Training our reaction time

Another day, another training session, ho hum. LOL

After the warm up rondos, we were split into two groups with each having an opposite pair facing them 2m away, then depending on the group name called, that group would have to run 20m away from the opposing player. Other variations included sitting down with the hands in the air, and lying down facing each other. If caught the player would have to do ten pushups, and it was interesting to see how much difference 2m could make, aside from the reaction times. Then we had an attacker/defender drill with the defender sitting down facing the attacker with the ball. I managed to defend for each of my turns and kept a clean sheet while scoring two while on attack, both on my left foot (far post), maybe the keeper didn't expect that. =)

The match was fairly even with the usual suspects playing at the back (was made to play central defender by coach I) and our attack was decent. We managed to press the other side quite effectively such that our defence didn't have much to do (yay!). I ended the practice on penalties, which was interesting because pretty much everyone scored. I guess we are all getting better.

Stayed injury free, although with all that sprinting the muscles were achey the next day. =)

Whiny whiny wah wah

Winston Churchill once said jaw jaw is better than war war, but what if the other side does not want to listen?

In the arbitration over the South China Sea, the Permanent Court of Arbitration said there was no evidence that China had historically exercised exclusive control over the waters or resources. In response, China called the ruling "ill-founded" and says it will not be bound by it. Which was strange since they had signed up to UNCLOS. The prepared statement by the Chinese ambassador has already been issued: https://euobserver.com/stakeholders/134304, where they had the gall to say that
"The long established principle of “Ex injuria jus non oritur”, i.e. legal right or entitlement cannot arise from an unlawful act, sets out that the UNCLOS does not allow initiation of Arbitration as in the Philippines’ case."

I would say that clearly the unlawful act in this case is their occupation of the claimed islands, the reclamation of land around the islands, the construction of permanent structures on the islands, and the enforcement of an exclusive zone around the islands (even sinking fishing vessels that sail into those waters).

One usual method of conflict resolution is to try to see thing from the other side's point of view, but what if that point of view is so skewed and so unjustifiable that no sense can be made of it, what does one do then? This seems to mirror a particular situation in my life. Ha! Various parties have tried to engage Big Red on the issue, and their response to date has been to ignore and pretend everyone does not exist. (still curiously accurate!) This is a dangerous play, plus the rhetoric that accompanies the various claims and constructions is sure to escalate the situation that really just needs cool heads and logical sense to sort out. However both are in short supply and we may yet see another conflict in my lifetime. =( Will there be any other parties that are going to jump in and make use of the muddied waters to catch fish? Russia (the original big red) would be the wildcard here and it seems unlikely that China feels so emboldened to go on this quest for island alone, so it would be interesting to see how are the bannermen behind house China. We must not empower and embolden them in any way possible, although i would not go as far as to suggest trade sanctions. Remember the big F-off ASEAN got from China? Massive egg on the face then.

Registration anticlimax

The Offspring is going to be of school going age next year, so to kick off the process, we start with registration for primary school. According to past years news, this can be a hectic stressful time, with parents fighting for places, jostling for seats, and begging, cajoling, or volunteering, just to secure a spot for their child to study in a particular school.

We are fortunate since the wifely person's alumni is nearby (on the way to work actually) and is a decent school. So we braced ourselves for the mad rush and steeled our nerves for a tough time. This especially after our attempts to secure a place at a renowned kindergarten failed spectacularly a couple of years back, which upon hindsight was not a bad thing since that kindy was a little out of the way (up the slope from the main road and mrt) and the pressure to perform might be overwhelming. Instead, we have seen the offspring grow into a confident, well-spoken and kind young lady, although she seems to be struggling these days with focusing on completing her task at hand, but i digress.

We tried to wake up early and head to the primary school for registration at 8am, however we discovered that we needed to make copies of our documents so had to go to her kindy to do so (backup plan being the copier shop somewhere on campus), so we dropped her off at the kindy at the same time and only reached the primary school at 9am. Kinda surprised by the lack of cars jamming up the place, and we even manged to secure a nice place to park. The process was pretty much a breeze with the collection of alumni letter and registration done in a single spot and before we knew it, we were out of there in ten minutes. Took the opportunity to look around the school and the girls seemed bright eyed and full of life, and generally had a vibrant feel about the place. I do hope she does well here, without feeling too stressed about schoolwork. Later, we found out that there were more than a hundred places available for us and 50 were taken, which kinda meant the place managed to process 39 people before us in the space of an hour?!? All in all quite a fuss free affair, which may have been due to a lower number of babies born that year, so we're all happy. =)

Reaction to the action

Although i was feeling alittle under the weather, decided to go for training early in the week, just in case i had something on midweek, and it was a good thing too since head coach Ivan was there. =)

After warm ups, we had some technical 2 person drills with volleys, headers and ball control, i happened to be paired up with Ivan since J was late. So embarrassing with my ao-tak ball control while his ball control was impeccable and almost perfect, no matter how badly i threw the ball to him. That's what you get for devoting your life to soccer i guess. =)

We also had a reaction drill where two players faced each other and ran to their respective directions upon command "left" or "right", which sounded simple enough until the commands started getting complicated with colours, numbers and months being associated with the direction to run, even mathematical equations.

The match itself was a little one-sided as it was evident that neither side had good defenders so both had really large gaps to pass and run into, although the young speedsters were on the other side with J (who played CD). I tried but it was really difficult to keep having to track the breakaway runner as we transitioned from attack to defence, and this led to quite a few goals from them. We only managed to peg one back from careful possession, and despite trying very hard to retain possession, we just could not convert this into chances. We did move the ball around well enough until certain players got the ball and would hog it like a dragon guarding it gold, not sharing with fellow players. Quite sad that after all the training, the same errors in decision making are still occurring and this was highlighted by Ivan during our warmdown debrief. He also mentioned that he was happy with my decision making skills, especially when i moved into attack since i managed to pick out the easy passes that really stretched his defence (he was in goal), so that was nice. I really should play to my strengths and stick to attack but i lack the stamina to keep moving around to press effectively. LOL