ACJC Canoeing and Dragonboat Alumni

Dear Everyone, Having read some of the posts and comments, I felt compelled to write this and straighten out some misconceptions. I hope that you will read this post with patience, and bear with me... Firstly, the statement that regimentation "started with junwei and carried on thru (the next batch)" is just plainly WRONG. i did not create this system, nor did anyone else in my batch, and for anyone to claim so is just completely misleading and foolish. We, the 95 batch, did not invent the wheel. We didn't pluck things out of thin air and teach them to our juniors - things like coordination when running, echoing, and so forth. These were things our seniors taught us, and which we subsequently taught our juniors. Year by year, so called traditions were created, corrupted, distorted. I can say without reservation that coming back to coach 7 years after I graduated from ACJC, I have been told of 'traditions' that we had never heard of in 1995. Nor was the 'regimentation' garnered from NCC. Majority of our seniors were not NCC people. Many of my batch were not. Just because I and my captain Ken were from NCC did not mean we had free rein to instill our own soldier-like values on the team. We did not. Nor did we wish to. We taught as our team were taught, and as we believed was right for the ACJC Canoeing and Dragonboat Team. That is all. What we did teach: Echoing - not for the sake of sounding loud, not just to mimic how we would have to echo in a dragoboat, but to create a sense of solidarity and togetherness. Us against the school, if you will. Coordination - to create a feeling that everything we did, we did together. Coordination in the boat, on land, in mind, in thought, in feeling. Responding - 'Yes senior' and 'No senior'? I still think that was a bit stupid. The idea was to forge respect I suppose. But I never thought much of it, to be honest. And I still don't. But I admit that. The Diet - Foods that we weren't allowed to eat, for sporting reasons. But we understood why we couldn't eat those fried fods and gassy drinks. An understanding that seems to be lacking because many have misunderstood the Diet as a tradition. It is not. What we did not teach: A culture of fear - We always felt, and were told many times, though our juniors never saw it or heard it of course, that respect should be earned. And we strived hard to do so, through words and deeds. We never told you to do anything we ourselves could not. Greeting of seniors - We never instilled a culture where juniors would have to greet seniors in school. A culture which, I was once told, was prevalent a few years before mine. A line between seniors and juniors - Recently, it was claimed that it was a 'tradition' that seniors could not talk to juniors until March or April, and only after that could seniors 'open up'. What rubbish. We didn't talk to our juniors in the beginning because we were afraid that they would climb over our heads during those first few trainings. But we never made out to deliberately ignore them, or represent that we were above them in some way. I hope our juniors, Colin and the rest, never got this impression. There was no time period after which talking to juniors was allowed. This was no 'tradition'! Scolding juniors - We never scolded without reason, we never gave negative encouragement. Or at least, tried never to do so. Seniors were sometimes also punished by the captain for making mistakes or setting a bad example for the juniors, though you juniors never saw it. We never sat the team down to pressure people about 'who ate fried food' or so forth. When we did do so, it was because we knew someone had and wanted the person to own up. 'heads down and hands up' as it were. Why did we do so? To get you guys to have integrity and honesty, not just discipline. To own up for mistakes, and not commit them again. Some of us went back a few years later to do what others were unwilling to. We put ourselves on the line and did in deed what others only did in words - try to help the team, as coaches or helpers. Some of us tried to get rid of this so-called 'regimentation', because we recognised that it was starting to get out of hand and was becoming a problem. But when we tried to do so, we were criticised as creating teams that had "no discipline". And so, we are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Please, I beg you all to recognise that firstly, this culture was NOT created by my batch, NOR by ME. It was a culture created years before mine, with the best of intentions - not for regimentation in itself, but to create a foundation of values of discipline, respect, honesty, integrity, humility, unity, and friendship. To eliminate some of the worst traits we see in rowers in both yesteryear and today - arrogance, ill-discipline, selfishness. Secondly, that some of what is claimed to be tradition today, is quite simply NOT. We did not do it, and probably our juniors had never heard of it. Batch upon batch added their own ideas of what was expected, sometimes correctly, sometimes not. To turn around and blame 'tradition' as many have is just ridiculous and arrogant. And lastly, some of you compare the team to the army. It is not the same. Armies fight wars. The team does not. It is true that the team fights its own little battles - for acceptance in the school, for victory in the water. But more than that, the team is there to create values. Values such as that outlined above. And the culture of the team was, correctly or otherwise, for that purpose. That, more than anything else, is the ultimate truth. A truth that I am sure we all recognise, and hope we all have come away from the club with. I wrote this with the purpose of clearing up misconception, and no other reason. Thanks for taking the time to read it, and hope you all understand where I am coming from. Junwei

ACJC Canoeing and Dragonboat Alumni

Saturday, November 01, 2003

Team 2004

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