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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
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