7.09

the figure to remember.

that's our score, after i fulfilled a dream of 6 years. into my 7th year in liondance, i remember how everything started in 2003. i saw posters around nyjc publicising a cca about chinese arts. they were damn cool and i thought to myself, i want to try something different for once this life, and to find something to like in a school i didnt want to be in. all alone, i tried out for the cca. it was ah mack who welcomed me. then there were qiaoming, yujie, huiyang, sherry, lina, lianghong, christopher, stanley, khairul. there were coach, ms fong and ms lin. then there were jonathan, eileen, ziyun, mingqi, suqi, maehui, benwei, yewhan, wenjuan, junqi, sien.

my journey began there.

i even gave up soccer, my first love, for something i knew nothing about. imagine the sacrifice. i was already in the soccer team and gave up a first-team chance.

i knew back then that the pinnacle of the sport for me is the national championships. not to win it, of course, that's ridiculous. but to at least be capable to compete in it someday.

i have now achieved that.

of course a bigger dream is to qualify for the finals at ngee ann city, but i think that will never be possible. i know my limits.

7.09 is nothing to be happy about. plus the fact that this year the judges give points like free, so many ordinary troupes in West Zone scoring 8+. in the region of 6 to 7 means one must have screwed up a few things. 7-8 generally has to screw up things as well, or just being too ordinary. i guess for us, we were never a 8+. it's our maiden assault, we arnt famous (this makes a difference), our props are simple, and honestly our technique is just average.

but still, we could have been a 7.89, a much more respectable score. 0.8 was deducted for the following~

0.1 for a minor slip while attempting a stunt on the bench
0.5 for an unfortunate major zaogeng after disembarking the bench
0.1 for our wushu performer entering the competition grounds before he should
0.1 for an error during his routine

we're already lucky. the strict judges did not punish us for (warning: stupid incident) my headband dropping out of the lion. later in the routine, i also dropped orange skin while peeling the orange. i picked them up, which is not allowed, but apparently the judges did not see it.

watch 新加坡新洋龙狮运动坊 here.