The Lowdown On Hwa Chong Gymnastics

First of all, it is all tough work. Every single award was earned through hard work. It is not like table tennis or badminton where hard work was not enough and talent was highly important. No, in gym as long you have a good sense of balance and control and then all you need to do is just train 5 days a week.

Next, there is always physical training whether you are physically weak or strong. I agree it is a really efficient way of increasing the fitness of every gymnasts. What is bad about it is that they do it every single day so when you return home, you will be really tired and lazy to do work.

Coaches are a major pain. They are simply, totally, undeniably, absolutely HORRIBLE! The coaches scold you when you accidentally make a mistake and you will be punished. But that is still okay, what is horrible is when they throw you a coach who knows nothing about Trampoline. He just tells you all the obvious stuff like jump higher and tighten your body, but nothing about the technique.

Then there is the whipping. Once in a while, the head coach gives us something like an examination in which we are to go through the process of the actual competition day. So, if you don't do well, let's just say you will experience problems when trying to sit down. However if the entire team messes up or not follow instructions, then you get the parallel bar treatment.

So what is the parallel bar treatment? Basically you sit perpendicular to the parallel bars, and then the coach lifts up one bar. One then slips his legs underneath that raised bar before it is pressed down hard on your knees. You might be thinking: Hey, that is not very bad, I could probably handle it. But the story does not end there. The coach will then proceed to lift the other bar, causing your legs to be bent in the other direction. Not fun.

Luckily, the day when the coach decided to do that to the entire C division trampoline except Lai Heng, I was not there because I had 3rd Language. There were people who cried because of the pain! So I happened to still have my "virginity".

Well that is that for now.

The life of a gymnast.