Hope. Best Wishes For 2017

As we welcome the year 2017, we often find ourselves saying, "Time passed by so fast". Geoffrey Chaucer, the English poet, was right when he said that time and tide wait for no man. 

Time will keep moving forward, and we will experience many things in our lifetime. Success and failure, health and sickness, pleasure and pain are all part of the same coin. However, have faith in hope and work to overcome any obstacle that comes your way.

In that spirit of hope, I would like to share a poem about hope written by a Malaysian poet named Madam Yasotha Selvarajah. She is known as "The Smiling Amma" because of her infectious smile.

" Hope"

It is all we have.
Do not let it slip....
It is all
We may ever have.

Giving us the chance to dream....
Due to the possibility
Of materialisation
Of that very dream.

Have faith in it....
From the deep depths within you.
What is there to life
Without ever-present hope?

Cling on
With a determination
To succeed, at least
To hold onto hope.

For then,
Nothing can shatter you,
Nothing can depress you,
Nothing can overcome you.

You'll accept life
For what it is.
You'll challenge life
For what it has to offer.

You'll cherish life.
You'll embrace life.
You'll live life
As best as you can.


To all my readers, hope whatever you wish for in 2017 will come true.
Take care and have a good New Year.

Happy New Year!


Thank You

Children Are Our Light To Life

Kavinnesh with his sister, Sasmiita, and younger brother, Master Devesh

"Enbaraj," you are good with kids, said my friend of nearly two decades. I don't know whether I'm good with kids, but sometimes I do wonder, maybe I'm still a kid.  Sasmiita, Kavinnesh, and Devesh are the beautiful children of my younger sister Rita, and brother in law, Segar. Sasmiita is sixteen and Kavinnesh will be fifteen soon, both are enjoying their teenage moments in life. As for Master Devesh, who just celebrated his eighth birthday, I'm enjoying every moment with him. During one of my many excursion with Master Devesh, the beautiful phrase of "Pierre Teilhard de Chardin" flowered in my mind, that is, " We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, We are spiritual beings having a human experience." The title " Children Are Our Light To Life" is also inspired by Master Devesh; an article which I will write on my blog soon. Enjoy your holidays, and when on the road driving, please be patient and kind, and avoid using a handphone. To all who are celebrating Christmas," Merry Christmas". Thank You



Maybank-The Only Bank Left Participating In Malaysian Hockey League(MHL)

Maybank (yellow) in action in the  Malaysian Hockey League

Reminiscing to the '80s till the early '90s, when you are a state or a national hockey player, the bank's representatives will be at your doorsteps offering you employment.

At that time the Interbank hockey competition was considered a glamorous hockey tournament and most banks were competing with one another to get the best players to represent them.

In the early '80s, United Asian Bank (UAB) employed many national hockey players, and from the mid-'80s, Malayan Banking Berhad (Maybank) move aggressively to employ young budding national hockey players to beef up their team.

Maybank wants to be seen and heard as the "Number 1" team in the field of hockey; this is to maintain their status quo as the "Number 1" in the field of finance.

I can still vividly recall, most banks that participated in the interbank hockey competition during that time were Public Bank Berhad (PBB), Malayan Banking Berhad(MBB), United Asian Bank(UAB), Perwira Habib Bank(PHB), Bank Bumiputra Berhad(BBB), United Malayan Banking Corporation(UMBC) and Kwong Yik Bank(KYB).

Nearly all national hockey players were touted by these banks.

When the National Hockey League(NHL) was introduced in 1987s, most of the banks participated, as this competition was part of their preparation for the interbank hockey competition.

After the financial crisis hit Malaysia in 1997s, banks went through a period of restructuring, merger and acquisition exercises to fortify the financial sector.

Upon completion of these exercises, the number of banks participating in the interbank hockey competition and the NHL reduced drastically.

Then with the banking industry going through with another round of internal and external restructuring in the early and mid-2000s', the few banks that were participating in the NHL fizzle away.

Maybank being the bastion of the financial sector continued their participation in the NHL consistently.

Powered with many young and vibrant national hockey players, Maybank 
showed its prowess on the field by winning the league title in 1994 & 1995 and the overall title in 1990 & 1994.

Since then Maybank continued participating in NHL without any success.

Even with the NHL changing its name to the Malaysian Hockey League (MHL) didn't transform Maybank's fortune in the competition. 

These mediocre results had prompted Maybank's top brass to give their hockey team management carte blanche to hire the best hockey players in the country and also to secure renowned foreign players for the MHL.


With this strong support, Maybank's team management tried to recruit established junior and senior national hockey players by offering them employment opportunities with the bank, but only a handful took the offer as most players were enticed with the big bucks the other teams were offering.

For the foreign player's quota, Maybank was able to secure the service of the legendary midfielder Shakeel Abbasi, the speedy Muhammad Waqas and other notable Pakistani internationals for a few seasons to lead the Maybank team in the MHL.

All these actions too didn't work out to Maybank's favor in the MHL.

Some murmurs of Maybank will not be participating in the coming MHL are coming out from the hockey circle and I hope it's not true. 

I too was a Maybank hockey player and every time I see Maybank in action in the MHL reminds me of the great and beautiful years enjoying hockey with the Maybank team.

As the bastion of our financial sector, Maybank can create the best hockey players for their team and country with a Long Term Development Plan(LTDP) for hockey in place.

This LTDP can be part of Maybank's Corporate Social Responsibility program.

I hope to see the tiger roaring again in this coming Malaysian Hockey league with a vision and mission to lift Malaysian hockey to greater heights.
("Tiger" -synonymous with Maybank's logo)




Thank You.













 

Youth Hockey Players-Basic Tactical Skills

Parents, coaches, journalists, and officials have been moaning and groaning on the quality of our youth hockey players in the ongoing Malaysian Junior Hockey League(MJHL).  

The future of our national hockey teams lies in this generation of youth hockey players.

I, for one, do not have any plans to beat a dead horse nor annoy my friends in the hockey fraternity.

I have watched a few games in the ongoing MJHL and what worries me most is these youth hockey players do not even understand the basic tactical skills of the game.

Basic tactical skills are also referred to as game intelligence, where the player needs to perform the right action at the right moment and the outcome is successful.

Coaches need to inculcate these youth hockey players with basic tactical skills from their specializing age 13+, and a tactical skills inventory list must be put in place to evaluate the player's improvement.

The results from this inventory list can guide the coach to lead the players to higher performance in training and games.

There are four key areas in the Tactical Skills Inventory List, as presented below:

• Positioning and deciding
• Knowing about ball actions
• Knowing about others
• Acting in Changing Situations

On each area, the coach must prepare a set of
questionnaires to evaluate these youth hockey players' understanding of the game.

The above four key areas cover all aspects of the tactical skills, that is attack vs defense or researchers called it "declarative versus procedural knowledge".

In other words "knowing what to do" refers to declarative knowledge and "doing it" refers to procedural knowledge.

When a hockey player has a proper understanding of the game then he is good at reading the game and making the right decisions.

The essence of a good hockey player is the ability to read, recognize and react (3R) during a game.

To have any success in developing youth hockey players that are good at reading the game, Malaysian Hockey Confederation(MHC) must groom coaches who can create new technical and tactical skills that will inspire these young hockey players to learn and master new skills in training.


Thank You.

Happy Chinese New Year 2016 "Gong Xi Fa Cai"

To all my Chinese Readers,

May the New Year "2016" the year of the wise monkey, brings in your life everlasting
joy, hopes and strength that will lift you as high as the beautiful sky.

Wishing you a Happy and Prosperous Chinese New Year.

"Gong Xi Fa Cai"
                             

Higher Education System-The Way Forward For Malaysian Hockey

I have compiled key points from a survey done by the British Universities & Colleges on student-athlete representation at elite level i.e Olympic Games.

Official statics released by the British Universities & Colleges Sport (BUCS) website state that over the last 20 years (from Barcelona Games 1992 to London games 2012),61%  of Team GB were in fact ‘products’ of the higher education system.

During the London Olympic Games 2012, there were a number of sports that had a very strong student-athlete representation, such as modern pentathlon (100%), women’s water polo (100%), rowing (90%), field hockey (87.5%), athletics (79.5%) and swimming (54%).

The French synchronized swimmer valued the intellectual stimulation that her academic career afforded her, which helped her to break from the often-regimented training sessions in her sport. She explained how there were moments when it was difficult to keep up the level of concentration and commitment during the long training sessions, especially when she had to work through what seemed to her as endless mechanical repetitions until a sequence is perfected.

By having her academic degree to focus on outside her sport helped her to stay motivated and to sustain these challenging requirements inherent to her sport in the longer term.

The French athlete on the other hand discussed her reasoning from a more psychological angle as she genuinely believed that being in education and especially being under pressure academically helped her concentration levels during competition.

All of these athletes conceded that simply having more time does not necessarily lead to improved athletic performances; on the contrary as the two gymnasts found out, their decision impacted negatively on their sport as they started to ‘waste’ time and get distracted. Therefore, they decided to take up education once again.

My thoughts are as below:

The Way Forward for Malaysian hockey is to put in place a comprehensive development plan where hockey players will be a product of the Higher Education System.

Hockey is a fast and invasive sport where you have to make decisions in a crouching position.

Tenaga Nasional Berhad(TNB) can pave the path for Malaysian hockey as they have a University in its helm i.e University Tenaga Nasional(Uniten).

Uniten can consider teaming up with prestigious Universities in the field of sports i.e University of Bath or University of Loughborough in offering twinning courses.

TNB can start incorporating this in 2020,National Junior Team Development Model.

With this in place, a new breed of hockey players will be imbued with a proficiency in English,which will put the players on the right path in their pursue in hockey and a career after their sporting life.

Putting it concise, hockey is a game that need basic intelligence to play the sport well. 





Thank You.

TNB In Developing 2020, Malaysia National Junior Hockey Team

Tenaga Nasional Berhad's (TNB) contribution to Malaysian hockey is enormous and unquestionable, in terms of employment, participation in the Malaysian Hockey leagues and funding various activities of the Malaysian Hockey Confederation(MHC) in developing the game of hockey in the country.

Recently TNB has announced that MHC will receive RM4mil a year for the next five years, in total RM20million to develop hockey.

TNB is certainly the live wire to Malaysian hockey.

With the blessing from MHC, TNB has moved further into the ground in developing the next generation of hockey players for the 2020 National Junior Hockey Team.

It's an unprecedented move in Malaysian sports where a corporation is given the trust to develop a national team ; for me, it's a noble move by TNB, where other corporations should follow suit.

In making sure quality players come out of the system for 2020,National Junior team,TNB has deployed their coaches,who are all former international's employed with TNB to three Sports Schools i.e Sekolah Sukan Tuanku Mahkota Ismail, Bukit Jalil Sports School, Sekolah Sukan Pahang and one State Project School from Perak, Anderson Sports School in the ongoing Malaysian Junior Hockey league(MJHL).

Since TNB is the same shareholder for the four Sports Schools in the MJHL,the issue of conflict of interest will arise: an issue MHC needs to address,to keep the independence of the Malaysian Junior Hockey League alive.

For a comprehensive plan to be put in place to develop 2020, National Junior Team, TNB needs to understand how the present deterioration in Malaysian hockey has come into being.

Without understanding that, merely to come up with an idea,which will be a modified form, from an earlier idea, will bring further deterioration to Malaysian hockey. 

From understanding the root of the problem ,TNB can put in place a comprehensive sustainable development model, that will be the foundation to produce "World Class Hockey Players" that will bring glory to the country by achieving success in the World Cups and the Olympics consistently.

All the best and Good Luck to TNB.



Thank You.

Positive Youth Development Through Sports-Part 3(Final)

Time is the last and often neglected component of the PPCT model. According to Garcia Bengoechea and Johnson (2001), human development can only be fully understood if it is examined over an extended period of time. 

Thus, in order to truly comprehend child development in sport, individual attributes and their environmental interactions must be studied over time. 

The DMSP outlines how different activities benefit children’s development at different ages, and provides a temporal progression of sport involvement with stages that are qualitatively and quantitatively different from each other. 

The first two trajectories (i.e. recreational participation through sampling and elite performance through sampling) include activities and environments that are similar during childhood and progressively different during early adolescence, late adolescence, and adulthood. 

For example,both trajectories include the sampling years, which focus on letting children experiment with various ways of executing sport skills in various contexts through deliberate play and involvement for fun in several sports. 

The DMSP suggest that children should spend more time in deliberate play activities than in deliberate practice activities during the sampling years (age 6–12). 

However, as children age and mature, the recommended amount of deliberate play activities can be slowly replaced by deliberate practice activities, depending on the eventual goals of the individual (e.g. recreation or elite sport participation). 

Thus, in youth sport programs, the time component of the PPCT model should focus on how playing and training activities change throughout development, as outlined by the DMSP.

Conclusion
This chapter has examined research in youth sport through an integrated developmental and ecological lens. 

The PPCT components of Bronfebrenner’s ecological system theory and principles of positive youth development combined with the DMSP served as a framework to increase understanding of healthy youth development through sport participation. 

Based on youth sport research,particularly Cote and colleagues’ DMSP, the following suggestions are made for youth sport programs aiming to promote positive youth development

Thank You 

Ponder" Ponder" Ponder"

Recently I had an opportunity to chat with an eminent man. He was sharing with me, that one fine day he realized what he was doing for years and years was totally absurd.
I asked "How" How'' Sir?
His answer was "That fine day I had the opportunity to sit, see and ponder over at someone else doing my work and the realization just bloomed out".

This reminds me of Sir Isaac Newton the man who discovered the law of gravity. There is a popular story that Newton sat under an apple tree and when an apple fell on his head, the notion of gravity came to him. It had never occurred to him before that whenever he goes to pee, the law of gravity was being applied there.

We can see in both this incidents that the answer was in front of them but the answer only flower out when they are out of their daily routine.

In this hustle and bustle world, everyone has a set of routine that dominates his or her life and most of us fill our waking hours with the same activities.

This routine allows little room for a new discovery to take place unless you chose to make room for it.

Take a moment to ponder over all your internal and external relationships, who knows you might discover something new that will change your life and all around you.

Have a good weekend.


Thank You.

Positive Youth Development Through Sports Part 2

This chapter has examined research in youth sport through an integrated developmental and ecological lens. The PPCT components of Bronfebrenner’s

ecological system theory and principles of positive youth development combined with the DMSP served as a framework to increase understanding of healthy
youth development through sport participation. Based on youth sport research,particularly Cote and colleagues’ DMSP, the following suggestions are made for youth sport programs aiming to promote positive youth development.

1.Sport programs for children (i.e. age 6–12) should include interactions between children, and between children and adults, that are based on play and opportunities to try out different forms of sporting activities.‘Sampling’ and ‘playing’ during childhood is posited as the proximal processes that form the primary mechanism for continued sport participation at a recreational or elite level.

2.Sport programs during adolescence (i.e. age 13+) can change to include proximal processes built upon more specific training activities and specialization in one sport. As such, adolescents should have the opportunity to either choose to specialize in their favorite sport or continue in sport at a recreational level.

3.The developmental assets of the person (i.e. child or adolescent) involved in a sport program should be a priority of coaches, parents, and adults involved in the sport experience.

4.The eight setting features of the NRCIM should be implemented in sport programs to provide youth with a context that promotes developmental assets and the growth of life skills, competency, and responsibility.

5.Youth sport programs must be designed in consideration of children’s healthy development over time. Administrators, coaches, and parents must look beyond the next game or the season final, to focus as well on the long-term positive developmental outcomes of the child-athlete.

6.The role of coaches and parents in sport is more than simply promoting motorskill development. Parents and coaches have a significant impact on the personal and social development of children involved in sport. Given the importance of these relationships, appropriate training that includes the principle of positive youth development should be provided to all adult leaders in youth sport programs.

The PPCT model serves to highlight the multiple features that should be combined to design and deliver youth sport programs that promote physical health, motorskill development, and psychosocial development. This chapter has showed that these three objectives are not mutually exclusive and that effectively designed sport programs can contribute to healthy youth development. In light of the role that sport can have on the whole development of youth, it becomes imperative that youth sport and positive youth development research inform each other on the best available means to promote enhanced life for all youth.

...........continue Part 3(Final)

Positive Youth Development Through Sports-Part 1

Abbreviations
PPCT-Person-Process-Context-Time
DMSP-Developmental Model Of Sports Participation

After examining the impact of the physical environment on youth, the National Research Council Institute of Medicine (NRCIM 2002, 2004) suggested eight main features that should be present in the context of community programs in order to facilitate positive youth development. These features are gaining increasing support from youth sport research (e.g. Fraser-Thomas et al. 2005) as they offer additional understanding of the context in which youth sport should be promoted.

1.Physical And Psychological Safety
Physical and psychological safety in youth sport settings refers to the existence of safe and healthy facilities and practices that encourage secure and respectful peer interactions. Research indicates that the athlete–peer microsystem has an impact on the child’s sense of physical self-worth (Vazou et al. 2006) and on the adolescent’s perceived competence and self-evaluations (Horn 2004). Therefore, it is important that peer interactions are respectful in sport in order to build confidence in youth and allow them to enjoy their participation in sport.

2.Appropriate Structure
This feature suggests the existence of clear and consistent expectations regarding rules and boundaries. The DMSP provides some guidelines for the structure of youth sport programs (e.g. a shift in focus from deliberate play during childhood to deliberate practice during adolescence). Thus one could contend that providing activities that are properly structured has the potential to develop positive, well adjusted and optimistic youth.

3.Supportive Relationships
The third setting feature relates to strong support, positive communication, and connectedness. A coach can influence a child’s perceived competence, enjoyment, and motivation (Black and Weiss 1992) and play a role in a child’s psychological, social, and physical growth (Conroy and Coatsworth 2006; Cote and Fraser-Thomas 2007). Training coaches about basic principles of positive youth development is likely to result into better youth sport programs and sporting environments that promote supportive relationships (Conroy and Coatsworth 2006; Smoll and Smith 1996).

4.Opportunities To Belong
The fourth setting feature highlights the importance of meaningful inclusion, social engagement, and cultural competence in youth sport programs. Feeling a sense of belonging (i.e. being part of a team, developing friendships) is important in maintaining a child’s motivation and interest in sport (Allen 2003). Healthy relationships can be encouraged by coaches who build a sense of team unity and cohesion.

5. Positive Social Norms
This feature relates to the development of values and morals rather than antisocial and reckless behaviors. Although a growing body of literature highlights some of the potential negative social norms associated with youth sport participation(e.g. violence, aggression, poor sportspersonship, and low morality reasoning:
Bredemeier 1995; Lemyre et al. 2002), youth sport programs have the potential to develop positive values such as fair play, sportspersonship, cooperation, assertion, responsibility, empathy, and self-control (Cote 2002).

6.Support Of Efficacy And Mattering
The sixth setting feature focuses on the importance of empowering youth and supporting their autonomy as they work to build their community. Research in
sport emphasizes the need for coaches to develop autonomous athletes; giving youth the opportunity to choose their level of involvement in sport or contribution within a sport will empower them and also increase their intrinsic motivation for
sport (Mallett 2005; Vallerand and Rousseau 2001).

7.Opportunities For Skill Building
The seventh setting feature emphasizes the importance of learning experiences.
As previously outlined, sampling a variety of different sports through early diversification provides this opportunity, as youth have the chance to learn a variety of sport skills and are able to meet and interact with a variety of different people (i.e. peers, coaches). Furthermore, deliberate play and deliberate practice activities afford children and adolescents the opportunity to grow and develop their motor skills in appropriate settings.

8.Integration Of Family, School, and Community Efforts
This feature promotes the melding of the young person’s environments to increase communication and lessen conflicts and dissonance. In youth sport, parents play a key role in athletes’ development of other supportive relationships, such as coach–athlete interactions (Jowett and Timson-Katchis 2005). Further, the structure and environment of a community appear to play a role in youth’s persistence and progression in sport, given research suggesting that smaller cities tend to produce more professional athletes (Cote et al. 2007).


...........continue in Part 2

Positive Youth Development Through Sports(Intro)

I have highlighted the problems that developed nations are facing with youths, and such a scenario is also appearing in Malaysia.
Please read earnestly this well written paper on "Positive Youth Development Through Sports" by eminent sports researchers.
Youth is our future, and we need to inculcate our youths with positive values through sports from an early age.
There is an old and wise maxim that says " A Rich Nation Is A Nation That Consist Of Healthy People".
Let's work together in creating a beautiful and rich,Malaysia.

    -------------------------------------------

Youth sport has the potential to accomplish three important objectives in children’s development. 
(Cote and Fraser-Thomas 2007).

First, sport programs can provide youth with opportunities to be physically active, which in turn lead to improved physical health.

Second, youth sport programs have long been considered important to youth’s psycho social development, providing opportunities to learn important life skills such as cooperation, discipline, leadership, and self control

Third, youth sport programs are critical for the learning of motor skills; these motor skills serve as a foundation for recreational adult sport participants as well as future national sport stars.

Currently, youth sport programs are not producing outstanding results in any of these three objective areas. 

For example, child obesity rates in developed
nations are high (e.g. Tremblay et al. 2002), while problem behaviors such as drug use and delinquency are on the rise among youth (e.g. Health Canada 2004).

Further, attrition rates from youth sport programs are extremely high during adolescence, with an estimated one-third of all participants between 10 and 17 years of age withdrawing from sport programs every year (Gould 1987), leading sport psychology researchers to identify dropout as an area of concern (Brustad etal. 2001).

In this chapter, we outline some of the current youth sport research and discuss youth sport participation within a broader integrated developmental and ecological model.

Elaborated further in Positive Youth Development Through Sports in three parts.

"Concentration"A Deciding Factor In Winning(Part 2 )

To develop the psychological skill "concentration" to focus on the right thing at the right time depends on the development of an elite player from an early age.

With a conducive environment at all levels, where fun and excitement are emphasized, the concentration level of the young hockey players too will grow to a point where they will lose track of time and being unaware of fatigue; which is the biggest enemy of concentration.

From my observation, when a child is fully concentrating on an activity that gives fun and excitement, the child gets lost in it and spends literally hours on the activity and on the contrary when the child is not interested.

When the child is exposed to sports, the parents and coaches must understand that this is a period to encourage the child to experiment with different sports for pure pleasure.

The essence of the child's participation in sports during this early age must be to develop motor skills, positive identities, motivation, and belief about sports and physical activities.

Be patient, upon the child reach 13+, the child will choose one or two sports to specialize in, where the main focus will be on developing skills and strategies for competition.

During this specializing years, fun and excitement must still remain the central element in developing the young hockey players. This is to prevent young players from becoming disinterested and dropping out.

Young hockey players that blossom out from such an environment will have the concentration skill to develop other psychological skills with ease i.e anxiety control, mental preparation, team emphasis, use of imagery, planning and analysis and self- confidence

With excellent psychological skills in place, the young hockey players learning capacity will be infinite in the areas of tactics and technical skills.

At the elite level, the training is highly structured, which is mentally and physically demanding, and the coaches need to be innovative to keep the player's concentration on the game with new skills and challenges.

Let's fly to Australia, The World Hockey Champion.

What is their best-ranked mental strength?

In a study done by Groove & Hanrahan (1988) at the Australia Institute Of Sport(AIS) using the Self Analysis Of Mental Skills on 39 interstate and international level field hockey players, their best-ranked mental skill is "concentration".

Without any doubt, "concentration" is still the Australian hockey team-best ranked mental strength until today.



Thank You.