Tidbits From Daisy Tan Netball Carnival 2007

Most Importantly - Results
Sneakers Ace came in Champion. We beat Nike Air in the finals.

We're the Champions with grace, determination and dignity!

Record against Nike-Air for the day
2-1. We beat them twice in the play-offs and they beat us once earlier in the day during the round robin segment. We were of course the ultimate winner! By the way we were also the only top finisher of the competition that stayed for the prize presentation as a team.

Number of games played
7 games for Ace, Force and Speed in the morning. Another 2 in the afternoon play-offs for Ace. Speed played their best and did well as rookies. They gave their opponents a good run for their money. Force was very unlucky. They did everything right but our Blaze opponent lost to X-NIJ unexpectedly and forced them into a three-way tie. Unfortunately Force lost in goal difference and was squeezed out of the play-offs. It is ok Force, you'll show them your true colours next time in a full game!

Speed and Force

Length of the competition
I left my apartment at dusk! First game was at eight and we did not finish till 5p.m in the afternoon! What a long long day...

Caged in for the day

Attire

A set of brand new Adidas "Formotion" tennis outfit which most Adidas sponsored Tennis stars are currently wearing. The design of the outfit was very breathable, and the design accentuated womanly curves. Also, the design was specially built for Asian bodies, but the fit was debatable for Wai Yee. The new outfit was brilliantly white too. These pictures were taken before the games started, but by the end of the day, all of us looked like we came back from mud wrestling.

Vogue girls

Best Dressed
Needless to say - Sneakers Ace. Sorry Force and Speed, I wore this set of outfit so we have to be the best dressed because I am bias... hahahaha.

Perfect Attire

Best Quips from Yee Leen

1. "Perform!"
2. "Give them hell!"
3. Referring to our attire, "Top $79.90, Bottom $69.90, player... priceless."

The zippiest MF that personified Yee Leen's "give them hell" motto.

Spectators
In our usual unified fashion, all the Sneakers players stayed to watch the finals. We also have other special guests. Gaby brought her children to watch us and Susan's family (two sons and husband) was also present to watch the game. My friend Teresa and her sister Ada also came. She said the game was so exciting that she was jumping up and down the spectator stand to cheer for us. She even asked for pom-pom when she arrived. Hey, can we make a set of pom-poms for her when we play National League?


The perfect smiles

Message for Speed - Yinyan
So... we fouled the "toilet scheme," did we not?

The perfect jump

Scores on Body Aches

I am quite sure everyone was pretty much sore all over the next day. But guess what, my face, especially my cheek bones, were sore too! All thanks to the sandwich situation by the two shooters when we played Nike-Air. I was squashed like a piece of beef patty when we tussled for a loose ball, and my face was not spared in the process. When I told Wenhui about it, she said I should wear a mask to play next time. Haha.

Wai Yee's Impression for the day
Chasing and sticking onto my shooter non-stop and all day long. All "stuck" out for now. Ha-le-lu-ya, no training at all next week!

BEST DEFENSE UNIT (WD-GD-GK) IN THE PLAY-OFFS
I say we are the hardest working defense unit! We worked hard for every play, and my favourite interception was the one that Yee Leen got at the semi-circle. It was just fantastic!

The perfect box out

Lost and Found
One brand new water bottle and two not so new towels. Storage charge applicable and not to tell Jiao Lian I found a newly issued water bottle also chargeable... ok just kidding.

And lastly...

IT WAS THE PERFECT DAY.

24th Jan 2007

We concluded another fitness session yesterday. On the music front, we ran out of music to play and we had to put the radio on. Attendance wise, Speed continued to come in waves, and Ace's regulars were all present. Force's attendance improved by a tad because Wenhui came. She trained with her newly rebounded hair, even Jiao Lian noticed it the day before too. Her hair is incredibly straight and soft now.

Working hard ... Squatting and Throwing

In our usual fashion, we ran, sprint and jumped, throw the medicine ball around, but the most interesting exercise all was the BODY BLADE. If you do not know what it is, it is a piece of blade, made of special material, that will vibrate when you move it. Everyone was struggling with it last week and I was laughing at almost everybody. Hahahaha. Then when it was my turn, I made a fool of myself. It was easy for the first 10 seconds, then after a while, you would start to feel like the blade was shaking you instead of you shaking the blade. By the 20th second, it would then start to feel like you were having a constipation. The exercise was to go on for 30 seconds, but it was like an eternity.

First 10 seconds...

I always love jumping exercises and maybe that is why there was quite a bit of jumping exercises in this program. My favourite exercise was depth jump with sprint. What I got people to do was to leap off a bench and then jump up instantly to catch a high ball, and then followed by a short sprint. The satisfaction from jumping as high as you could to get a seemingly impossible to catch high ball is always indescribable. I loved that feeling, and I think Lijuan liked it too. I showed her the picture of her leaping into the air, and she was so excited. By the way, she can jump! And by the way, rumour has it that an opponent of ours think that Lijuan looked super energetic and zippy on court and she planned to stick to her like glue when she play her. Lijuan, you hard work and your natural flair has daunted our opponent! BRAVO!

It's a bird, it's a plane, no... it's Lijuan

I hope the other regulars feel energised too. I know I am because I could think better on court now that I don't have to breathe so hard.

Linli's Farewell Party that everyone missed

Hi all, we had a great time hanging out and getting overwhelmed by all the food and drinks we had.

The Mocha Cake you did not get to have...

The T-Shirt that you did not get to sign...

The drinks you never had...

The food you never tasted...

And now meet the only guest at her party...

Anyway, maybe the host was too fierce so all the guests cancelled coming to the party at the eleventh hour. No la... not to make everyone feel bad, we really had a great time, right Li?

16th Jan 2007

Music had finally returned to the fitness training, as my low tech CD player emerged from Lili's office. I forgot I left it there actually. Music of choice (maybe more like my choice as I have a car that holds everything) was Red Hot Chilli Pepper. It was the poppiest disc in my car but I think it was not great workout music. Does anyone have good workout music to share? OR does anyone know how to mix their own music?

Anyway, members from Speed dominated at the attendance realm, and Ace had all the regulars present. Force scored nothing at attendance this week and I wondered where were they? Maybe many of them went running on their own? But is running long distance the way to go for Netball fitness? Is running long distance good enough?

Unknowingly, I posted a few questions at myself as I wrote on, kinda like Carrie Bradshaw from Sex and the City, wasn't it? You know the way she would write her column in the show sometimes... "Are men good enough? Is sex not in anymore?" I know very well, I am hardly like her. First and foremost, I could never EVER wear a pair of four inch heels and walk with style. That pair of four inch heels will probably break before I could even take my first step?!

If you are still laughing and picturing how I would look like after breaking a pair of four inch heels, it is time to stop... sigh. Now back to the topic of what happened last training! It was all sweat, sweat, sweat and more sweat, and it was like doing Hot Yoga for me. If my pesperation could be collected, I think I could filled up 3 1L Nelgene bottles!

The whole training was all about running, sprinting and jumping. I was totally jumped out at the end of the session. Hopefully all these hardwork will pay off, and if Jiao Lian was to say our defenders cannot rebound, he would have to eat his words back! Right Yee Leen? By the way, you need to box out before you go for rebound ok people :)

I have no pictures of the training to post this week, but we can always enjoy Shujun's picture from 2003 Daisy Tan. We came in First that year.

Box out for rebound, and bend your knees to jump!

Are you stretching or pointing at something? Hope your ba lu ku feel better!

P/S: A few people have "complained" that the blog had been short recently. Well, I was in my short phase you know. Wanna keep you guessing how long I'll write each time ;) So this one long enough? If you still think this is still too short for you, you can go read my own blog... address will be given upon request.

8th Jan 2007

The NSFM has been declared opened for year 2007. In this new year we have some more newbies. Our juniors from Speed. If you did not know yet, this year at the Daisy Tan Carnival, all 3 Sneakers teams, Ace, Force and Speed made it to the final round while other apparently good Netball clubs out there only got their first team in the final round. Even young team like X-NIJ booted their second teams out of the competition. So sad. If I can play the violin I will be playing that sad music that you ususally hear in sappy movies for them. Anyway, we had a good start for this week's training, except that the attendance from Force could be better. And sorry fans of this Blog, this won't be a long piece because I need to run out to do my coaching in 10 inutes. Anyhow, stay tune for the next Blog, and to conclude this week's training, I think there was some "generation gap" between Ace players and the Speed players ... don't get too worried yet, it's good gap and not bad gap... they wanted to play Soccer after training while we just want to play Volleyball, so we can just stand around, hit the ball and laugh at each other. What an energentic bunch, I must say!

Meet the players from Speed

While the young ones soccer away, us oldies were ready to call it a day!

18th December 2006

This was the very last fitness training we had for the year of 2006. Surprisingly, the new people that came were our juniors. If I remembered correctly, they were Shanyou, Ziying, and I can't remeber her name. I never expected them to come. They must know that fitness is important for their game and I am very glad that they know this. Or maybe they just think that it is compulsory for them to come? So which one is it juniors? Leave a comment or two here.

On the other hand, the survival series hype died down almost instanteously. The unfit tribe had a no show. Maybe it will be the fit tribe that will prevail after all. Actually Kwok Huimin should belong to the fit tribe, I used her picture previously because she looked so goofy that I just had to use it. You know why she is always so tanned? She swims a lot. She's like the "man from the atlantis!"

To wrap up the NSFM of 2006, for the regular in the movement, I think we gained a lot and Yee Leen loved it so much that she "demanded" to carry on with the sessions this coming Monday, the day after the first round of the Daisy Tan Carnival, and the first Monday I am back from my vacation. I am with her all the way, and I look forward to getting fitter.

Meanwhile ...
The NSFM was "closed" on 25th Dec, Monday, and 1st Jan 2007 Monday.
Because Wai Yee "gone fishing." Hee, no not exactly, I went on a road trip to Malaysia.

road trip baby!

picturesque Cameron Highlands
Guess who I met in KL? Jemima! I had not seen her in ages and I bumped into her in KL! She said she read this blog regularly, and she would love to join us in this movement. Bravo! We are going to have a newbie again. Hopefully she can "strengthen" my volleyball team against Yee Leen's! So Yee Leen she is mine already hahahahaha!


Ken and Wai Yee

Now NSFM is back!

And it is declared open for 2007!

11th Dec 2006

News Flash!

The Sneakers Survival Series at MGS kicked off on the evening of 11th Dec 2006. The contestants had been divided into two tribes - the unfit tribe and the fit tribe. Their body language spoke a thousand words about how prepared they were for this competition. However, with the luxury items of water and towel that they could bring with them might make all the difference between a win and a loose. When the unfit tribe was asked about their chances of winning, they said:

4th December

Yesterday was another day of fitness training. It was a new program week, and the first reaction I got out of Yee Leen was "WHAT... POWER CLEAN?!" And yes we did power clean yesterday. In fact there was three circuits last night. First it was a circuit for building anaerobic endurance, then there was a power circuit which we did power clean, plyometrics, and medicine ball work. Finally, it was an agility circuit. We were pretty much "ladder-ed" out at the end of it. We wanted to play Volleyball, and I had my long trusted team mates around... Jenny and Wenhui. But my super Volleyball-pusher teammate, Kwok Huimin, did not make it yesterday. Poor thing, she said she sprained her big toe! Anyway, I pulled my back muscles, and asked Yee Leen's group to "slaughter us" in Volleyball another day. But wait a minute, I think we'll win the next time... so you guys watch out!

27th November 2006

Yee Leen's pictures came through my email finally!


I made a music cd for today's training and my very low tech music player could not play the disc. So sad. My stand-in disc was a new disc that Ken bought the night before from HMV. It wasn't bad just not sure what band it was. Then after a while, Lili became the DJ of the night. She was using the CD album I brought out from my car, and she was changing music for different phases of the training.

Well, tonight we have a couple of newbies more and a couple of spectators less. Li Ching and Peilin joined us this week, and Yanxin and Elton decided not to join us. As usual, we ran around cones, agility ladder and we threw the ball around. It was a rather high impact night, I was soaking in sweat at the end of the night.

However, I think we can crank the intensity up a notch next week, so are you ready guys? Also, next week we are planning to have another session on Wednesday night, and it will be court work.

The finale for the night, unanimously, it was Volleyball again. I could not give Jenny up as my teammate. So she was in my team with Lili and Kwok Huimin, and Yee Leen has Peiling, Li Ching and Pat to suuport her. And boy can Huimin "push" the volleyball! We played three sets of volleyball game and the most exciting moments were between Huimin and Yee Leen, both blocking and pushing the ball like a real showdown! They definitely overshadowed my teammate Jenny this time! Hahahahaha....

P/S: Yee Leen, awaiting your pictures from your brand new N73 Nokia phone to post here. Stay tuned people :)

20th November 2006

This week's SS/fitness training was on Monday. Monday is a good day for fitness training because pushing yourself hard at something physically is a good way to get rid of those Monday blues. Besides, there is going to be music and great laughs. This week's music - some superband disc which was not very super after a while. Got to find new music...

Anyway, this week there were new non-slackers (maybe our code name for this training session should be NSFM: Non-Slackers Fitness Movement). The newbies were, Kowk Huimin, Huijie, Lili and two spectators, Yanxin and Elton. Elton said he might join us next week (I am writing this now, but I think I am putting words into his mouth... but let's take it that he will... hahaha). So maybe our NSFM is taking shape afterall.

Talk about taking shape, my belly is definitely taking shape from all that laughing, particularly during the Volleyball game at the end. My six packs will propbably be squeezed out sometime soon as I am super working my inner abd muscles at laughing ... hahahaha...

Any-anyway, Wenhui and Jenny are my long trusted team mates at Volleyball. We defintely made waves at the beginning of the showdown match by leading 2-0. But, like we always do, we lost a lot of steam in the middle. Wenhui's unorthodox moves were only effective at the beginning, as the opposition learned quickly. After a while they also started to mimic her, intentionally or not, I don't know. They were dropping the ball at unexpected places and catching us off-guard many times.

Fortunately, Jenny finally started to move from her spot and we managed to stage a mini come back, and her very I-don't-know-what-to-call-it move made us laugh so hard that it helped us to distract the opposition and we managed to score a few points in a row. Alas, Yee Leen, Lijuan, and Huijie (all PE teachers mind you...) forced us into duce a couple of times, and they stole the game from us once again. So Jenny, I am tasking you to come up with more of your unusual moves to help us win a game, at least... ok!

PHOTO MONTAGE


Abds, abds, abds...

Resting, stretching and contented