently with bball coaching and playing itself !

So far my feelings towards coaching my current players is half half, because they want to improve their studies and at the same time improve their bball. whilst this isn’t impossible to me, it seems to my players that it is quite an impossible task.

 

The frustrating part for me is that I would like to give them the freedom to choose their own path in bball (whether to come for training or not etc) , also I understand that to mould a great bball player, there are certain criterias and factors that simply is a must – attending weekly trainings is one of them.

Also, I do not want them to do badly in their studies, hence thus far I’ve not mind them missing trainings and skipping trainings even though it hurts me in my heart.

The worst part of it all, is that I know clearly how a person can both study, bball, have fun, enjoy and still score good grades and excel in bball, but clearly I haven’t got a chance to teach my players that yet.

I hope I get to teach them this ability to manage their life well soon – its an invaluable skill.

p.s sean taught me this trick from his blog

p.s.s should I make bball coaching a priority in my life since the above incident?

How Do i handle my money – part 3

If you havent already read the first two series of this , please do so :

 part 1

part 2

Alright today I am going to talk about the one thing most people dont do when it comes to their money , and that’s taking action. The first series taught us the “why” we should save, the second series taught us the “how" , now in the third series I would like to encourage you to take action!

Taking Action Is Imperative To a Good Financial Health

So here’s a list of actions I would recommend you take to work towards your financial health

1. Plan your savings
2. Records your savings
3. Be generous
4. Set one day a week to reward yourself for doing well the entire week
5. Ask questions actively – on how to have better financial health
6. Save on the soft drinks – better health too
7. Bring your own lunch to work
8. Work out at home instead of at gym
9. Sleep early
10. Engage in sports – that’s free

So thats 10 steps for you…

got a step for our readers? leave a comment and share with us!

bball physical – 4 basic keys

Basketball is divided into 3 key areas of development, namely, skill , physical and mentality. In each of these areas, I have the opinion that the mental aspect of the game determines 80% of all outcomes of the game. However, that is based on the assumption that the difference in skill and physical areas do not differ largely.

Hence today, our focus will be on – physical . And we’re just going to focus on simple and effective strategies to improve your physical.

Disclaimer: The author is not a certified doctor nor health care practitioner , what you read in this post is  the author’s personal opinion derived from his own experience.

They 4 key areas we’re going to focus on today is to assist our body in it’s 4 basic functions . All of which are vital for the body to rejuvenate itself and hence build muscles and remove rubbish we don’t need.

1) Digestion

Digestion is all in your mouth, I know how ridiculous this may sound to many , however my personal belief – not scientifically proven by myself – all digestion occurs in the mouth. (For more info , refer to this : Stomach is an organ of contribution).

Hence, a simple way to improve digestion is to bite longer.

Take least 15-30 bites for every food you take , including fluids like smoothies or vegetable juice or fruit juice.

2) Elimination

Elimination is the body’s function to remove rubbish (tox, acid etc) from the system. Only when your body is able to eliminate rubbish properly, then can it function optimally – including building those muscle of yours. I could write a couple of posts on this topic itself, however for beginners, I just want to emphasis 3 things

Dramatically reduce your sugar intake ,

Dramatically reduce your fat intake (fried food , junk food)  ,

Dramatically increase your fibre intake (vegetables , vegetables, more vegs!)

3) Hydrate Yourself

I believe this is a big reason why basketball players don’t grow in size much. They drink the wrong fluids. Most players drink sugar before a game and sugar after a game, I am not going into details here, but your body doesn’t sweat sugar, it sweats water and salt. So common sense would tell you that the drink you need is not coke.

 

Before a basketball game, you need to ensure you’ve properly hydrate yourself with at least 500ml of water – over a period of 2 hours prior to the game (do not drink all of it straight before a game!).

And after a basketball game, hydrate yourself with at least 1000 ml of water over a period of 2 hours.

YuSong : Personally, I drink 1000 ml before and after games (over period of 2 hours before and after)

4) Rest

Rest is the last – but not least – key to a good physical. Your body needs rest , your muscle needs rest and your mind needs rest. Getting enough rest is vital to your body’s basic function (the 3 above for example) and allows your system to run at 100% .

Always give yourself the gift of rest, when you rest , put away all your worries, excitement , dreams etc.

 

A good exercise to do when you sleep is…

Say to yourself , “I now give my body the greatest gift, the gift of rest” then..

From your hair down to your toes, say “let the hair relax.. forehead relax.. eyes relax.. nose relax..”

do this through your whole body (while lying down) – it helps in resting optimally.

The important thing when trying any of the above is to remember, make the changes gradually .

Swap that coke for plain water, swap the chicken wings for steam tofu , swap the french fries snacks for almond nuts. ( leave me a comment if you want to know more)

3 mistakes basketball coach & players make

Having been in coaching for 3 years now, I came to realised a few key distinctions to outstanding coaching. One of which I’ll talk about today.

As I am writing this, tinches of sadness and guilt surfaces as I look at my own ability to get my players to improve to the next level .

Unto topic now…

 

Coaching basketball is a two way street in my opinion.

For a player, he looks to the coach to improve his game .

For a coach, he looks to improve the player’s game.

Sounds simple enough? not really.

Coach’s mistake #1

Many coaches (myself included) fail to coach the players based on 3 things,

*1* Their current abilities

Coaches do not make a fair assessment of their players current skills and proceed to teach them.

*2* Their ability to understand what you teach

Coaches automatically expects and assumes that a player will understand what is being taught .

*3* What they want to achieve from your coaching

Perhaps the biggest mistake possibly made by any coach – and many makes it,, is to coach the player without first really understanding what the players want to achieve from your coaching

Untop of the above, practice is made boring and mundane by coaches which rubs salt unto the wounds of the players.

YuSong : I feel I don’t understand my player’s expectation from me at all.

Player’s mistake #1

Many players (most of the players I teach) fail to learn from their coaches based on 3 things,

*1* They doubt the coach

Players who do not trust their coach’s coaching ability

*2* They override the coach

Players think that they know better what’s good and bad for them – in practice or games

*3* They expect results too soon

This point is worth elaborating – players feel that if they train X , Y , Z drill , they should be able to achieve A , B , C result. If they don’t, they automatically fault the training. What players need to realise is that the player is probably not up to mark in terms of practice at all, and hence expecting results when the effort isn’t there is not realistic

YuSong : As a player, I never doubted my coach’s training – even though i dislike it. I only understood why my coach emphasised certain things when the real game comes.

Being a player and a coach before, I can clearly understand both sides of the story.

To all the coaches out there, I would like to emphasis that caring for your players is the #1 key factor to coaching basketball players – the players matters.

To all the players out there, I would like to emphasis that you trust your coach and be patient. Patience in basketball is the true essence of a champion.

YuSong: It took me approximately 2 months of hard work before I finally did a beautiful left hand lay up (being right handed) in a normal pick up game – hows that for patience?

Feel free to drop me a comment on the post I just made. =)

BasketBall Game of habits

In the game of basketball, its two different teams playing each other.

In the game of life, I would like to see it as a game between habits.  Why?

Our daily lifes are filled with good habits and bad habits – maybe a bit simplistic but it proves my point here.

Our destiny is hence a result of which of our habits are pre-dominant. If our good habits are pre-dominant, we can call ourselves successful and if vice versa, we need to work on certain things before success comes to us.

Using that as a setup, life is just like a game of basketball between our good habits and bad habits

Team Good Habits VERSUS Team Bad Habits

and every incident we meet in life, can be considered the show down between our two teams (Good and bad habits). So if you are in a situation where you need to choose whether to eat that junk food and get fat or skip the junk food and stay healthy, who will make the play? will good habits score 2 points or will bad habits get a steal for the fast break?

In thinking so, as a basketball player, think, the next time you want to procrastinate on that homework and let the bad habits score on you because you were lazy on defense!

If it was a basketball game, would you get lazy on defense for the national qualifier? i guess not!

If you are star player of your team, will you choose to rest because your legs are sore when you know you can lead your team to victory? i guess not!

but so many times in life when we are the star player of our life, we let our bad habits score on us, block our shots and abuse us. aint that a bit mis-fitting?

Its your call – after all its your game.

Thriving As An Under-Sized Player

Hi all, came across this video which is very motivating and powerful ^^ hence I ordered it on 26th Jan 09.

Just got the video DVD yesterday for the above =x

I watched it together with gordan and for the first few mins, we were like “OH MY GOD , HE DID THAT?”

His speed , everything! is just so so . .amazing. I think he works out faster than me at least 3 times >.<

if anyone can do the way he does the drill at 50% speed, i think can be Singapore national player already – just too good. If you would like to see the video , just leave me a comment here and we can fix a time ^^

So guys out there, don’t think because you’re small , you can’t compete. You still can and may do much better because you got that drive to workout!!

How Do I Handle My Money? – Part 2

Hi all ^^ If you haven’t already read part 1 of this series , please do so here.

This series of “How Do I Handle My Money” is to share with you my experience in effectively handling my money and the joys you can get by implementing these simple steps ^^

Before I go on to the actual strategy ,I would like to emphasis something

 

“$ management is a long term investment , it takes time and effort to build up good money habits and reap the rewards later – it’s not a “quick fix”

So if you are reading this , expecting it to solve your money problems instantly – you will be disappointed.

Okay , on to actual practical strategies !

Strategy 1) Plan & Record Your Spendings

What do I mean by plan your spendings? That means sitting down and actually gauge how much you need to spend on a monthly basis .

To do this, I would like you to grab a pen and paper now, and write down the answers to the following questions , do it now!

 

Q1) What are the things I must spend on a monthly basis? (transport? meals?)

Q2) What are the things I splurge on a monthly basis? (nike apparels, billabong wallets)

Now do it ! Don’t wait..!

Okay, now that you have a list of items you spend on, next step would be to write down next to each item in your list how much you are currently spending on that item

Example:

Meals - S$ 200 / month

Transport - S$58 / month (concession + etc)

Games - S$ 30 / month

“But I don’t know how much I am spending on each item =X ”

That my friends, is one of the causes of you always not having enough to spend!

But it’s okay, whether you are able to write down how much you spend or not, we can move on to the next step

The next step is to record your spendings.

What I would introduce people to do is to record their spendings in this manner:

Use your list (in step 1 – Plan your spendings) to complement your records.

What do I mean by this?

Everytime you record a spending, it should fall nicely into one of the items in your list , example:

Description	Item Type	Amount
Chicken Rice	Meals	S$ 2.50
Top Up Ez-link	Transport	S$ 10.00
Nike Shoes	Luxury	S$ 159.95

You get the idea ^^ So at the end of every month, you would’ve know how much you spend in each category

Remember,

“If you fail to plan for success, then you’re planning for failure”

You’re probably asking, okay yu song, so what’s my first step now?

Where Should I Start? :

I’ve say start by

Recording your spendings on a daily-basis (make this a habit for life) – it takes only 5 mins per day

Start to plan your spendings simultaneously.

Do it NOW!

Part 3 coming up , next week ^^

sec 2 to sec 3 transition – The NightMare

Been speaking alot with my players recently and heard alot about the tons of homework , remedials and tests coming up . Reminds me of my own secondary school days and I wanna blog about it today =)

note: sec denotes secondary , and the age of sec 1 is 13

Coming into sec 2 was what most would call “luck” for me, because I failed alot of my subjects and barely passed the overall grading(from sec 1). I remember my dad was quite disappointed after seeing my teacher and as for me, I couldn’t care less.

The story below recounts how as a sec 3 student I failed to cope with the changing environment and got myself into a nightmare I thought was over. Does it sound familiar about your own life as a sec 3 student? Read on…

The Story

During sec 2 period of my life, I really worked hard – at least i felt so , i would bury myself in homework and revisions before my exams in a bid to try and pass my exams plus I had 2 tutors (cost up to S$ 300 monthly) to assist me in my chinese and maths. And it would all seem like my hard work paid off when I made it to the sec 3 express stream !

When I made it to sec 3 express, I was indeed very happy and I truly believed that ,

If I kept up my efforts as I had in sec 2, I would achieve the same results – boy was I in for a rude awakening.

What followed in sec 3 was a total shock for me. There were at least 3 times more tests, twice as much homework and the teachers was teaching at a unreasonable pace – as compared to secondary 2. Plus this time, I dismissed all my tutors.

As someone who hardly – if ever – go out on a frequent basis, I was finding it hard to cope. Imagine! everyday I would just go to school and go home – period , end of story. And somehow,  I couldn’t even cope with sec 3 work . It was a shock to me.

What subsequently happened was a grim reminder of my past – in sec 2 , my grades rapidly dropped and our teachers weren’t making things easier. They gave tests that were seemingly impossible to pass (much less score) and their reasoning was that if tests were tough , exams would be easy.

And A Maths (higher level math) was so difficult to comprehend , A maths alone could take up my entire day – not trying to finish the work but just figuring out what the question was even asking.

The only subject I had a bit of confidence in was physics back then, because we had an outstanding physics teacher by the name of Mr Tan P.Y . He made lessons fun and we often scored quite well – we did better than pass – in his tests and he truly made lectures interesting.

So throughout my entire sec 3 days, I was living homework to homework (the only good thing was there is no more ARTS ! yes ^^) , barely scraping passes for my tests and living day-to-day like a fire-fighter, doing everything that’s urgent.

A convenient procrastination reason I found for myself – whenever I had free time - back then was

“okay, I’ve worked hard enough, this isn’t due till 3 days later, I’ll do it tomorrow”

The end result? I barely scraped through sec 3 – and I was totally exhausted. I can’t remember the number of red lines I had in my report book – denoting a failed test or subject – and I was not proud of it.

After my exams was about the time when I took up the sport of basketball as well – on a side note.

Looking back at my experience, I was a total wreck ! If I could coach myself, things would’ve been very different. And I do have credentials for it too!

Sec 3	L1R4/R5 – 25 / 30
“O” Levels	L1R4/R5 – 6 / 10
Poly	Average GPA – 3.65 / 4
Now	Secured a place in NTU

How did I miracously turned my results around? Actually this is an open secret, however, most students only unlock this secret a few months before “O” levels – and things revert back to old ways after “O” levels – and after their exams, they return back to the nightmare days of failing tests once again in their tertiary education.

Point In Case:

“A” students are not born, they are ordinary students who take one extra baby step more than others on a consistent basis

Yes, Bold this, tape it, and seal it into your mind.

“A” students are ordinary students like you and me who takes one small little extra baby step on a consistent basis. Isn’t that amazing?

All you need to do , is take one small baby step on a consistent basis and you’re an “A” student!

To find out more about this miraculous first baby step, stay tuned to my blog

Coming Up Next : Sec 3 to Sec 4 Transition  - The End Of The Tunnel