1 Star for SIM Canoeing Club

Picture by Rayyan

Taught a 1 Star group who signed up through the SIM Canoeing Club on 20-21 August. Its not often that I teach adult groups, but when I do get the chance, they tend to be more fun to teach.

Had a great weekend even though I was recovering from a runny nose.

Kind of coincidental that one of the participants is in my Buyer Behaviour class too!

Weirdest 1 Star Course EVER

Had an interesting 2 days over the weekend with some students from the SIM Canoe Polo team. The weather on the first day was crap though. It would rain, then stop, then rain again. Damn annoying. Then it was bright and sunny the entire second day.
Unfortunately, one of the girls sprained her ankle on the first day and was not able to attend the 2nd day of the course. The ankle swelled quite a bit...

Newbies and old birds

Victim looks happy in the water

End of the day

More pics available here

More press on the River Clean-Up

SIM Canoeing Club was featured in Gaia Discovery, an online lifestyle magazine dedicated to give people around the world an insight into sustainable development and tourism.

You can read the article here

Canoe Polo!

Joined the SIM Canoe Polo club for their training session today. The newbies (thats us) train separately, so the whole group was basically a bunch of newbies led by one experienced player.
I found it quite tough to do so many things simultaneously. Not only do I have to paddle, there's the added element of the ball.
The boat was so easy to roll I managed an elbow roll with no difficulty. Since I could easily roll the boat, I can concentrate on other skills such as ball handling.

One of the newbies just got his 1 star a month ago and is on his way towards a hand roll. Im quite interested in how rolling is taught. Seems they have been taught the hand roll without first learning the C-to-C or Sweep style eskimo rolls. I suppose boat design has got something to do with it, but I've got to give some credit to the teaching methods. Almost all of them can hand roll while holding the paddle blade to give additional support.

Paddling down the Singapore River

The SIM Canoeing Club organised a freshman orientation camp over the weekend. I only joined in from Saturday onwards due to some prior commitments.
One of the highlights for the camp was the river clean up on the final day. All of us got into kayaks and paddled into the Singapore River. As we paddled along, we collected rubbish that we could find in the river.

Apparently this was the first social responsibility event ever organised by a sports club in SIM. We created SIM history!

Yet another 1 Star course for SIM

There was yet another 1 Star course for SIM held over the weekend and it was their biggest one yet with a total of 28 participants!
Couldnt really clique with the group this time so it wasnt that enjoyable for me.
As usual, we have the obligatory Singapore Flyer pics.


Rest of them can be found here

Unscrupulous practices revealed

I spent my last 2 days at SIM HQ manning the Canoeing Club booth for its recruitment drive. Basically freshmen from UOL are down in the school for their Freshman Orientation Day where the OGLs will guide them around the school and let them play games to know their coursemates. One of the activities is a massive recruitment by the clubs and societies in SIM.

So there I was manning the booth when 2 girls approached. One girl was interested in the 1 Star and another later revealed that she's already certified. The certified girl was telling her friend to go for the 1 Star. At first I thought it was great that this girl was doing my job for me, but then she told her friend 1 Star very good, can become instructor. What the hell?

I wanted to find out more, so I smiled and told her you need 2 Star before you can become an instructor. She replied that you only need 1 Star to be an instructor at Camelot. She also revealed that she worked there before.
To make matters worse, Camelot is the operator that MOE has chosen to run its Adventure campsite in Changi.

Oops. Let the cat out of the bag.

Water Sports Licensing

Some time last year, Teo Ser Luck suggested a water safety license. No news on that so far.

But SIM has taken matters into their own hands and gone ahead with starting their own version.
From now on, any person joining a watersports club in SIM is required to show proof of ability to swim or take a swimming test.
The test will include:

1. treading water for 3min
2. drownproofing for 1minute
3. swim 50m in any recognised stroke

Personally I am against such a rule because I feel it is the personal responsibility of core members of the various clubs to ensure they are proficient in swimming. Making it compulsory takes away the personal responsibility from people and usually such rules are put in place for an organisation to cover themselves.

Quick shocked to hear the windsurfers saying people might have difficulty treading water for 3min. Dont think its too much to ask from a person doing watersports.
Then there was this weird ODAC guy who was saying that getting the members to know how to swim isnt enough. He suggesting getting the ODAC exco to be trained as lifeguards.
If you are really so concerned about safety, you would have taken it upon yourself to equip yourself with such knowledge. Not wait till now to do ask. Im guessing he probably wants to do it for free or at some subsidized rate.

What I found funny was that the diving club has to go through this test too. Haha.

Good Day.

Today was the 2nd day of the 1 star course that I am conducting for SIM. There were 16 participants and when we split up the group during the first day, I ended up with the older group, everyone in the group was older than me. Except of my younger sis.
The other group consisted of all girls, 21yrs old and below. Lucky I didnt get them, they didnt seem to motivated.

Quickly settled the TX rescue and went on to do other fun stuff like the all-in rescue, went for an early lunch afterwards.
Did a leisure paddle around Kallang and brought them out to the Singapore Flyer. As usual, functioning like a tour guide, stopping at certain places to take pics. All in all a good day

Went for makan at Lau Pat Sat after the course and pigged out on satay, sting ray and nasi briyani. Ended the meal with a mango ice dessert too!

Broken Paddle

Today was the 2nd and last session of the 1 Star Kayaking course for SIM ODAC and Canoeing Club. Actually, there's only 4 canoeing club members in the course. Haha.

Well, it was quite an enjoyable 2 days, although I think I talked abit too much.
The funniest thing happened while we were paddling towards the Benjamin Sheares bridge. I was trying to splash water on the participants when my paddle blade snapped! Paddled around for a while with that broken paddle. It didn't affect much cos the participants were tired out from a mass capsize which slowed them down considerably.

Rest of the pictures are here