Challenge Mania

just found a goal that I want to work towards

2009-09-09T17:54:00.001+08:00

Are you a real man?

http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001093.cfm

Encourage ppl to read this, and see how they measure up!

2009-08-16T12:03:00.002+08:00

this is inspirational....

He still had a reasonably powerful forehand.... amazing...

continued

2009-07-14T21:38:00.002+08:00

About my non-study life, I've been involved heavily with the Navigators, which is a group of people on campus trying to transform lives through the plain simple message of Jesus. We have Saturday potlucks where we invite ppl to our home to have dinner and have some really deep and great conversations around. The friends and social interactions are just simply awesome.

Friday is basically a Bible study within the group. Although the group does have its flaws and is not perfect, it's just becoming so compelling for me to be involved in it. I've been foregoing table tennis club meetings on friday nights, which is quite a powerful statement coming from me... :D (You know how much I love table tennis...:D)

The more I now continue to grow, the more I realise how simple yet profound is the message. I've been re-reading the Gospels now, up to John 6 today. And I'm seeing things differently. I'm constantly amazed at how full of grace and love Jesus was. He spent time with the untouchables, the lower classes of society, the despised people, etc. And accepted them for what they are. Which completely removes any reason for pride in ourselves. I hope I can really let down this pride of mine.

I'm also trying to get involved with a choir group who's inviting ppl from all types of backgrounds, like homeless ppl, blind ppl, etc. but I'm not very sure about how much time I can spare in the next semester, cos I do have my study obligations. From my conversations with 2nd yr engineering ppl, 2nd yr onwards seem to be much harder than 1st yr. But so far I trust that God is faithful to those who are working for His kingdom.

About piano I'm practising a lot of Chopin Etudes now. Op.10 no.1 and no.12, Op.25 no.11 and no.12. Love those. And of course Bach's Chaconne. It's just so epic. I'm starting to compile my compositions together. And i'm still trying to get lyrics for some of them.... hahah.

Table tennis I just went for a team competition. Won 4 lost 2 matches. Many ppl have problems with my serve... muahaha, but then, I make too many mistakes myself, especially in looping long balls to my backhand. My backhand's too inconsistent due to lack of practice...:(. And I have problems receiving short serves on the forehand side. If ppl get these 2 weakness of mine I'm just toast. Slow footwork is another problem as well. I miss too many opportunity balls.

Anyway this is all will post later

hello i'm back

2009-07-13T14:19:00.006+08:00

Hello guys, I think it's a really really long time since my last post, so this is probably going to be a very very long one....

My life's been very fruitful in Melbourne... got to know a lot a lot of friends, and more importantly i'm starting to open up to people, instead of keeping a lot of things to myself. Studies has been quite good, with a lot of interesting stuff happening.

In engineering structures(civil eng) we've designed a truss bridge that's made of paper. It successfully withstood 2kg worth of weight quite easily(You can put a textbook on top of it)

Our truss is the first one below

It was especially fun but very tiring. We spent almost some 10-20 hours making this thing work, from design to construction.

Some of the other bridges on display.

Otherwise civil engineering is heaps of fun! There's also a song competition where the winner actually changed the lyrics of Hey There Delilah to Hey there you structure. It was hilarious. We've learnt a lot of teamwork skills from these few projects this semester.

Electrical was not so fun cos I really hate the small tiny wires and components going around and around, especially during labs. I even soldered my finger at one time( it really hurts).

Did this at the end of the semester. It's a very simple digital thermometer.

Back. Shows why I'm not going for electrical engineering. I suck at dealing with small stuff.

front

Computing is basically learning MATLAB which is very fun as well. You can really do a lot of stuff there.

The other subject i'm learning is boring maths.... but then it's a prerequisite, what to do....

Anyway going to post about other aspect of life soon...

baptism today

2009-05-03T17:55:00.002+08:00

I'm very very tired after today...but it was a very rewarding day for me, the day when I'm baptised!

I'll just copy & paste from the text I read yesterday... video coming soon....

I’m here to share my rewarding journey with God.

I was born in a Christian environment as my brothers and sisters were all professed believers as I grew up, or so far as I recall. I was acquainted with the Bible as my siblings told me Bible stories. I even went to Sunday School a few times in my life during my childhood, but I didn’t like it at all, because I never felt any warmth inside. All those Bible stories may be true, but I felt that they don’t really apply to me. I was ‘ever hearing, but never understanding; ever seeing, but never perceiving’. (Isaiah 6:9) Throughout my whole childhood, maybe up till now, I’m not really the socializing type. I don’t mix well with others. I get easily offended by people and I remember things that people have done and don’t forgive them easily. True friendship eluded me for many many years. The only genuine love I’ve experienced in my life was that from my family. The outside world just seemed so cold and unfriendly towards me.

God has given me many talents, but I always thought they were a curse to me. The primary reason why I didn’t mix around easily was that I liked to share things about my life to others. And those things made me somehow hated. I was rather good at studies as I always maintained the top 3 positions in the whole level. I went for many competitions, interclass, interschool and international and won numerous prizes. In fact, after Form 5, my file containing all my certificates was bulging so much that I discarded those that were not as significant. As for piano, I passed Grade 8 with a very high mark when I was just 9. Besides that, I often participated in class lessons very actively, asking all sorts of questions and eager to learn further.Now you can see why my classmates didn’t like me a lot.

Together with one of my class teacher for 4 years, I was constantly booed and rejected by all my classmates, and quite a few of them were in fact self professed Christians. I had literally no friends at school. Nobody could ever understand how hard those years were for me. I became quite a hardened person. I harboured no trust in people at all. Of course I totally forgive them now, seeing how Jesus forgave all my sins on the cross. But returning to that point in my life, in the end I just withdrew from any social interactions and focused my full attention to competitions, studies and piano.

After that, I worked very very hard to achieve my aims, and sometimes hardwork is rewarded, and sometimes it is not. I was using achievements to try to fill the gap in my heart. But I can assure you this type of lifestyle is very tiring, and doesn’t satisfy my heart. For you can never have enough achievements. And it is especially very frustrating to see all your efforts go down the drain.

When I was in Form 4 to Form 5, I finally found some good friends. I had 3 very good friends during those years, that I will always be grateful to them for. We studied together, shared our thoughts together, and spent happy and sad times together. Although only 1 of them was a Christian(the other 2 are still unsure about their beliefs), I felt that God was working to soften my heart.

This year, everything changed. When I arrived at Melbourne, I started joining the Navigators. Although it’s not perfect with still many flaws, it encouraged me a lot. For the very first time in my life, I’m accepted genuinely for who I am, not because of what I wear, or what I achieved. For this is what the Bible says: For my yoke is easy and my burden is light(Matthew 11:30). I know that God does not require any effort from me to please him, because He loves me just as I am. This is the key to true self-esteem, knowing that you are so valuable in God’s sight that He sent his only Son to die for you. I started going out with friends, where in the past I would consider it to be a total waste of time. First time ever, that I've been able to make so many friends and feel at home, especially within the cell group, whereas normally I would be making 0 friends, and feeling cast out. I know the feeling of not 'belonging' so I tend to be very concerned about all those people without friends.

Then after that, I hurt my wrist tendon seriously from overpractising piano. It was so painful that it became impossible to even move my wrist an inch. I tried Perskindol, Yoko-yoko, and nothing worked. I was thinking of going to a doctor, but before that, I decided to try something out. That night, I deliberately prayed to God that I'll definitely believe in God if He heals my wrist miraculously after I woke up. Surprisingly, God answered my prayer! My wrist was indeed healed the next day.

After that I witnessed God's power at last, saw people really changed. Jack had 4 friends over at his home. Then somehow the topic changed to their belief in God. They were initially very resistant and cynical of the Gospel, but then I saw their faces changed so much throughout the 2 hours when Jack and my brother shared about it.

I did some surveys for Navigators that day during orientation. I can't believe I had the actual courage to approach total strangers to do surveys! My perspective of people has finally been changed by God.

I’ve just seen something very encouraging from Ken Duncan the photographer on how to respond to people’s praise. “ I’m an average photographer with a great God”. This is what I’m going to tell people when people say that I’m good. When now I consider my gifts and talents, I hope I have to courage to declare like Paul did ‘I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord’(Phillipians 3:8). For nothing compares to what Jesus has did for us, dying on our cross to save the sins of us. But this does not mean that I’ll stop working hard on my passions, which are currently music and table tennis. However, I will be trying to glorify God through them instead of glorifying myself.

PS: I'll try to post videos of the concert as soon as I'm able to get them.

and I'll start singing lessons soon

ok update abt concert and competition part 1

2009-04-27T20:09:00.002+08:00

The concert on saturday went quite well. There was a duet singing "If I loved you" from "carousel".

I think they actually sung it even better than the video. Both of them sung full with expression and with powerful emotions. I played the rachmaninov prelude op.23 no.6

also i played the Chopin polonaise no.3 in A major, and 2 Brahms Hungarian Dances no.3 and no.6, which I think I managed to play very excitingly and convincingly. Actually I had a finger injury that day which amazingly disappeared the moment I went to play. I actually prayed to God about that beforehand.

About the competition I just went for fun, played the 2 Hungarian Dances but way worse than when played during the concert. The grand piano is very very hard to control. Got the encouragement prize for $20, but anyway it's good enough for so little practice. I have a bigger one coming up next monday which is going to be screwed up cos of lack of practice. Playing the bach prelude and fugue in C minor, Beethoven Appassionata and the Rach prelude again. Anyway I'm not going to care abt pleasing judges anymore. I'm going to play the bach prelude rock style,(deliberately accenting every beat), which makes it way cooler. I'm going to play the 3rd mov of the Appassionata the same way too. muahahah, and shock them out of their seats....

Anyway have many things upcoming, like an electrical systems test on wed and project 2 bridge competition for engineering structures, due on friday. It's quite interesting, as you have to design and build a paper bridge and there'll be prizes for the bridge with the minimum weight/most innovative design. Going off now

more updates

2009-04-23T20:48:00.003+08:00

This sat I'll be performing in a concert! I'll also be participating in a piano competition next monday and the monday after that, and most of my tests are next week. Stress stress stress....but anyway I'll trust God to give me the strength to deal with it.

On a lighter note, ping pong competitions might be soon I think! But I think I need to train much more... especially on footwork, and serve receive. I don't know why but my 摆短 sucks now, especially on my backhand. I　can't really translate reading the spin in my head to adjusting the bat angle in my hand, and I can't control the placement of the ball well enough. Often my bat is open on a top-spin serve or closed on a down-spin serve, without me knowing it. So in the end I'm using my forehand to receive everything, using 撇　or forehand flips to either end of the table, even from the backhand side. Whenever I use my backhand it's to perform a chiquita flip. And about chiquita flips when you see people preparing to 侧身 just direct the ball to the other side. And there are 2 versions. One with more spin/less speed, one with more speed and less spin. Judging whether your opponent is far away/close to the table use these two varieties. That's what makes the chiquita flip so dangerous, it's not really the power, but the easy manipulation of placement.

My backhand is much much improved from last year, and I can pull most balls with a rather dangerous backhand loop. It looks a bit like Kreanga's one, but it's just the motion, and maybe only half the power. Haha, can't wait to show it when i'm back in malaysia...lol

I'm also learning how to 抢冲 balls half out of the table(i.e the 2nd bounce is just right over the edge) with the forehand. Basically you have to step into the table with your right foot, then there's a special forehand movement for this. Move your bat way back and here's the special part.. imagine this wrist position. Move your wrist up without moving your hand, then turn it to the right. That's the optimal pre-tension wrist position i found for producing the most power.

I also learnt a new serve, something like chen qi's one. I'm just slow practising it a lot, but the motion is still not fast enough.

What I'm learning most is footwork. It's not easy at all, in fact I think it's the hardest part of table tennis. Now practising a lot of forehand backhand exchange, all forehand from the table, and the hardest of all is the 侧身抢冲. That's extremely hard, but well worth the effort, cos you can finish almost all serves with the 2nd bounce beyond the table, providing you read the spin correctly.

One thing to notice is the distance you are from the table. When counterlooping it's quite important to back up a bit from the table, so that you have time to execute very powerful shots. I find that my rallying power has increased by a lot by backing a bit away.

When playing against lobbers/defenders sometimes even the hardest smash may not win the point. A more useful tactic is to loop it as usual, but create a lot of sidespin, either to the left by brushing the ball at the right side instead of the front, or wiping the ball to create sidespin towards the right. This would create very wide angles for the defender to handle. Then just block/smash the ball to the other direction. Though it may cause them to hate you....cos it makes them look bad :D.

Defending is now possible here cos of the court size. It's quite fun actually, and is a very good test of your footwork. But when possible, always counterattack. You'll never get the point if you keep defending.

couldn't resist posting this

2009-04-20T17:56:00.002+08:00

I know it's a long long time since last updateeee...
Anyway just found out a new stroke, which is the forehand sidespin stroke.

Look towards the end starting at 3:12, it's totally crazy... the ball actually curves so much in the air, sooo spectacular.

finally some updates on tt

2009-04-08T21:21:00.003+08:00

Today in the table tennis meeting there was a guy who's visiting the table tennis club. Lost to him 4 matches.... wth.. i was thrashed 1 game 11-2 and the others rather close like 8 or 9.... but he exposed all my weak points and all the things that work. Also it's the first time somebody has no trouble with my serves but i have so much trouble with his serves( though i've not really shown all my serves yet... :P) And really he has a gayyy rpb stroke. It's 10x better than my backhand. The real problem with him is that I lose 9/10 rallies. I'm not that good at rallies. He said that I should work on counterlooping more instead of blocking.

I should work more on my angles, my backhand which has basically not enough power to deal with heavy down-spin pushes to my backhand, and it's time to train a very powerful 侧身抢冲 to finish slightly long balls exiting the left side of the table. Smashing slightly high balls is a problem for me as well. I make really a lot of mistakes smashing high balls, especially on the backhand. :((( Also, I discovered that I really have to return to ready position after every single stroke.

The chiquita backhand has not enough power, though it's useful(especially the one going straight instead of diagonal). There's a version I developed with the same starting motion with sidespin going the other way. I should use these more in fact, except that I don't really like to receive serves with my backhand now. There's a new technique I've learned called 撇。 The ball curves towards the backhand of the opponent, it can carry topside or downside spin. It's useful to cause the opponent forehand to go unprotected. Besides that you can still use the same motion to drop it short, or even flip the ball for some added deception. It's really useful especially against those with overpowering forehands but weak backhands. I met somebody like this today as well. Basically if he manages to attack with his forehand you have no chance at all. The attack is so hard it's almost like a smash.

What works beautifully now is my backhand punch. It's basically to deal with high loops with plenty of spin. You basically punch the ball forward at the highest point of the bounce. The ball goes really fast like a smash. It might be a bit hard if the ball is low, or if it has strong sidespin, which you'll have to compensate for.

Also there were a few times I managed to do a reduced energy block like Waldner though his actually produces a double bounce...It's basically moving your bat to the back/side/top depending on the spin on the ball. It's useful to deal with ppl who still attack even if they're really out of position.

Today I also learnt how to throw balls properly according to the rules. It's pretty hard at first but you really need to throw it with an open palm with no-spin on it. I copied He Zhi Wen's style of throwing. It is actually a very important key to serving consistently.

Blah its 12:24 now should go to sleep like nowwwww

blog

2009-03-27T20:29:00.002+08:00

I feel that this blog is starting to die.... it's just that I no longer can find the effort to respice the blog with interesting stuff as b4. My schedule is now pretty full, with the already busy schedule for engineering faculty, navigators stuff, piano and table tennis. Surprisingly table tennis has taken a step back from my life now. But this is not to say that I'm giving it up. I'm still learning new stuff regularly. It's mostly really subtle things like 摆短 or dropping short.

I'm starting to learn how to control the dropshots, and how to control them and how to deceive ppl, not only with variations on spin, but on positioning as well. The trick is to make every single starting movement exactly the same， even for flips. It's almost the same thing as serves but 10X harder， cos you need to know the spin on the ball almost exactly. I'm starting to get the hang of it. Dropping short for top-spin serves can be a little difficult but workable. If you do it properly you can even adjust the spin to your liking. I feel that dropshots can be equally devastating as a weapon when compared to the chiquita flips.

Also, I'm learning more and more serves. I've recently improved the backhand tomahawk aka Kong Linghui's version that won him the 2000 Olympics. It now has a proper down-side variation, instead of the top-side variations I only had last time(It managed to trick ppl again and again last year though for some reason... :D, kept giving me high balls to smash). Ma Lin's serve are more and more ingenious the more you look at it.

Another table tennis post

2009-03-18T20:45:00.002+08:00

Just one of the few cool videos around

Chen Qi's serve... Did you think it was topspin + sidespin?

I have studied Ma Lin's serve, Waldner's serve and Hao Shuai's serve as well. They all use this same principle now. It seems that this is the most effective serve available now.

uni life!

2009-03-10T15:55:00.002+08:00

Few updates on uni:

Went for jazz club audition but didn't make it as expected.

Signed up for the dandenong piano competition, playing 2 hungarian dances and appassionata, bach prelude and fugue and rachmaninov prelude op.23 no.6, but now regretting it, I simply don't have enough time to practise. Probably wouldn't get them all done by mid april.

Can only practise table tennis on wednesdays. But I made quite a lot of progress on my serves. Now I'm trying to make the initial motions for all the different serves the same. I'm now rather confident of doing Ma Lin's pendulum serve, Ma Long's pendulum, as well as Ryu Seung Min's serve. I now have an excel chart keeping track of all my serves. I'm trying to use my upper arm more in strokes. It's very very stiff, something I discovered in piano playing as well.

I'm learning 4 subjects in Monash, engineering structures(civil eng basics), electrical structures(electrical eng basics), computing(which is basically a MATLAB course, have to learn programming and stuff), as well as maths for engineering, which has its first six lectures on 3D vectors learnt in spec maths. I don't really like the class structure. Everybody has different subject combinations and different timetables, so it's quite difficult to arrange meetings with friends.

The natural environment here is very nice. Even in uni I sometimes just take a stroll around to relax myself. The views, especially near the medicine/science faculty are the best.

The internet infrastructure here is seriously good. I download things at 800KB/s from my home computer, most shops have websites, the whole uni is wireless enabled, and the computers in engineering labs are 2.8 GHz core 2 quads with 4GB of memory and 512Mb graphics cards. Unfortunately we're not allowed to install games on them... :(

Anyway, will be going off now.

scholarship

2009-03-03T14:50:00.003+08:00

I finally got a scholarship, after so many twists and turns! Thank God for being so gracious to me, especially these few weeks in Melbourne(not only this, but many other matters as well). It's been a rewarding journey with him. I'm going to post a testimony soon, in case I forget His goodness in the future.

shortest post

2009-03-01T20:37:00.002+08:00

Tomorrow, my uni life officially starts!

updates

2009-02-27T12:13:00.003+08:00

I joined exactly 2 clubs this year. MoJo(Monash Jazz Orchestra), sounds like mojojojo from powerpuff girls and hopefully I'll be able to join it. I have approximately zero experience in jazz other than listening, it'll be a miracle if I was accepted in the audition...lol. Of course I also joined the table tennis club, trying to get a place in TeamMonash.... have to train hard for that.

I just got a rather bad wrist injury, so I can't do table tennis or piano for maybe a few days more until it gets better.

Anyway, Timo Boll won the Qatar Open 2009 finals against Ma Lin. Ma Lin integrated his new RPB style in his game already. It worked wonderfully well against Wang Liqin which he downed 4-0. It's really different from Wang Hao's version. Timo Boll benefited a lot from the speed glue ban as his first attack isn't strong but he's so good in rallying. As the ball speed reduces he was able to block a lot of Ma Lin's attacks. He has also improved on 摆短, but it's still far behind Ma Lin's capability. Joo See Hyuk in fact won Wang Hao somehow and snatched 2 games from Wang Liqin. Joo See Hyuk now uses a block on his long pimples which is fast and without topspin. And he can somehow attack using his backhand now. Haha, I'm impressed by their ability to change! It'll be a very interesting 2009 ahead for table tennis.

funny moments of tt

2009-02-23T17:20:00.002+08:00

Nothing really to post recently. I've found a few table tennis contacts already. I'm going to sign up for the club tomorrow at orientation. Still finding it hard to understand Aussie English and China Chinese(Does it make sense.. lol) To all the Monash Malaysia people, contact me if you get to Monash Clayton! haha. I might be able to bring you around.

These are a few videos which have some funny expressions from table tennis pros.

Chen Qi vs Ma Lin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui-0bvGdYDY
Look at point 1:30 onwards. Ma Lin's expression was just....

Werner Schlager vs Jorgen Persson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4E0XDby8XY
Schlager's expression at 5:05 is priceless. But actually the whole match is quite funny, with a lot of unexpected shots. Can't expect any less than that for 2 old snakes playing (both are about 40 years old!)

sins of a solar empire!

2009-02-18T07:31:00.002+08:00

For those who haven't played this game, go play it! It's pure awesomeness. Has to be played to be believed. So much depth in such a small game. I just managed to beat the AI on normal difficulty. Will be moving on to hard soon... then online battles! But it's a huge timewaster as battles can take as long as 4-5 hours. Watch for yourself

melb

2009-02-11T09:25:00.002+08:00

Arrived in melbourne 2 days ago. Was busy setting up things(mostly headache causing comp stuff!) and cleaning the house. DIY is very popular here... people like to fix(and create) things by themselves! I'm thinking of building my own table tennis table! Doesn't seem too hard, it's just a few hinges, rollers, metal supports and some MDF/HDF wood. All can be bought at Bunnings warehouse! But the troublesome part is the painting and cutting, which I don't have good tools for... so might reconsider. If you buy outside it's about 300, while if you do it yourself, it's about 100+. Hmm I'll first try to pick a ball and bounce it on the wood to see whether the bounce is consistent or not. Then maybe find out about the paint! Will probably be a very very fun project....

Anyway, most of the things have been done, I'm just waiting for the uni's enrollment date which is next Tuesday. Then I'll go for the orientation.... looks fun!

last update on tt b4 i go

2009-02-06T19:34:00.002+08:00

Serve receive: Imagine yourself doing that serve while the person is doing it. Extremely effective if you know how to serve it yourself.

Loops: Divide your technique clearly between looping backspin, top-spin and negligible spin balls, and differentiate them in your brain.

Footwork: still needs a lot of improvement. Lost a lot of matches today because I was trying it out, unsuccessfully. Need to integrate them fully into my game. A lot of the principles are the same as those of hand techniques, which includes a lot of pretension and release. Am starting to understand some of the basics.

Ready position: After every stroke it is very important to remember to return to ready position, deliberately, preferably with the bat pointing towards the opponent, to decrease the angles available to your opponents.

Blocks: Still have no instinct to block with the improved sidespin wiping block when the ball goes to the middle or to the shoulder(normally a shakehander grip weakness)

Chiquita backhand: Discovered how to increase power when dealing with short balls.

I usually lose a lot of games while adjusting to new techniques, but it's always worth it!

today's comments

2009-02-03T20:45:00.003+08:00

for backhand chiquita flips it is very important to raise your elbow very high up to create pretension. I almost forgot it.

For footwork I observed how Jacson played today and noticed he does not put all his weight on his feet. I tried to be lightfooted more and the results were quite good. Being lightfooted means you can jump to any location very quickly. It's like a predator preparing to pounce on a prey.
I still hate his tomahawk serve, using the back rubber, and his traditional backhand pendulum serve. Quite hard to determine down-side and top-side. But he's still unable to serve short, so I usually have the first attack. It's just that my attack is not really that strong, especially my backhand, which is useless in pulling down-spin. My forehand is now limited by my footwork.

For improving forehand, use your wrist to create more spin, so that you can hit harder without it going out. The percentage of hitting must be more, especially for european style rubber b'cos the sponge is softer. This also helps to kill some of the incoming spin, which makes it more consistent, and in fact helps to put spin on the ball, since the rubber is grippy(mechanical friction instead of chemical friction). But not using the wrist and using the wrist can be useful for some variation. Twisting the feet adds in more power, as well as pulling back the arm. I'm still learning from Wang Liqin's and Ma Long's forehand.

The backhand wiping block i described yesterday was used only 1 time in the video, oops. But I noticed it can actually produce blocks with spins ranging from top-side to down-side. Yes... a block with down-side spin. Imagine producing a backhand reverse tomahawk. I can now do the same thing with the forehand. Finally a block where you can change the spin! Currently, my blocks, along with my serves are the highlights of my game. My weaknesses are still my forehand/backhand which lacks power, footwork as well as service reading. Others are ok but not exceptionally good.

For dropping short, I can control it slightly better already. It's basically controlling the angle to suit different types of spin, then creating your own spin. Actually there is much room for deception here, since the ball is slow and you can afford to make some more elaborate movements, such as in services. I have thought of using sidespin to hide whether you are placing top-spin/down-spin could work, as well as the choice to jerk your wrist or not, producing down-spin/no-spin. To reduce energy from a top-spin service, you have to reduce energy by pushing to the side. I'm beginning to learn. The short game should be something that suits my style of deception, deception and more deception(starting from my service). Unfortunately not many people can serve short, so it's rather hard to practice it. But for no-spin to top-spin services I prefer to flip the ball. But my forehand flip is just useless now. I can't jump and flip from my ready position. I don't know how Ma Lin always gets in time for the highest point on the bounce. Crazy fast.

footwork and positioning

2009-02-02T21:09:00.002+08:00

footwork HAS to be practised repeatedly to get it into your brain. Otherwise you'll be very very slow. I'm overly slow on my footwork now. But even after 1.5 weeks of not playing, it's considered ok already lar i think. Ok now I have most of the 主动权, meaning i get the first loop but it's kinda useless without an overpowering forehand loop(must get used to producing lots and lots of power!) and some strategies. Eca doesn't really have the space for me to swing big shots in, but actually the problem is practice in positioning. I should always position the loops to the extreme forehand, extreme backhand, or the crossover point. If the person is moving, then place it to the opposite direction. The placing should be helped by additional sidespin. Ability to curve the ball side-ways in both directions should be quite handy.

I need some well thought out plans to win points when I have the initiative. Like waldner. He always has a plan to throw his opponent off balance.

How to reduce energy block
Basically when blocking move your bat sideways, "wiping" the ball to basically kill all the spin. Easier to do on the backhand than the forehand. Look at this video for some tips.

Also notice how Waldner moves his opponent around every single shot, it's just genius.

The ball tends to end up short unless you add energy to it. And the sidespin can often create wide angles which are unreachable by the opponent. I need to incorporate it into my strategies.

Some thought out plans
1)wiping loop to the right to tempt the opponent to use his forehand on his backhand side, then a sidespin block to the extreme left.

2)sidespin loop to the left, creating a wide angle then blocking to the right.

3)For all opponents who use backhand too much, direct balls to extreme backhand side. For those who use forehand too much, direct balls to extreme forehand. Make them reach for the balls!

I solved the centre of gravity problem already. At the ready position you should be ready to spring for your forehand gap, either forward or sideways. This has to be trained as well. When dealing with short balls, the best solution is still to jump forward, then push backwards from after the stroke. My chiquita flips and my forehand flips are back in full motion. yesh! My dropshots are still very bad. I still have no idea how to dropshot a no-spin ball/top spin. I can chop it but it always ends long. meanwhile, my dropshots of downspin balls tend to go into the net. Can't really control them. Must improve more in this area!

And the serve receive/after serve position should be about 60% to 70% forehand, 30% to 40% backhand for me, since I like backhands! At this position, it's very easy to execute chiquita flips and powerful backhand loops without getting caught easily. Only problem is the forehand side is a bit unprotected. I need to have the instinct to jump for it!

And i discovered some weaknesses of the RPB(reverse penhold backhand). I think it's a bit slower in switching from forehand to backhand. Which is why Wang Hao usually stands a bit further from the table when in rallies compared to most other people.

hearts

2009-02-01T23:32:00.003+08:00

Just for fun, I just tried playing Hearts to reach the minimum score 0... but so far I can't seem to touch it. Has anyone reached 0 before?
Here's my record

2 new serves in my mind

2009-01-31T12:44:00.003+08:00

I've been trying out the wiper serve unsuccessfully for a long time( I've been trying to copy this serve, look at the black shirt guy's serve). It's actually just a forehand tomahawk serve/reverse tomahawk, but apparently a lot of people are having big trouble with it. Problems: I can't serve short, it has negligible spin differences on it, because i find the motion so awkward. I recently thought of using the back rubber to do this serve. I tried the motion already and I think it's way easier to control. In addition, the starting movement can be the same as my well developed forehand tomahawk. Might be good to try out.

Also I have another serve in mind, which can combine the pendulum AND the reverse pendulum serve, rather effectively. It looks like a using a dagger to stab. With the bat pointing forward, do a reverse pendulum with the bat contacting the right side of the ball. Then rotate your hand swiftly clockwise while your wrist moves the other direction(this is to disguise WHERE the wrist changes direction). It ends with the bat contacting the left side of the ball. The spin difference goes like this... top-side(reverse pendulum variety) -> pure downspin -> top-side(pendulum variety).

Serves improved over last last week. He Zhi Wen's serve, own developed reverse pendulum. (I can control their placement and spin very well now). I think I'm going to keep an excel file on my serves, on the types of spin, ability to serve short, ability to serve fast and long, ability to vary spin, amount of spin and the reliability.

rants

2009-01-28T20:01:00.006+08:00

I've been to Bangkok for the last 5 days for a trip. Am very exhausted now. Before I post a bit about the trip, I shall declare a break from table tennis for a few days first. OK, just the last few points:

1) It's impossible to get a very good backhand AND a very good forehand. They're mutually exclusive, meaning to get a good backhand you have to sacrifice some of your forehand power. The most common styles are 2-sided loopers(equally good backhand and forehand, mostly shakehand) and 1-sided(much better forehand than backhand, mostly penholder). Players with good footwork should go for the 1-side route while others should choose the 2-sided route. For example: Ma Long, Ma Lin and Wang Liqin have extremely good forehand attacks while their backhands are very good at blocks. Zhang Jike, Wang Hao and most European players are equally good on the forehand and their backhand. Funny thing is that Wang Hao plays like a shakehander while Ma Long really plays like a penholder.

2) For footwork, it is very important that the left leg goes to the back after serving forehand serves from the backhand. And I tried the low basic position last Thursday, and as a result my loops have increased in accuracy by a lot, almost near to 80-90% chance of hitting. However, handling of short balls is just impossible to do that using a low position. From other videos, I noticed that most players play with a medium high basic position.

3) Defending is impossible in eca centre due to the limited space available, so I can't train my defensive skills. Chopping is near to impossible due to my overly fast bat. So the other alternative is lobbing/fishing. Lobbing can cause much more mistakes than fishing, but fishing gives much more opportunities to regain the initiative by long distance loops. I think I'll probably train the fishing style.

4) Sometimes when failing to produce what you expect, do not disregard the results. For example that day I tried to push with a lot of backspin, but in the end turned out to be spinless. In the end, it turned out to be a very good fake chop!

5) Change is really the heart of table tennis. Ryu's serve worked wonderfully in 2004, where he won the Athens Olympics almost due to his serve. But now, almost everybody can take his serve rather easily. Ma Lin's serve has confused so many people over these few years, but even now more and more players are getting used to it and especially against other younger Chinese, he doesn't win that often anymore. The new wiper serve used by Kenta Matudaira and Dimitri Ovtcharov's modified backhand serve and forehand tomahawk are causing the most trouble now. Waldner was able to remain at the top for so long because of his ability to change. He was changing and adapting ALL the time. His opponents could never expect what was coming, while he was able to predict other people's shots so easily. He remained on top for almost 20 years, managing to beat both Ma Lin and Timo Boll at the 2004 Athens Olympics at the age of 39! Amazing.... It's sad to see no one with the ability to learn and adapt like him in modern table tennis. Just look at this video at all the amazing shots he makes.

Haha, just thought of writing this

Why understanding more important than practice
I still maintain my opinion that it is not that necessary to train endlessly in order to perfect a shot. The most important thing is that you know all the key points of performing that shot, including the motion, footwork, eyes, grip, etc. and remember them when you practise. Practice is only useful in retaining all the important points into muscle memory so that you can automatically perform the stroke without even thinking about the details. Understanding is way more important than practice/memorisation.

In fact, the most common cause for inconsistency is not a lack of practice, but a misread of the ball's spin and power. For example, there are some ppl who think that given enough practice, they can loop all types of balls with the same stroke, and continue to blame lack of practice as the reason for their inconsistency. I can tell you that not even Ma Lin can't do that! The reason why they are so consistent is that they are able to read the ball's speed/spin perfectly and adjust their stroke to compensate for that. Some people are even funnier. They misread a serve and give their opponent a high ball to smash, and fail to take the smash. But then, they don't put the blame on their service misread, but on the inability to defend the smash! What the hell.... And a lot of people practise too much on the basic loop. Of course being able to produce a powerful attack is very important, but more important is the ability to control the amount of spin/speed/placement, to make people very uncomfortable with your loops.

Some people just don't really understand why they don't improve.

It's true that practice makes perfect, but if you don't understand, practising 100 hours would not bring you any improvement at all. The key is quality practice. You can in fact master a table tennis stroke in less than a day. That's part of what I learnt from Chong Lim, on how to master pieces in the shortest amount of time. When practicing, I never play the whole piece. I practice by parts, by bars, always very self conscious to ensure that I get the results I want. Then only improvement will come. In fact, this is also true for studies and most other things in life.

OK end of rant.... will stop posting about table tennis for this week. I want to post some pictures of the trips to yogyakarta and bangkok, but unfortunately the internet is slow like hell. It's down to dialup speed! Celcom 3G is like that one, it'll revert to dialup speed when you use more than 5GB. But how are you supposed to use less than 5GB in a month?!

Just for fun, I have some proof of my ping pong craziness.....muahaha

124 videos occupying 5.57Gb!

more on serves, chiquita backhands and pushes

2009-01-21T20:25:00.004+08:00

I watched Wang Hao's match against Ryu Seung Min of 2004 Athens. He basically won the whole match because of his incredible service, which incorporates a lot of jagged motions, which translates to extreme spin differences in his serves. Ma Lin's main serve now has the exact same principles as Ryu's serve(might be copied...LOL) . I find that all serves with smooth motions are overly easy to read, including the tomahawk service. I find it not so good now, especially when opponents start to get used to it. I'll find a way to improve it some time later. Also Wang Hao lost a lot of points because his serve was too long, enabling Ryu to unleash his devastating forehand loops, which Wang Hao had no easy answer to. Controlling the serve to do exactly a double bounce, but yet not too short is very important. However, it's still important to serve long and fast sometimes, and not necessarily with topspin. This is to disrupt the rhythm of your opponent. But Wang Hao, though only 21 years old at that time, showed incredible cool even when down 4-8 in the 5th game, while being down 3-1 in sets. He played point to point until he actually won it 13-11. He didn't even give up at the 6th game, when he was down 4-8, he dared to perform extremely difficult shots, like his RPB flips of Ryu's heavy spin services. Although he still lost in the end, this near comeback deserves much applause. I wonder if Ryu would be able to go back to his form in the 2004 Olympics. He was just perfect.

A guy working in the table tennis shop came today to play. Although I won 2-1 in sets b'cos he can't really read my serve, he did give me some valuable tips. Firstly, go down... and really go down. It worked wonders to my footwork. How much down? It's basically until your eye level is just above the net. After every shot, remember to go back to this ready position. The next thing is relaxing when I play, as I tend to stiffen up a bit sometimes. And start slow. Always search for control, not power. He also said I should control the placement and height of my serve better. A lot of my serves are overly long, enabling ppl to attack them. And my long serves are not long and fast enough. Keeping it short and low is going to be a big challenge. I think that would be the next thing to work on for my serves.

I successfully trained Alvin in just a few hours, how to stroke properly with both the backhand and the forehand, so I was able to have a good training partner for 2-3 hrs in the late afternoon. I think I'm still a better teacher than Tay, who tried so hard to teach a simple topspin serve today. :P So, my new chiquita backhand got some much needed practice today. The feeling of turning my waist to produce power instead of down-up still needs to be get used to, since I still have the old habit of using the upwards motion.

Another thing I tried is the Chinese pushes. Currently, I push with heavy downspin with my forehand and almost no-spin on my backhand. I think I know why already. It's basically just tweaking your mentality. On the backhand I always think about lifting it up, which usually results in no-spin. Funny thing is that, no matter how hard I try to make the spin heavier, it's still a negligible amount of spin. In the end, my opponents tend to overestimate the spin and overcompensate, looking at how hard I "cut" the ball. LOL, it actually resulted in more experience in deception. On the forehand I always think about cutting it downwards and hard, which results in very heavy spin. I'll train to amplify the spin difference between these 2 types of pushes. The next step after this is pushing with down-side spin or even top-spin, again using side spin to conceal the spin similar to services. These short game techniques are the hardest among all in table tennis. Too many players tend to underestimate their importance, especially european players, who have very sucky short games. I'm looking at you Timo Boll and Samsonov! Everybody knows how to attack strongly, but very few people know how to prevent others from attacking while creating opportunities for themselves by forcing errors through spin deception and placement. That's the short game. It requires really delicate motions. I find it all too similar to slow lyrical playing in piano. Many people do not find them impressive, but it is yet the hardest to master. Anyone who plays piano at a high level will testify to the nightmares of trying to shape the hauntingly beautiful melodies of Chopin, making them speak to the audience's hearts. Every note has to be played at an exact loudness, with exact timing and exact texture. Like what my former teacher Chong Lim said, every single note must mean something. Without any of these, the melody line would be all but destroyed. I spent the most time practising these when I was going for competition. In my opinion, those who can control well are the true masters, not those who have brute strength.

continued

2009-01-20T21:16:00.003+08:00

Today I went to eca a bit late as I had to ask the guy to quicken my uni application process so that I won't be late for the 8th Feb airline ticket. Marcus was already there, so I stroked with him. Without warming up, I used a few times the new chiquita backhand. Then what the hell, suddenly my arm got hurt a bit due to the twisting motion. It still hurts a bit btw, so I no longer dare to execute the backhand vigorously. However, I did practise it a bit slowly, and guess what? By the end of the day, it actually became much more stable. Although it's not very powerful now due to this slight injury, but I can feel its power already. I can 发力(or produce power) quite easily with it. No wonder Wang Hao's and Zhang Jike's backhands are so smooth and powerful. Waist rotation. It's just ingenious as this is essentially why the forehand is usually much more deadly than the backhand.

Then I trained the high throw He Zhi Wen service again. I'm starting to like it a lot a lot. It's freaking hard to read since the ball is falling fast, and furthermore you can change placements so easily, including adjusting between short balls and long fast balls. Besides, it has really really heavy spin on it. I'm still trying to control the type of spin I'm putting on it ( I just whip my wrist, without caring what spin I put) and increase consistency. It's like a wild beast, hard to tame! I'm still making a lot of service errors from it. But that's part of the price of learning it. Oh, and also I like it b'cos it's so cool! 开球时感觉很潇洒！LOL.... It's becoming one of my best, if not the best serve I have now.

Also today, I was able to train some slow loops against extreme downspin. So far I wasn't able to train it as nobody in eca could offer me a strong enough backspin serve/chop. Tay has one extreme downspin serve now, although still lacking variations and deception, is still pretty strong as ppl tend to chop long giving him an opportunity to attack. But then I now have the power to attack these serves IF they are long. muahaha. The only problem is my footwork is now causing me trouble. Playing in eca has made me a bit lazy with my footwork. It's correct but it's getting slower. I tend to forget to return to ready position after every stroke(including after serve!!! I'm getting overconfident that ppl will give me low quality returns of my serve) and sometimes I'm just lazy and like to underestimate other people's returning capability. Tay gave me a few surprising returns of my 暴冲 topspins(which are very fast, almost like a smash) today. When I was lazing around, the ball suddenly went the other way. Tomorrow when I play I'll have to make sure to keep in mind to always return to ready position.

Sometimes when playing against weaker opponents, do not be lax. Or else, you'll develop the habit of being lax when you face very strong opponents, which you don't want. Instead handicap yourself in other ways that'll enable to learn even further. For example, using a stroke you're trying to learn or you're not good at. Refrain from using your best strokes to deal with everything. That'll make you a better player in general.

Tomorrow's aims: Attack ALL long balls. With good placement and spin. For chiquita flips/backhand I have to learn to go straight with the same amount of power. Learn to push properly with the backhand and forehand, it's still lacking spin. The no-spin push and heavy spin push is really hard to learn. I still can't really control my pushes. And never ever play without first warming up....

I'm very very satisfied with my improvement these few months of analysing youtube videos in slow motion and reading forum posts and articles. The thing I'm really proud of is that I did it without a coach! Most importantly, it provides me with much valuable experience on how to learn. I still remember one eca player called William told me last year that my serves were my weakness. Then later during the year, I tried to practise Ma Lin's ghost serve for almost 3 months without any success. I still remember how many ppl laughed at my attempts initially. But in the end I succeeded and learnt so many things about how to produce heavy spin in the process, which I applied not only in my serves but also in other strokes like the topspin. People still laugh at me for practising serves alone in eca. But I learnt how to ignore their comments now. In the end, I learnt the importance of perseverance and discipline.

Since I'm leaving eca(and Malaysia) quite soon, I'm starting to hope that uni life will still provide me with enough time for other activities I have passion in.
I have a feeling that one day if I reread all these posts, I'll have to laugh at myself for being so crazy about table tennis.

updates

2009-01-19T22:10:00.003+08:00

I was able to test the new backhand thanks to Tay willing to block for me today. Thoughts on it: you can apply everything you know about the forehand stroke to the backhand stroke, with both using much waist power. It is much more powerful than the previous traditional backhand that I had been practising last time. More importantly, it can be used both for short balls and long balls, so you don't need to decide between using a flip or using a normal backhand stroke. And changes in direction can be done at the last moment as it's a primary feature of the chiquita backhand style.
But I find it a bit slow to initiate compared to the traditional backhand and also slower to recover from the stroke, which is especially important in rallies. Perhaps I need to get more used to that motion of using my waist. I'm still figuring out how to control the angle. Basically the principles are the same as forehand. The motion of your hand must not be overly to the side, otherwise it will go to the net a lot. It must move more forward. When pulling downspin shift your body weight downwards and lean on your left leg. Pull more upwards.

I also tested the high throw He Zhi Wen service heavily today. The fast and long version proved to be very disconcerting to a lot of ppl, as they don't really have time to react since the motion is the same as the double bounce version. In addition, the type of spin extremely hard to see due to the ball's increased falling speed. Also the amount of spin is just incredible. :D:D. But I make quite a lot of service errors today due to this service, but when it works, it's devastating, when combined with sudden direction and spin changes.

I also tested a bit of my new pushing techniques. With the same preparatory motion you can modify your stroke in these variables, fast and long/extremely short, diagonal/straight, no-spin/heavy spin(with all of them looking almost the same). I managed to win a few games testing it. LOL....In fact, you can convert the pushing motion to a sudden flip, but it only works for the forehand since my backhand flip is the chiquita version which is impossible to hide.

I read a post on how to kill spin with inverted rubbers. Jerk your bat in an axis not really affected by the incoming spin. For example, when blocking top-spin, you can do a sideways wiping motion which will suddenly kill the spin on the ball. For receiving down-spin balls(must be pure downspin with no side component) you can jerk a bit sideways when pushing the ball, which will result in a dead ball. When your opponent thinks it's extreme downspin and chops it, you'll basically get a nice high ball to smash.

Few tips when receiving service. You must always anticipate the spin, placement and speed of the ball, and most importantly judge whether it's a long serve or a double bounce serve. All long serves should be attacked immediately with powerful loops. The quality of a loops depends heavily on the placement and the power in it. A general rule to follow: always put heavy spin and less speed when targeting where your opponent is good at "borrowing" power from your ball(usually the backhand) and always emphasize on speed when your opponent is good at producing power himself, so that he does not have time to prepare for his stroke.

That's why I love table tennis. A battle of deception, innovation and adaptability. Not just physical power and reaction speed, which is equally as important though.

I need to train more on service receive. But unfortunately, nobody in eca has services that cause me lots of trouble with the exception of eu yong's no-spin/heavy spin service and jacson's backhand serve(it's really hard to discern last time, not sure if i can read it now). Matthias' serve is also a challenge to read, but the problem is that his serve is too long and slow, so it's possible to tell down-spin from top-spin from the ball trajectory. If he could keep it short, then it'll become a high quality serve.

I only have a few tips on this area. Don't stay too close to the table. Fix your eyes extremely close to the bat, not the ball. You won't be able to see the ball. Use your sense of rhythm to know when the bat hits the ball instead of your eyes, unless you have eyes of an eagle. Move your body down slightly just before the ball hits the bat, so that your eyes are at eye level with the ball. Always take note of the location of the first bounce as it will give you a hint of where the ball will land. As you gain more experience, you'll be able to detect down-spin/top-spin by judging the first bounce location in relation to the 2nd bounce location. (A very hard skill, but it's a necessity back then when hiding the ball contact was still legal)

ok a bit tired now, will continue blogging probably tomorrow. This blog is becoming a table tennis blog....LOL

backhands

2009-01-18T19:02:00.003+08:00

Reference video:

You can see from this video that Kreanga's backhand is no longer unique to him. Look at the point at 1:44, the backhand looks almost the same like Kreanga's one. Then he follows up with a 反手弹击 which ultimately destroys ma lin. Horizontal motion backhand is the future. No more deciding between down-up motion and left-right motion. I looked at Zhang Jike's backhand which is basically the same except that he uses the chiquita flip motion instead, i.e. more wrist. It's actually even more effective than Kreanga's one, albeit with less power, but with much faster recovery time. I'll be choosing the chiquita backhand shot for all my backhand needs in the future. It's very flexible as well as it can be used both short balls and long balls

Problem solved!

thoughts

2009-01-17T10:42:00.002+08:00

Last weeks progress: I finally learnt how to do forehand flips and how to control them. Learnt how to do the Ma Long full swing forehand, which is incredibly powerful. Learnt how to control the direction of serving with footwork instead of adjusting my hand movements. Realised that I must always put my leg inside the table and lean forward when receiving short balls near the net.

The backhand chiquita flips are currently unusable on short balls to the extreme backhand corner. Need to figure out how to get into position for these type of balls.

At the moment I'm still trying to learn Kreanga's backhand movement which I still don't fully understand yet. Things learnt: Body should not go downwards but should be rotated to the left. If performed against downspin, I have to go a bit downwards to the left. Arm should always be put in front with wrist rotated inside. Things to work on: the coordination of the muscle groups to produce the fastest arm movement, the exact location to hit the ball, how to adjust the angle of the bat. Also when learning this type of backhand, when stroking(or slow practising) you need to adjust the technique since the normal backhand does NOT help you to develop Kreanga's explosive backhand loop.

Meanwhile, I'm currently stuck with an extremely ineffective backhand as I'm transitioning to his style. So I'll have to learn to stand way to the left and cover the whole table with my forehand, which is way stronger and dangerous. This would improve my footwork as well. I got caught by a few ppl sending fast serves down the line yesterday, so I'll have to be faster on my footwork. Also I keep getting caught too near the table b'cos I forgot to go back to ready position after flipping/pushing.

Also I'm in the process of learning how to push with heavy downspin or no-spin with the same movement. Since I'm without a training partner who can serve heavy downspin serves to me, I'll have to start with learning how to serve heavy downspin/no-spin with the most basic chop movement.

And I finally won a female sarawak state player 2-0, but after losing to another girl badly in the first game. Funny that the girl I lost to usually loses to the girl I won! But I'm sure she's giving me chance, since she keeps serving 1 type of spin to me, heavy downspin. I won mostly by service misreads by her, but lost majority of the rallies b'cos she's just too fast. But there was 1 incredible point I won lobbing/blocking 3-4 times in a row....LOL. Marcus discovered how to do the timo boll slow loop against backspin and it really looks incredible, with the ball going high initially and jumping forward in a straight line! I'm going to have to learn from him.

Edit: new serves added to previous post. I don't know why but though I no longer need to have more serve varieties, I just can't stop myself from serving some nonsense serves and then realise that it could be good, then figuring out how to add varieties to it.
It's just too addictive, the process of copying, modifying and inventing serves.

Modifying a credit card advertisement.... hahahaa
Developing unique serves: few hundred hours of my time
Watching other ppl go "what the hell" with my serves: priceless.
Watching their facial expression when the ball goes directly into the net/ flies out of the table: even more priceless

Added 3 more serves there. That post will be getting longer and longer I guess.

table tennis

2009-01-13T08:48:00.005+08:00

Yesterday I finally played with a lecturer with a very unique style of playing. His bat's rubber is almost dead, producing minimal spin but also not affected by spin a lot. And surprisingly, his technique compliments his style very well. He plays like a short pimples player! Frustratingly, no matter how heavy the spin I put on the ball, he can just hit through it! I won the first two matches as he couldn't read my services but lost the next two as he adjusted. Also, he blocks all my forehand loops with no-spin or minimal spin with incredible placement too, making it very hard to continuously attack.

After the match with him, I realised some of my weaknesses.
I need to: sharpen my angles and ball placement. All services/loops have to be able to place the ball either very short/very long or centre/edges. My backhand still doesn't have that sting on it, need to increase power. Must always have proper footwork( my left foot needs to go to the side for taking extreme backhand services and must remember to go back to ready position after serve and receiving short serves) Also I have to keep track of what services the opponent doesn't know how to take, and keep on changing services so that he doesn't get used to it. And I need to keep track of what services I know already!

This is for my own reference only, ignore as you probably won't understand it.

Forehand services(pendulum varieties):
Standard pendulum(smooth motion, Schlager style, 4-finger grip), Ma Lin's old jagged motion pendulum(4-finger grip),

(with Timo Boll's grip) Ma Lin's new high throw pendulum going to the right, high throw pendulum with a jerk upwards at the end. Ma Long's whole body pendulum combined with reverse pendulum. spin/no-spin service with fake motion going downwards and with fake motion going sideways.

Forehand services(reverse pendulum varieties)
My own developed style(resembling Zhang Jike's one), Kreanga's style with the bat pointing towards the front, Wang Hao's style with Boll's grip(mainly spin/no-spin for the moment), and Xu Ke's one( the one I mentioned previously, muahaha)

Tomahawk servicess
Forehand wiper service(need to be able to serve short) , a full-swing one with less serve variety but more spin, short swing combined with pendulum service from forehand side.

Backhand services
Backhand pendulum service(standard one), backhand tomahawk(mainly side-spin/down-side and no-spin varieties), Ovtcharov's backhand serve(still trying to increase the amount of spin for this)

Fast services
Crosscourt sidespin serve and down the line sidespin all starting with reverse pendulum serve motion. And the killer...muahahahaha. Fast top-spin serve and fast downspin serve starting with normal pendulum serve motion. I learnt it from slow motioning He Zhi Wen's games against Schlager! Thanks to Tay for introducing me to He Zhi Wen.

I need to increase consistency

updates

2009-01-11T19:05:00.002+08:00

My blog and my life is getting very very boring nowadays. So many eca friends are no longer playing regularly, so I don't really get to play with good players in eca now, can't really test some of the new techniques I learnt (mainly how to deal with short balls near the net) . My techniques in piano are seriously hampered by non-consistent practice. There's almost nothing that interests me a lot on tv, since I don't like to watch series shows, while I'm stuck at one of the big bosses in Metroid Prime 3(also called MP3!!!). zzzzz.....

On a related note, my favourite player, Ma Long has won the ITTF Pro Tour Finals! He managed to beat Wang Hao 4-0 AND Ma Lin 4-1. The most fantastic thing about him is that he makes almost no service reading errors, which is unbelievable. His forehand is simply incredible, having so much power yet being able to rally very well. It's comparable to Wang Liqin's forehand already.

Anyway, I'm going to Monash Uni Clayton Campus next February.

Blah nothing to say already...going off

back from yogyakarta

2009-01-03T19:31:00.002+08:00

I'm was actually back from yogyakarta on Thursday, but was very lazy to blog since I can't post any pictures at all due to laziness of finding the usb cable and difficulties of uploading big pictures thru a slow slow Celcom 3G connection.

Went to Borobudur, the famous buddhist temple, and Prambangan which has even more temples... lol. The detailed carvings of every part of the massive temples are impressive. And in fact, each of the pictures depict a story. So basically you have the entire history and culture of the ancient empires carved onto the buildings! But it's a pity that much of the Prambangan shrines have not been preserved. We're only looking at 1/5 of the shrines left in good condition which is already impressive in itself, what more if the broken ones were restored! It's just amazing how the ancient people build stuff like that.

More interesting were the Javanese music. Their music has an entirely different scale and structure compared to western music. The main scale goes something like D-Eb-G-Ab-Bb and when descending the Ab becomes an A. But then I tested another instrument and the scale goes D-F-Ab-A-Bb-C. Weird right? And for their rhythm, they usually have some instrument playing in 3/4 and the other playing in 7/8 or something totally different, so you get something like a random rhythm which actually has a structure. It's pretty hard to describe. And all of their music sounds sad/depressing/scary for some reason.

Also, their culture has an affinity to asymmetry. All the carvings, drawings and patterns have their left side different from the right. Even in their dances they will bend heavily towards the right or to the left, making their body shape become like a zigzag pattern.

Will upload pics later. btw, I sold all my books and calculator thanks to Tay! Woohoo!

non-table tennis stuff....lol

2008-12-28T22:07:00.003+08:00

I realise that I've been posting wayy too many table tennis stuff lately, the enthusiasm has been getting to me lately.
Just encountered a pretty funny article about Kungfu Panda.

Why Kung Fu Panda is a remake of Star Wars.

link

Didn't realise there were so many similarities!

By the way, I'm still finding a way to extract individual frames(pics) from videos. Then I can make my homemade tt tutorials!

innovative commercial-the video speaks for itself

2008-12-24T11:50:00.003+08:00

serves

2008-12-22T23:20:00.003+08:00

I want to learn this serve! Notice at 1:39... it really looks like a downspin serve, but the spin is actually top-side. I downloaded the video, put it on slow motion and i think i know how it works already. Looks extremely deadly...

Xu Ke vs Ma Long

The new generation Chinese table tennis players are soo crazy good. There's simply no fight for other countries unless another Waldner comes up.

My current serve repertoire: Forehand and backhand pendulum, reverse pendulum, backhand tomahawk and modified forehand tomahawk serve, and ovtcharov's backhand serve. Most effective: reverse pendulum, modified forehand tomahawk... Least effective is the forehand pendulum, for some reason I can't be deceptive enough

updates

2008-12-17T21:34:00.002+08:00

I received my results today. TER of 99.85... woohoo!!! Anyway, I just hope I can get a scholarship from the unis I applied to.

muahaha more table tennis updates- I'm officially a table tennis addict

2008-12-12T20:56:00.005+08:00

After tinkering for quite some time with table tennis, I noticed a few things:
1) For topspin movements, the faster your arm moves, the more control you get. Normally ppl would think that slower movements = more consistent, but I find it otherwise. My hypothesis: Faster movements would mean that your bat would move a larger distance carrying the ball, for the same amount of time. This would actually result in extra control.

2) You can actually imagine the shape of the arc of the ball trajectory you want to create while looping, and it'll actually follow the path you imagine. Funny but true.

3) The more you practise serves, the better you can read other people's serves.

After watching a few of Ma Long's matches on youtube, it seems that Ma Long now has the best forehand AND backhand in table tennis, coupled with some very amazing footwork. And he's only 17 years old and is now the world no.2 . Just amazing.

piano adventure update

2008-11-30T19:27:00.002+08:00

short update:
1) Chopin Etudes = freaking difficult, and a headache for movement analysis and optimization. Most of the difficulties is not in successfully playing one specific part, but to have stamina to last through the whole piece. It's basically endurance testing for your finger/hand/arm muscles. Especially the Winter Wind which is basically 8 pages of hell. I can only manage 3 pages now...:(

2) The transcriptions are close to being complete muahaha. Now I'll just dabble around with more original ideas, more embellishments.

Forehand/backhand topspin

2008-11-27T22:41:00.000+08:00

Haha, just a few opinions on topspin motions. Actually I think the best forehand is Timo Boll's, not Wang Liqin's one. Wang Liqin's one is more powerful, but he has a very slow recovery time. Timo Boll's forehand with his short stroke actually has just a bit less power but more spin, but the advantage is that he can continuously attack very smoothly. That's why he wins most of the topspin rallies(So unfortunate that he has lousy readable serves)

The best backhand belongs to Kalinikos Kreanga(for shakehand)/Wang Hao(for penholders)
Both have equally good backhands. Kreanga is incredible in how he can perfect such a complex movement so well. His backhand is absolute perfection. See for yourselves.

Kreanga's backhand

Wang Hao vs Ma Long.

service development

2008-11-25T23:25:00.003+08:00

Services are the heart of table tennis. A good service can win many games against technically better opponents.

I just discovered the best way to test services. To ensure that difference between different spins remain almost undetectable, test it on a good table tennis player. Or practise in front of the mirror. This is what I found out:

1) No-spin/downspin combinations only works for reasonably fast services, if it's slow ppl can already see the ball floating instead of spinning wildly, and attack it in time.

2) Double bounce services work best. For a reason why, look at this

3) The ghost serve can give a headache for the opponent if it's placed in the middle of the opponent's table with a faster forward speed. Why: After the 1st bounce, the ball will tend to suddenly slow down and give a much lower bounce than expected. It seems like it can be attacked, but it is in fact a double bounce service. If it's too near the net/too high the service can actually be attacked by a fast chop which will give yourself many problems.(A fast + extreme downspin ball is very hard to deal with)

4) There is a clear difference in ball trajectory for the ghost serve and the normal forehand pendulum, so the difference CAN be seen rather easily. Unless you're Ma Lin of course... Still figuring out how to vary that particular serve.

5) Tested today: Alternating very fast serves to the extreme forehand/backhand or the opponent's shoulders gives players without good footwork a lot of problems. Use on better opponents only occasionally, as they're usually well-prepared to attack the ball.

Video for today:

Werner Schlager's services. I think he's the 3rd best server currently, only Ma Lin and Wang Hao has better services.(see whether you can tell the difference!)
Wang Hao has already developed an entire series of new services recently, like Liu Guoliang's one which are very deadly.(with backside rubber use mixed in). But Ma Lin remains the absolute best server.

lots of useful info

2008-11-24T19:09:00.002+08:00

I found this using google and initially thought it was not supposed to be accessed by ppl. I still downloaded everything by changing the url though.

But then, today I found out the proper webpage to download the Butterfly newsletters
http://www.butterflyonline.com/newsletters.asp

It's extremely useful, with lots of technique tips.

ma lin ghost serve update

2008-11-22T12:23:00.003+08:00

I'm very very close to be able to perform the ghost serve...woohooo!!!! For a video on how to learn to do it,

For those who are not very familiar with it, it's a serve that will roll back to the net. Now it's just the matter of timing and increasing the height of my toss(tenergy works much better with high toss services) to greatly increase the spin.

Tag

2008-11-19T20:23:00.003+08:00

1. What do you want most for the time being?

A better relationship with God, with friends, with family, with people.

2. What is your most favourite thing to do?

Table tennis, piano

3. What is your one regret in life?

What am I supposed to regret?

4. Who inspires you?

Jesus Christ, the one and only model that all of us need.

5. Tell me something I don't know about your family background.

It's a graph of y= 1-1/e^x where y is the info you know and x is how close you are to me.

6. Do you believe you can survive without money?

No

7. What are you afraid to lose the most?

My passion

8. What can cheer you up from sadness?

Nothing. I'll either accept it and go on with life, or just become even more determined. Grim determination rocks!

9. If you can get out of your current life circumstance, would you?

Life just goes on. Whether your circumstances are good and bad, it's just a decision of making the best out of it and persevering.

10. List out 3 good points of the person who tagged you.

Lunar ar, firstly he's just a loyal friend and a nice person. Plays Chinese Chess as cunningly as me. The best thing about him is that he talks straight to the point.

11. What are the requirements that you wish from your other half?

Down to earth personality and one that understands me.

12. If you were given a choice, would you want to know what love is all about?

I would.

13. What is your ambition?

I don't know now. But I have a dream of playing Rachmaninov's 2nd concerto with an orchestra since I heard it.

14. Describe your life in one word.

currently? It's OK

15. If you had a choice to be rich or happy, which one would you pick ?

There are no choices that you can make about your circumstances. You do have a choice to be happy whether you're rich or not. But happiness is short lived, joy is everlasting. I would choose to be joyful.

16. If you have a chance, where would you like to further your study with scholarships?

With my family

17. Who is the person (people) that you can share all your problems with?

My family and a certain very limited subset of my friends

18. How do you see yourself in 10 years time?

I don't know the future, and I don't like to

20. Why do I have time for this thing?

Exams are already over.

Tagging
anyone who has finished exams and has nothing to do can do this tag for fun.

New games

2008-11-17T17:24:00.000+08:00

I just came across and downloaded a new game.... very very cute and nice game, called...
World of Goo!

World of Goo Trailer 2 Director's Cut
by 2dboy

I'm already very very addicted to the game. It's similar to N-the way of the ninja style 2D games which I absolutely love. Try it.

Download the demo from http://2dboy.com/games.php, or you can download the full version from.... well you know, if you're strapped of cash.

n-the way of the ninja update

2008-11-16T09:24:00.001+08:00

n-the way of the ninja is a very hard game, but this is the hardest level I've ever played. Spent 3 hrs trying to go through this level still haven't succeeded. There's only about 8-9 episodes remaining to finish for me but it's getting harder and harder. Can't imagine I spent close to 2 years on this game, and haven't finished all the levels yet!

Episode 59- Level 3

Notice the extremely thin triangle platforms? They're a nightmare to jump onto! 1 small misstep and you die(with the added difficulty of controlling momentum from jumps)

Illustration:

But worse is cases where the triangle is pointing upward like this.

(photoshopped as I can't screen capture this thing at the precise moment, but you get the idea)

This IS crazy hard to stand on top of. Balancing the ninja on it is near impossible.

All of this makes for 1 really really impossible level. Grrrrr..... This is why this game is so frustrating yet fun.

Things to do during the holidays - piano side

2008-11-15T14:27:00.005+08:00

I have 2 exciting new projects currently on now!
1. transcribe "Esterellita" to become a piano nocturne.

2. transcribe "Salut d'amour" to become a piano piece.

I have quite a few ideas already now....
my main aims: 1) it must be technically easy
2) can act as training to phrase melodies beautifully

Then, for technical training I'll start training Chopin Etudes, the complete set, starting with
1)op.10 no.1

2) op.25 no. 11

exams over!

2008-11-14T20:00:00.003+08:00

Woohoo! exams are over... FINALLY... nothing to trouble my mind any longer. I think I did OK for all the exams, except for me lacking concentration during chemistry, dunno but I think my finals would be slightly worse than my trials. Anyway, now i won't care so much already. On to uni life!

Now I shall concentrate on: piano technique as well as table tennis. It'll be another marathon of improvement. I finally have the freedom to play non stop...

Bored but I'll look at the table tennis discs Jacson borrowed me.

death to music publishers

2008-10-28T23:24:00.003+08:00

for all musicians wanting to obtain classical music scores for free,
this is the website to go....
http://imslp.org/wiki/Main_Page

There's no need to spend hard earned money on scores anymore. And the best part is that they're actually legal as most scores are over 50 years old.

Blah, back to studying now

kotor 2

2008-10-25T16:30:00.004+08:00

Recently, I've been absorbed into the world of KOTOR 2 (Knights of the Old Republic: The Sith Lords, not kotor in malay) despite having exams next week. Too bad, it's just too great a game. There's a ton of crazy powers(force scream and force wave are my favourite along with the classic choke and force lightning) and lightsaber customization. I'm just finished it as a max light side character.

The story is fantastic as it throws you into the grey area of morality, of absolute morality vs consequentialism, that what you do may seem right now but actually has worse consequences than doing the seemingly worse act. After I helped a refugee by giving him some money, Kreia(the mentor) said this golden quote which made me second guess my decision.

And what is it you think you have accomplished? If you seek to aid everyone that suffers in the galaxy, you will only weaken yourself … and weaken them. It is the internal struggles, when fought and won on their own, that yield the strongest rewards. You stole that struggle from them, cheapened it. If you care for others, then dispense with pity and sacrifice and recognize the value in letting them fight their own battles. And when they triumph, they will be even stronger for the victory."―Kreia to Jedi Exile

Then it shows the person I helped being beat up by others to obtain the money.

And if you play the game slowly turning from light side to dark side, you can see yourself dipping slowly, subtly into doing things that seem right but leads to the dark side. It shows how one can be a perfectly good person but still can be misled one step at a time towards evil. The change is always not abrupt but in small little steps. This is 1000x better than the lousy development of Episode 3: Revenge of the Sith.

All the characters you encounter during the game have mysterious backgrounds, shady characters, who actually keep secrets from you unless you gain influence with them.

But the ending is so hanging in the air that I'm left completely puzzled. It talks about going to the Outer Rim of the galaxy to "wage the true war" against the true Sith, with the backstory of the Sith Lords, your history all unexplained. And all the Sith Lords were just... pushovers at the end.

KOTOR 1 had a sweeping story of betrayal and redemption, but KOTOR 2 is more subtle, thought-provoking and ultimately darker.

Funny thing is that, all of the Star Wars games I've played have much better story, better graphics and better immersion compared to the movies. Jedi Outcast, Jedi Academy, KOTOR 1 and 2....hmmm have to hunt for more gems now, but only after SAM finals...haha. At least I now don't have anything on my mind while studying.

Ok, now I'll try to completely focus on studies during the next 3 weeks.

the most useful(or useless feature) of Gmail

2008-10-08T20:37:00.002+08:00

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-in-labs-stop-sending-mail-you-later.html

that idea was just.........innovative

tags ftw!

2008-10-08T19:27:00.004+08:00

Tagged by: CPU, Kyp CY

Instructions, Remove 1 question from below and add in a personal question, make it a total of 19 questions. Then tag 8 people in your list, list them out at the end of this post. Notify them in their chat box that he/she has been tagged.

1. What are you nicknames:
Makan kuih, kueh teow, 鬼， guai lan kia(sth bad in hokkien which i don't know), 过了一节， forgot a lot already. But now ppl just call me Andrew, which is a good thing.

2. What is the thing you do is your favourite:
(in any order) table tennis, piano, composition, reading weird articles on digg, bloghopping, extremely challenging computer games.

3. What kind of news do you read?
mainly digg.com, arstechnica.com, Malaysiakini and Malaysia Today.

4. Describe yourself in 10 or few words.
odd person who doesn't like to follow trends

5. Is there someone in your heart right now?
not really now

6. Do you believe you can survive without money?
just have some gold bars/companies/assets/shares etc. Money is just another asset.

7. What are you most afraid to lose?
my enthusiasm in all things

8. What do you feel like doing now?
odd, but the answer is studying

9. If There's Someone That You Love, Would You Confess To Him/Her?
I won't, but I'll give some hints.

10. List Out 3 Good Points Of The Person Who Tagged You.
hmm who tagged me? 1. smart 2. quiet 3. able to have intelligent debates and conversations

11. What Are The Requirements That You Wish From Your Other Half?
someone who can understand me and love me for what I am. And compatible with my personality. For me, looks aren't so important but musn't be too shabby either!

12. Between family and friends, which is more important to you?
Blood is thicker than water. Enough said.

13. If You Had To Eat One Thing For The Rest Of Your Life, What Would It Be?
Ipoh Chee Cheong Fun, I can eat it everyday and not become sick of it.

14. If You Had A Choice To Be Rich Or Happy, Which One Would You Pick?
Happiness is important but so is money. 钱不是万能，但没钱却万万不能。Why not have both?

15. If You Have A Chance, Which Part Of Your Character You Would Like To Change?
Ability to communicate with girls

16. How Do You See Yourself In 10 Years Time?
Building skyscrapers and composing like Rachmaninov

17. What Is The One Thing You Love About Yourself?
My passion, enthusiasm and determination. Sounds similar but it's actually one thing.

18. If You Can Bring Only One Thing Along With You To Another World, What Would It Be?
Depends what you define by "world". If it refers to death, I would bring nothing, since Jesus is sufficient for my needs. If it refers to some other planet, I would bring my piano along!

19. What kind of games you play and which do you dislike?
I really am a fan of 2D side-scrollers like N-the way of the ninja(run and jump action ftw), action adventure games like jedi outcast/academy and Zelda. Racing games, RTS and rhythm games are also ok. I don't like FPS and RTS. They are very confusing for me.

Tagging: no one

yikes

2008-09-30T18:23:00.006+08:00

I don't like fixing technical stuff. Computers, wii, etc... yuck. For 2 days I wasn't able to access the internet because my bro's computer which acts as a mini router somehow can connect to the internet but can't send or receive any data. Such a weird problem. After reinstalling the modem hardware, resetting firewall settings, plugging and unplugging the 3G modem in and out, searching from google and forums to find answers... can't solve the problem. In the end, today my family and I went to sunway pyramid to try and find the celcom dealer to fix the problem. He was clueless also. Then suddenly an idea struck me. Disable the firewall completely. And guess what, it worked! I was like ........... nothing to say. I missed the most obvious solution.

Then, recently my wii is running nuts. It's refusing to run almost all recent games, then I researched again for hours and nothing works! grrrr.... I'm now trying to install the twilight hack to enable homebrew for the Wii, but then I just gave my copy of zelda to my sister. So I bought one, and guess what. The game doesn't work, because it's a NTSC game which my PAL console doesn't recognize and there are no PAL games for sale here. Really crazy. That would mean that I can't play the force unleasehed and lego indiana jones during the holidays. ARGHHHH! Total crap!

After all these experiences, although I'm considered relatively proficient in technology stuff, I'm not going to touch anything related to that for my career, including computer and electronic engineering. It's just too much of a headache. YIKES!

trials over!

2008-09-26T19:16:00.004+08:00

YEAH!!!! Trials are finally over. It had the most "fun" and challenging papers I've ever sat for. It practically makes you sweat during the exam due to lack of ideas/time. Seriously, I don't know how you're supposed to think clearly, remember every single detail, and sometimes think OUT of the box in such a short period of 3 hrs( mind you that's 180mins for 200 marks with 20-40 + pages) . Totally crazy. Now that's over, I'm free for 1 week.
So what does it mean?

TABLE TENNIS TIME!!!!
I just got changed the rubber on my bat to tenergy, the first one with a spring sponge. It's actually only few months old despite the tenergy 2005 label. It has a very weird feel but is extremely powerful and spinny to boot.

So now my objectives are to practise:
1) an extreme down spin serve + no spin and sidespin variations all combined into one harmless looking serve.

2) transitioning smoothly between backhand and forehand (they have slightly different

3) looping straight instead of diagonal.

4) and if i have the time... inside loops which have opposite sidespin... and

5) flipping balls near the net consistently

sounds like a lot of gibberish.

Haha, back to shadow practising my serve....

trials

2008-09-13T19:59:00.003+08:00

trials is 9 days more, so will be focusing on studies for quite a bit first.... force unleashed is going to be released next week. Anyway, I just stumbled onto a mod for jedi academy... watch for yourself...

Gives much more control over the lightsaber, with parries, feints, acrobatics, blocks, making it so much more fun than the standard hacking and dodging game in jedi academy

ghost serves, by Ma Lin

2008-09-07T12:05:00.001+08:00

Why daydreaming is essential

2008-09-01T21:37:00.002+08:00

Daydreaming isn't a bad thing at all. Turns out that they're an extremely effective tool to improve creativity.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/08/31/daydream_achiever/

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

2008-08-31T13:25:00.002+08:00

This is why I'm waiting for this game so much... unfortunately the Wii would probably have much gimped physics engine, which is sad, though whether they implement motion controls properly is yet to see.

Oh this reminds me of some awesome homemade lightsaber duels. Best is still this.

Ryan vs Dorkman 2

ipoh 2008 pictures

2008-08-24T19:01:00.003+08:00

Went back to Ipoh this tuesday during holidays... some highlights

Gua Kek Lok Tong

My house....:)

Photo albums...

Hall of fame in my house

Ipoh Jaya Market...

Fah Sang Kuih

Coffee shop

Haha Chen Shui Bian's stall!

Mee Jawa

Edit: For safety reasons I removed pictures with my parents in it

lyrics

2008-08-23T16:00:00.001+08:00

Lala, I have like 4-5 reasonably ok songs in need of lyrics....

Let's try a Personality Test!

2008-08-19T18:43:00.001+08:00

I found this on a lot of ppl's blog. So I decided to do something different. Enjoy

What Stupid Moron Means

You are the total package - suave, sexy, smart, and strong.

You have the whole world under your spell, and you can influence almost everyone you know.

You don't always resist your urges to crush the weak. Just remember, they don't have as much going for them as you do.

You are a seeker. You often find yourself restless - and you have a lot of questions about life.

You tend to travel often, to fairly random locations. You're most comfortable when you're far away from home.

You are quite passionate and easily tempted. Your impulses sometimes get you into trouble.

You are a very lucky person. Things just always seem to go your way.

And because you're so lucky, you don't really have a lot of worries. You just hope for the best in life.

You're sometimes a little guilty of being greedy. Spread your luck around a little to people who need it.

You are influential and persuasive. You tend to have a lot of power over people.

Generally, you use your powers for good. You excel at solving other people's problems.

Occasionally, you do get a little selfish and persuade people to do things that are only in your interest.

You tend to be pretty tightly wound. It's easy to get you excited... which can be a good or bad thing.

You have a lot of enthusiasm, but it fades rather quickly. You don't stick with any one thing for very long.

You have the drive to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Your biggest problem is making sure you finish the projects you start.

You are balanced, orderly, and organized. You like your ducks in a row.

You are powerful and competent, especially in the workplace.

People can see you as stubborn and headstrong. You definitely have a dominant personality.

You are confident, self assured, and capable. You are not easily intimidated.

You master any and all skills easily. You don't have to work hard for what you want.

You make your life out to be exactly how you want it. And you'll knock down anyone who gets in your way!

You are well rounded, with a complete perspective on life.

You are solid and dependable. You are loyal, and people can count on you.

At times, you can be a bit too serious. You tend to put too much pressure on yourself.

You are wild, crazy, and a huge rebel. You're always up to something.

You have a ton of energy, and most people can't handle you. You're very intense.

You definitely are a handful, and you're likely to get in trouble. But your kind of trouble is a lot of fun.

You are very intuitive and wise. You understand the world better than most people.

You also have a very active imagination. You often get carried away with your thoughts.

You are prone to a little paranoia and jealousy. You sometimes go overboard in interpreting signals.

What's Your Name's Hidden Meaning?

badminton match

2008-08-17T21:50:00.002+08:00

I just watched Chong Wei against Lin Dan. 1 look at their faces before they start and you already have your winner. Lin Dan was sure and confident while Chong Wei was nervous . The Malaysian coach seemed resigned also. He was so nervous that he dared not smash at all. Chong Wei is usually very good with his drop shots... but when his drop shots unbalances his opponents, he did not press on with his advantage. Lin Dan was always on the offensive, smashing like crazy. Total thrashing by Lin Dan.... Chong Wei, you must learn to handle pressure!

Characteristics of a winner:
1) confident and sure
2) able to think clearly and develop strategies
3) presses advantage whenever they have it.

Chong Wei lost his touch I guess.

holidays

2008-08-16T00:15:00.002+08:00

Today is the start of my holidays!!! Yahoo!!!! But it's kinda a "holiday" since I have two common tests, projects, and trials 3 weeks after the holidays. So the holiday will be a period of winding down as well as preparation.

updates

2008-08-08T19:14:00.003+08:00

About the charity carnival... I was basically standing in the Wii stall all the time. It went quite well, and I had loads of fun playing it. The most priceless were the lecturers playing it... they always seemed better in losing their inhibitions, and go full force with the motions. Strange, I always thought that students are wilder than the lecturers.

Hahaha, and the lady lecturers were super ganas, especially in the Wii Sports Boxing. The men didn't stand a chance at all... lolllll.

This was actually one of the best experiences for me personally in playing the Wii. It's just sometimes not so fun when you play all alone. The match vs KC was super fun too... I can see how Nintendo struck gold here, it's just simply a crowd magnet. about 5-6 people seriously asked me where did I buy the Wii and where to buy it. With the new MotionPlus accessory, it's bound to be better. I can't wait for Star Wars- Force Unleashed.

Then, after a while, I went down to the main streets, and I went to say hi to classmates handling the balloon stall. Turns out to be a VERY bad idea. I was pulled to be the guinea pig for the water balloons.... what the hell...and I didn't take my phone out! Luckily it didn't get spoiled. And my socks smelled the whole day b'cos of that.

And I regretted not taking my camera with me... so didn't take any pictures at all...:(
End result: Sore arms( even until now)

Haha, have to study for my exams next week. Spec Maths and Physics... seems that I desperately need to off my MSN, it's proving to be a more than worthy opponent.

college life

2008-08-05T22:42:00.003+08:00

Weird, I just realised that I rarely blog about college life at all. Basically SAM is assignment, test, assignment, test, assignment, test, etc....(repeat 100x). But the good thing about this year is that the lecturers are the best I've ever encountered. All of them combine good explanation skills, broad knowledge, efficiency as well as most importantly, a sense of humor.

Mr Woon, the spec maths lecturer always has some tricks in his sleeve for some laughs, Ms Kwa, chemistry with her famous "penalise 1 mark" phrase, Mr John with his unique way of calling people for example..."junnnnnnnnnnn jen", "shaaaaaaaaalini", "krisssssssss tin", etc... Ms Doh, with her super fast speed marking of test papers in a few hours and Ms Ting, which I think has quite a bit of misunderstanding with S4. Haha, to be honest, I think Ms Ting is actually rather dedicated but I think that she tries too hard at times and gets disappointed. I actually feel sorry for her sometimes.

Oh and by the way, I don't understand why people like to sit at the back so much. The front row is often empty. I would think that that's the best seat. No need to strain your eyes when copying, easier to pay attention and you get more attention from the lecturer. Except you may lose quite a bit in terms of socialising opportunities. But anyway, I'm lousy at socialising anyway. I don't like initiating conversations and I don't like to talk about the "recent cool things that happened", if you get what I mean. But I can talk about table tennis techniques, piano, music, technology improvements, and sometimes economy for hours straight. Haha, and another thing I noticed is that, how come so few ppl ask questions in class? It seems that they have already understood everything at times. And I think sleeping in class is just plain stupid, because the lessons are the most important way to properly understand a subject.

There's a very good innovation in Taylor's which is the projector/whiteboard hybrid system. It's very innovative. Lecturers can draw on the projected screen, which is a major advantage. Kudos to those who thought about it. There's an ECA centre which I go there almost all the time to play table tennis. You get to meet a lot of ppl there also.

The Web and Library are quite useful, but I rarely go there b'cos it's always crowded with people and it's far too noisy. I like to study in a really quiet environment, with maybe some quiet classical music in the background. The best is at home, as I have my own small room which I cherish a lot. Hmm and the garden is basically filled with people all the time. I love being with nature in solitude, without all these noise. Unfortunately KL in general has no such place... unlike Brunei. I miss going to the parks there, and I miss the grenery there. It's hard to focus, hard to think, hard to be creative when there is a lot of distractions around, for me at least.

But basically, college life is almost the same as school life. At the very basic level, it hasn't changed at all. I really feel fortunate to be living with my parents now. They are simply the best.

I haven't posted about my recent few performances as well. Lazy to post anything b'cos I don't have any pictures at all. I played once at the charity concert and another time at Midvalley exhibition hall during the property exhibition. Two things I've learnt, 1) playing at the last sucks b'cos 2/3 of the audience would have already gone home. 2) playing for long periods of time = very tiring.

Ok, what a long post... lazy to write already...

stupid classical music scene

2008-08-03T09:59:00.003+08:00

I feel like the classical music scene is doomed to go downhill because of the critics who determine who goes on stage.

1st, The motto to succeed is "be faithful" to the score.
The problem: The score is written by another human being, hence it is not perfect. So what if we change the mood of the piece? Or even the score? Or even anything else? Music is an art, meaning it is a way to express yourself. With so many rules around, how do performers express themselves? It's no wonder so many pianists sound alike. Why should Mozart and Chopin be always played elegantly, or Bach as monotone as possible? It's complete stupidity.

2nd, apparently they do not like fiery, passionate playing. They slam Evgeny Kissin and Lang Lang's playing, but they are both world famous. Then, because everybody likes them, they start to praise them. What a load of hypocrites. Unfortunately for them, people like fast, explosive and exciting pieces, contrary to what they think.

3rd, they don't like harsh sounds. The sounds on a piano are far gentler then let's say an electric guitar/drums. Do you want everything to sound nice, bling bling bling sounds? I wouldn't. And the majority of people wouldn't. Somebody should drag these stupid critics to a rock concert. Harsh sounds should and can be used in moderation, provided you don't overdo it.

4th, their so-called creativity in modern classical music = total crap. Have you listened to an atonal piece before? Let's do an experiment, try listening to violin screeches, car noise all day long. Apparently, they have the ability to "analyse" the music and praise all its subtlety. Face the fact, only weird people like these critics like weird pieces like this. What happened to all these modern composers? What happened to the Rachmaninovs and Chopins of our era? Why is nobody composing MUSIC? Oh, I know, all the good composers moved to Hollywood, like John Williams and Tan Dun.

Count me out.

Table tennis chops

2008-07-31T21:53:00.002+08:00

Haha, I'm trying to relearn my chops, especially against topspins.... something new to try
something like this...

Joo vs Ma Lin
Look at the freaking backspin that he puts on his chops.... Ma Lin was owned

Also, for some reason my backhand topspins are not working at all, dunno why

A small window into me

2008-07-26T20:32:00.004+08:00

What's my biggest fear? It's not actually public speaking or public performance, it's actually talking to strangers/ people I'm not familiar with. Or even talking to people I rarely talk with. That's why I'm such a lousy ticket seller(sorry Ji Eun). Oh, and that's bolstered by my constant inability to match faces with names. Goes back to my lousy visual memory perhaps. I can't seem to remember faces. In my minds, nothing registers. I only remember the names of only a few ppl in eca centre despite seeing them everyday. Hmm... any tips on how to improve?

Blah, I'm also cursed by having an "outside personality" designed for other people to see, which I try to craft depending on situations, while my true inner personality, i.e. my true thoughts, I only keep to myself and God. To date, I have never shared them with anyone at all, except sometimes maybe my siblings(and even that's quite rare) and I can't seem to. In church CF meetings, I always wonder how come people can share such personal experiences so freely for everyone to hear. When asked by others, I'll usually only share some stories that only scrape the surfaces of what really happened or what I really think. And sorry to say, I can't actually write a testimonial. I can't really describe it, but all of my "testimonials" are somehow "edited" by my subconscious mind to look good. Even my blog posts are always edited a few times, I never write them continuously from start to end.
In fact, when have you seen me express my anger before? I'm hiding my true emotions to the point that I don't know how to express myself anymore. The funny thing is that, I feel that the music that I compose expresses me more than I would ever express in words to anybody.
This reminds me of the book of James, where James constantly criticised double minded people. Unfortunately, I'm one of them... Jesus please help me!

Worlds beyond the realm of possibility

2008-07-22T22:09:00.003+08:00

While surfing digg today, I stumbled on this
http://www.marikimura.com/subharmonics.html

This is not a fraud as you can see it is discussed here
http://www.violinist.com/discussion/response.cfm?ID=11249
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subharmonics

So it's actually possible to play a note lower than its fundamental frequency and at loud? Haha, listen to the samples on Mari Kimura's website... it's just plain baffling.

The banquet

2008-07-19T21:31:00.004+08:00

Finally found the deeply emotional and haunting song that I heard quite some time ago. And the singer, Jane Zhang(张靓颖) is plain awesome. The composer is Tan Dun(谭盾), the composer for Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

The Banquet(夜宴)
"我用所有报答爱"

bored people do boring things

2008-07-17T18:24:00.003+08:00

I'm very bored now....still can't install COD4 and Kane's Wrath.... going to give up soon. Besides Jedi Academy multiplayer is more fun, due to the absence of backstabbing nonsense. On a brighter note, I finally managed to download Sibelius 5 after 6 mths of torrenting (it's a 3.87 GB download with few seeders). Now I feel I have the perfect environment for composition, except that I'm completely out of ideas now, so pretty useless. My brain has basically become rather lazy these few days.

Chee Kit totally surprised me today. Today he demonstrated how sharp is his tongue, with all the sarcasm thrown in as well....He has quite some skill in manipulating arguments... fun crapping with him, especially in Chinese.

Michael has a new nickname now thanks to the creative minds of S4, resulting from my sentence, "I played my Wii with Michael before" Replace Michael with "my girl". LOL hahhahahahhah!!!!

Also, tomorrow is the table tennis competition, and I don't have a partner for doubles, so didn't participate, and I'll surely get roasted for the singles. Anyway, don't care, just go there and play for fun.

On music, the fact that competition's over frees me over to explore other genres, such as jazz. But now I'm trying to develop a completely new style of composition. What I'm trying is combining the efficiency of classical climaxes and structure, the chord progressions from jazz as well as the beautiful and casual melodies from pop music. Let's see how it goes. For me to do that though, I need to expose myself to a much wider variety of music. My classical collection is already quite large, but my jazz is currently limited to <10 albums, and I have almost NO pop music in my hard drive, only movie songs and disney songs( do they count at all?). Oh, and I need inspiration from God too, for He is the true origin of all beauty and art in the world.

Also I'm playing 10 minutes for the charity concert but still CAN'T DECIDE ON WHAT TO PLAY! pengsan. I can't really play a lot of my classical pieces as I'm playing on a sad digital piano. I'll literally kill the piano due to my banging. I can't play my own compositions as all of them are either designed for voice/violin melodies(without words lol, I need someone to write lyrics for the melodies) or are unfinished. I can improvise but then that'll be a super big risk, especially DURING the concert.

My life is basically like that only. I'm starting to get bored of all my studies with the exception of physics, due to their fondness of repetition. I need to rediscover my joy in learning new things as well as studying. That's because it is impossible to be consistently good in something you have no passion in.

Ok, this post is much longer than what I've planned to write already. I'll take a break now.

Two videos worth sharing....
Sarah Chang playing Carmen Fantasy by Sarasate

place to dump ideas

2008-07-11T22:11:00.002+08:00

Ideas come to us quite frequently, and it might be useful to keep some of them.
http://eurekafactory.blogspot.com/

Competition

2008-07-08T21:48:00.002+08:00

To sum up what happened today: I didn't make it to the finals of the HSBC Classics for reasons out of my control. Don't ask why.
I think what I played there was not my best, but I think it was still good and I deserved to enter the final, but I didn't. Nevertheless, I'm proud of what I've achieved in such a short time frame. Reflecting back, I value all those pure hard work practising everyday, with my poor parents driving me to my friend's place almost 7 km for me to get practise on a grand piano. Just 1 day before the competition, I got my wrist slightly overstretched. I prayed to God to ensure that my wrist did not get injured, and it didn't. Praise God for it! However, He did not grant me the privilege of getting into the final. I trust God that He has a better plan for me, as He always does.

Anyway, I'll try to record all of my competition pieces soon.

Final preparation for competition

2008-07-05T22:14:00.002+08:00

HSBC Competition's on Tuesday. I'll be skipping class for min. 2 days - monday and tuesday for it. Am practising like mad now so that I won't do anything stupid on stage( not that I definitely won't...) , yesterday from 3-9 pm, today from 9am -6pm with some breaks in between. And there's the spec maths common test on thursday which i couldn't care less already. And just for fun, I recorded the 1st mov of appassionata just to test recording a concert grand with my microphone.... I played slow in the recording, which is really unlike me....:D

http://koayyijie.googlepages.com/music ( Notice the new appassionata link)

Blah, ngekky boy will go to sleep, too tired already.

Cats - The Aristocrats

2008-07-02T19:05:00.004+08:00

Tagged! Actually it'll probably be very unsuccessful since my library is 90% classical music. I shall try to describe the music lolololol
Instructions:
a. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc on shuffle.
b. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
c. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN, NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS.
d. Put any comments in brackets after the song name. Put this on your blog.

1. If someone says: "Is this okay?"

Lizst La Campanella- Shine Complete Classics[??? Cannot relate. The piece is super showy though]

2. How would you describe yourself?

Chopin Prelude no.8 - Evgeny Kissin [this makes only a bit sense. This song depicts someone very fiery and passionate....but sad ]

3. What would you like in a boy/girl?

Prokofiev Piano Concerto no.1 in D flat, Op.10... 2. Andante assai [ Dark, mysterious, atmospheric, dreamy person? Hmmmm.......]

4. How do you feel today?

Peru- Alternate Wolf Theme: Tomb Raider Anniversary [ feel like hunting down someone?? Doesn't make sense at all...]

5. What is your life's purpose?

Beethoven Piano Concerto no.4 in G - 2nd mov. Andante con moto by Murray Perahia[?? Sad and stoic song? Maybe if it'll lead me to become a composer like Beethoven...tsk tsk tsk]

6. What is your motto?

Prokofiev Piano Concerto no.3- 1st mov. by Vladmir Ashkenazy [ Yes! It's a song full of hope, drive(fast-paced) ]

7. What do your friends think of you?

The Battle - Gladiator [ ??? OMG stoic and grand??? doesn't make a bit of sense at all]

8. What do you think about your parents?

Lizst Etude "Ab Irato" - Sergio Fiorentino [ Haven't even listened to this piece before? Sounds like a technical exercise to me, has a very nice romantic section at the end though]

9. What do you think about very often?

Two much/Love Theme Michel Camilo & Tomatito [ Nice jazz piece. Very sad song. No I'm not crying over lost love or something like that]

10. What is 2+2?

St Thomas- Michel Camilo [ Mischievous catchy piece. Yea man! It's supposed to be.....infinity!]

11. What do you think of your best friends?

Track 12- Jim Brickman[Very warm and touching piece, fits quite nice]

12. What do you think of the person you like?

Le Jardin- Kevin Kern [ Arghhh another very sad emo piece, but this is especially heartfelt and tugging.....]

13. What is your life?

Beauty and the Beast [No comment... irrelevant]

14. What do you want to be when you grow up?

Vivaldi Gloria- Shine [ Makes no sense though except it's the only opera song, I don't want to be an opera singer!]

15. What do you think of the person you like?

Misty - unnamed pianist [ I love this jazz piece, so sweet! So true though....]

16. What would you dance at your wedding?

Dances with Wolves - John Williams [ Yea, it'll be definitely one of my choice pieces, so innocent and sweet]

17. What will they play at your funeral?

Diamond Dust- unnamed performer [ Saxophone piece, quite sad also. But it sucks, I would rather request NOT to play it]

18. What is your hobby/interest?

Schumann Fantasie - Murray Perahia[ Yeah, my major interest is of course piano. This song is superbly long at 25 minutes. It's a long journey full with many nice surprises]

19. What is your biggest fear?

Debussy: Preludes Book no.2- Feuilles Mortes[ meaning dead leaves?LOL! inspired by this poem http://johnnymercer.org/FAQ/Autumn%20Leaves.htm ]

20. What is your biggest secret?

Chopin Impromptu no.4 in C# minor- Yundi Li [ my competition piece in 2006 that won me my shiny silver medal, I have many fond memories of that time... very famous song by Chopin... nothing to do with secrets though]

21. What do you think of your friends?

Chopin Grande Polonaise no.6 - Ricky Edwards [grand heroic piece.... I don't think they are though.....at least at this age...:D]

22. What will you post this as?

Cats- The Aristocrats by Disney[yuck! I hate this song....]

23. What song would you play during your first time having sex?

Ravel: Piano Concerto no.3 in G minor: 3- Presto by Martha Argerich[ WTH, who put this question????? But seems a good fit as it's playful, fast and abstract]

Tag 8 people: Feel lazy and this is taking too much of my precious time... and everybody seems to have done it already. Anyway just tag one person to extend this outside, Ji Eun.

Edit: omg, forgot the instructions...

update

2008-06-29T14:52:00.003+08:00

Actually there's not much to update lol. Still the same: going for practise and relaxing at home. Except, now I don't really do my homework and there's a self imposed ban on ping pong until the competition ends. I'm practising at home in addition to practising at my friend's shop.
I'm now gearing up for the competition, and learning more and more about the piano and music in general in the process. It's very enriching and somehow brings a new depth on how I view things in life.

I feel that people are missing out a lot by ignoring much of the best music ever composed. Classical music is not just Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin. Sure they're good but they only show like 5% of the diversity in music. Rachmaninov with his atmospheric and dark romantic pieces, Prokofiev with his barbaric yet emotional style, Debussy and Schumann with their childlike innocent pieces, Brahms with his pieces full of struggle, Ravel with his simply beautiful haunting pieces. and many others.

Another is that a lot of people automatically reject any pieces longer than 5-10 minutes. But some of the best pieces( the concertos and sonatas as well as symphonies). For example, the Rachmaninov 2nd symphony is about an hour long, and it's one of the best otherworldly experiences that you can ever get in music.

Recently I began exploring the violin repertoire and it's as diverse as the piano repertoire, with really a lot of inspiring pieces.

I love music!

Water shortage

2008-06-21T09:37:00.002+08:00

Since Tuesday, there has been a cacat water shortage at my apartment. Sometimes get a bit of water, most of the time no water. 5 days already! I had 1 day when I went to play table tennis until 7 pm. Then full of sweat, NO WATER! Have to tahan until the next day to bathe. Blah, this= total crap!

By the way, I'm counting down every day until the competition, which is now 17 days away. I need to practise more!

Clearing up

2008-06-18T21:12:00.006+08:00

A few weeks ago during the holidays, I received quite a number of nasty comments both in msn and my blog cbox.

Adium chat transcript(screen capture):

Although it's slightly blurred you can clearly see the "spam is nice" and "die lah u" comments

Then throughout the few months I received more:

Cbox history

Andrew How i know it...1st, if Kyp CY were an impostor, he would be glad that I blame the actual person for his comment and would not need to use a different name. 2nd, the language is too similar.	25 May 08 19:22 219.93.152.11
	Andrew Nice try, but LP and Kyp CY is basically the same person, just stop posting already because you're making a fool out of yourself...	25 May 08 19:20 219.93.152.11
	LP and indiana jones was stupid. were you too young to watch the older movies, this is SHIT. the plot is horrible.	25 May 08 17:07 60.48.226.58
	LP andrew, have you ever thought of suiciding, i mean you have so many reasons why, 1 your blog, 2 your social life. if i were you... no i wont be you.	25 May 08 17:06 60.48.226.58
	Andrew to Kyp CY: Since when did that "somebody" stolen your identity? To my knowledge you have been posting these types of comments in your blog, this cbox as well as on msn for many months already.	25 May 08 09:53 219.93.152.6
	chee seng hey!	23 May 08 21:34 61.6.197.97
	Kyp CY and if i act like a kid, its cos that's my age...	23 May 08 18:12 203.176.145.206
	Kyp CY i believe somebody has stolen my identity in this cbox, cos i can NEVER go online at 8pm. NEVER.	23 May 08 18:11 203.176.145.206
	andrew lee ho sheng well, talking about maturity MR/Ms Kyp Cy u are acting like a kid or joker in front of us (no offense)	21 May 08 23:27 60.50.150.132
	ji eun wishing late but all the best for exams =D	21 May 08 18:57 60.49.59.237
	Andrew To Kyp CY: Just stop visiting my blog if you don't like it... ok? There is absolutely no need to waste your time whining(to quote your fav word) in my blog, especially just before an exam....	19 May 08 22:19 219.93.152.6
	Kyp CY haha..andrew..u sucks..NERD!	19 May 08 20:43 118.101.38.94

Then followed by this

http://kypandpaintball.blogspot.com/2008/05/cyclotron-suggestions.html

http://kypandpaintball.blogspot.com/2008/04/annoying-people.html

I really couldn't care less about nasty comments(thanks to mental training during upper primary). The above is just why I think that Chia Yang made all these comments. As for comments on his blog, I'm not responsible for that. Anyway, just forget about all this nonsense and move on with life. But don't blame me for accusing Chia Yang in the first place.

n- the way of the ninja progress

2008-06-12T23:33:00.004+08:00

I'm exactly 87% to finishing n- the way of the ninja! 13 episodes to go!

I'm also starting to play peggle, a very fun puzzle game as well as Godfather for Wii (nothing beats the motion controls for it)

Peggle vs Godfather

Just bought Lego Indiana Jones for the wii too. Haven't got to play it but it looks really good.

Now waiting for Star Wars: Force Unleashed for the wii.

Competition update

2008-06-09T18:37:00.002+08:00

Yea, it's 28 days remaining. I'm excited and psyched. The thrill of competitions = unbeatable. Now i'm to the stage of perfecting everything I'm playing.

OK, some videos of the pieces I'm playing( not me playing of course)

Semifinals:

Beethoven Appassionata( Sean Bennett)

Mov.1

Mov.2

Mov. 3

Schumann Symphonic Etudes (Valentina Lisitsa)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3( A lot of wrong notes but really fast)

Chopin concerto

Mov.1 Part 1

Mov. 1 Part 2

Mov.2

Mov.3

Ps: I just got an invitation to play in Midvalley this Sunday on 6 pm. Thinking of what modern piece to play...... something that's well known, but can't decide on it yet. The classical piece will be the finale from symphonic etudes, should be quite interesting, i'll just cut out the middle part.

bored

2008-06-02T19:28:00.002+08:00

Yikes, I have absolutely nothing to write of. My holidays are actually tough work, everyday go to a piano shop to practise on nice grands for 4-5 hours until my hands are tired. Now i'm having my finger skin starting to peel off. I should have chosen easier pieces to play instead of Beethoven Appassionata and Schumann Symphonic Etudes. Somemore got Chopin Concerto to worry about. One week left to practise and 1 mth 5 days remaining to competition.

But then, I get to play games at night. I finished all the campaigns in c&c3. I find Nod to be the strongest personally. Scrin is too slow and GDI tends to have lousy tactical options, only brute force. Nod has fanatics, raider buggies with EMP(my favourite), the catalyst missle which takes out refineries and stealth tanks plus the really good disruption tower + turrets combo. Nothing more satisfying than EMPing a group of mammoths then finishing them off with fanatics.

Ok, i can't play games now as I have to start all ESL and physics work soon.

Indiana Jones

2008-05-25T09:59:00.002+08:00

My whole family went to sunway pyramid to watch Indiana Jones yesterday. GO WATCH IT NOW! It is seriously good (expected from Spielberg). Everything you expect from the Indy series, including Harrison Ford... returning as old Indy...

Exams over!

2008-05-23T21:39:00.002+08:00

YES!!!! Bye bye to exams and hello to piano practice! Will be having a good long "break" from studies.... the double inverted commas is because I have to prepare for ESL tutorial and also physics project which is due in june. But still, it's time to relax! YAHOO!!!!!!

Uploads

2008-05-06T20:39:00.004+08:00

Newly uploaded....

Chopin concerto no.1 : me- 1st piano, chuan- 2nd piano

Chopin concerto no.1 mov.2 - Romanze - Larghetto

Chopin concerto no.1 mov.3 - Rondo - Vivace

couldn't upload 1st movement as it is 18 mb and google only accepts uploads up to 10mb.

lazy to use other file hosting as a lot doesn't work

Other music at

http://koayyijie.googlepages.com/music

Table tennis

2008-05-06T00:13:00.002+08:00

Some really sick shots... i wonder how they can pull all these off?

Random blogs

2008-04-29T21:34:00.002+08:00

Just for fun, I visited the following websites:

shit.blogspot.com

blah.blogspot.com

crap.blogspot.com

and my favourite:

http://bugger.blogspot.com/

Wasted blog addresses:

violin.blogspot.com

piano.blogspot.com

andrew.blogspot.com

nonsense.blogspot.com

music.blogspot.com

jedimaster.blogspot.com

jediknight.blogspot.com

A joke

god.blogspot.com

stupid lar these people, have such good website names and totally wasted them. Google should just shut down these blogs and give the addresses to someone who can better manage them.

Atonal music( continued)

2008-04-28T00:23:00.003+08:00

Just finished autumn steps (can play reasonably now). My thoughts:

1) It IS hard to sightread contemporary music

2) It has a lot of pretty cool effects...

3) The dissonant chords actually make the music very moody and disturbing which i think this piece is trying to convey.... ?? In a way it's quite good. Luckily I chose this piece.

4) How am I going to remember the pulse when the metronome mark changes from 50 to 60 to 80 to 100 to 80 to 120 to 100 to 50 to 60 to 40???

5) My mum thinks it's good

Sight reading

2008-04-20T23:45:00.004+08:00

OMG, sight-reading atonal music = nightmare. Super difficult as 1) I don't have any recordings at all 2) I can't predict anything in the piece 3) the rhythm = crazy. Have to do it although i don't understand it very well. Autumn steps. Apparently it got 2nd prize at an international competition, means it should be quite good right?

Still, this is considered easy.... try reading this or even this by Chong Kee Yong. It's worse. People who can play that must have got 21/21 at sight reading grade 8.

Hehe, not much time left... 12 July 2008, which means 2.5 mths remaining. Anyway, the semifinals are open to public.... who wants to go?

Bad studying habits

2008-04-17T22:47:00.002+08:00

I really need to change my bad study habits. It's the opposite of most people. I spend a reasonable amount of time everyday revising my work, but when tests come, I tend to slack tremendously because of the exam pressure inhibiting my focus. So as a result, I always tend to suddenly forget certain facts ONLY during the exam, and it's usually the most basic things in the syllabus. The most crappy thing about this is that I have a good knack at remembering them just after the exam has finished.....what the heck...

And i just learnt a lesson today, if you haven't done your homework, DO NOT sit in the front row. It's akin to committing suicide.

On a lighter note, I managed to finish my esl research draft.

BRAIN-OVERLOAD---ketonepolyhydroxyaldehydeestertollenreagentcarbonylhydroxyloxocarboxy3,6-dipentanaminedicrhomatek2cr207-alkalineammoniacalsilvernitratesolutionbicarbonatebrominetestorangetocolourlessdichromate

orangetobrownoxidisingcarboxylateionoxidisingagentlimiteddroppingfunnelhydrolysisalkaline

andacidichydrationcondensationadditionneutralisationrefluxdistillationapparatuscarbohydrate

cxh2yoycyclicformglucoseglucosidicbondamidelinkagepolysaccharidepolyamidesaminoacid

carboxylgroupaminogroupandrsidechainneededprimaryalcoholoxidisetocarboxylicacidsecondary

toketonetertiarynoreactionhydrogenbonddispersionforcesproteinstructuretertiarydfsecondary

covalentionichydrogendispersionprimarypeptidelinkageverypolarcanformhbondwithh20moleasily

dimercarboyxlicacidformextensivehbondingveryhardtobreakhighboilingpointsheatatrtpstupid

alcoholandketonemustdonumberingproteinstructuredenaturedunravellosesuniquespatialarrangement

losesbiologicalfunctionglucoseyeastslightlyacidiclackofoxygenwarmtemperaturepolysaccharidebreak

downtomonosaccharidethenfermenttoformalcoholpolysaccharideabsorbwatermolprefertoformhbonds

anddfbetweenwatermoleculesinsolubleinwaterfoodstorageconvertproteinintosolubleformprotonate

formioniccompoundabletoformiondipolebondwithwatermolhencearesolubleinaqueousmedium

blooddeprotonatecarboxylicacidtoformcarboxylateiontoachievesameeffect123propantriolpluscarboxylic

acidbecometriglycerideamidesproducesbycondensationofamineswithcarboxylicacidheatunderrefluxwithtraceamountofconcentratedsulfuricacid

aminoacidsphneutralformzwitterionsandundergoselfionisationbetapleatedshapealphahelix

piano competition update

2008-04-17T17:56:00.004+08:00

I'm in the semi-finals already....BUT after seeing the semifinalists list (try saying that ten times very quickly), i'm going to pengsan already. Look it up at

http://www.klpac.com/Welcome.asp?c=whatsonpromotionsview&promoID=50&promocatID=5

There's Wong Shuen Da, two times winner of HSBC Classics and one of the top performers in Malaysia. There also a girl from Singapore Conservatory..... :O

Oh my god, I need to work harder for this competition.....

Beautiful piece

2008-04-12T23:41:00.002+08:00

Finally, after searching for a very long time, I managed to know the name for this piece. Elgar's Salut D'Amour

Sarah Chang playing this when she was 10

HSBC classics update

2008-04-11T20:58:00.002+08:00

YES!!!! Just received a phone call in the afternoon and an email confirming that I'm in the semi-finals for the HSBC classics piano competition! Praise God! However, there's a long and difficult road ahead of balancing my studies, eca activities and piano... need to ask God for wisdom in handling these.

Arcadi Volodos

2008-04-07T19:12:00.003+08:00

This is why I'm a big fan of him... crazy technique and crazy improvisational and transcription mind...I wish I can play like him in the future....:P Anyway, was just bored... so decided to post some of his videos

Mendelssohn's wedding march

Lizst Hungarian Rhapsody no.13

Hungarian rhapsody no.15("Rakoczy March")

Super crazy transcription of Mozart's Turkish March

Music night and assignments...priorities?

2008-04-06T11:34:00.002+08:00

Ok, I'm going to talk a bit about the music night that day. I went as both a performer and a listener.

3.08 pm Finally able to get out of the ESL class... luckily haven't rain yet as I have to rush home to get my digital piano there.

3.20 pm Reached home, already raining like crazy, decided not to take the digital piano so early... got about 5 sms asking me to hurry... But practise a bit the accompaniment for the string ensemble.

4.00 pm Couldn't care less about the rain already, wrapped the piano in many layers of plastic bags and bedsheets to shield it from the rain, carry with my elder bro down 4 levels at my apartment and quite some distance to taylors. It's really bulky and heavy... must go to gym more often...:P

4.20 pm Reached there. Help to set up everything. Start rehearsal(or the first practice!)

4.50-5.30 Start practising with the ensemble. It was really messy at first as everyone played at different speeds and we couldn't hear each other. They obviously needed a conductor...:D So, in the end, we fixed a speed and I had to do the unfortunate job of clapping to keep rhythm to stop them from accelerating. But they learnt quite fast though, fantastic violinists and cellist! I really miss playing the violin now....

5.30-6.30 Had to let other people rehearse. There was one guy in the choir group who's really good. The song he played, involves singing, then picking up and playing the flute, then play another wind instrument ALL in one piece without interruptions! Really talented guy. Had to teach a girl how to use my digital piano's auto accompaniment features(which i'm totally clueless as well). She looked so ke lian and desperate...lol

6.30-7.00 Went to asiacafe to have a quick bite

7.00 Music night starts. I met the lecturer I always play table tennis with in ECA centre, then only i realised she's the teacher in charge of music club! really pengsan.

7.50 Performances start

8.00 My turn... First impression of the piano set up. First it's too high and the pedal is on some pile of books, I regret my decision to put that up... looks unstable to me. It's totally uncomfortable. Anyway, too late already.... Start playing my composition. It was pretty good until the middle, when THE FREAKING PEDAL ACTUALLY SLIPPED FROM THE BOOKS WITH A THUD SOUND!!! This means I can say bye bye to the use of the pedal. The audience all knew that and were all laughing....ARGHH felt so embarrassed. I cursed silently but continued to play the whole song without pedal. The 2nd song, I got down and put the pedal back up on the pile of books, then started playing. Again it was rather good until the middle, where I forgot to control myself, was playing too vigorously. THEN, THE PEDAL DROPPED AGAIN!!! I almost cursed aloud. so what to do? First, cut short the piece and go straight to the ending. Second, change style to staccato and make it look deliberate. Then after ending, pretend to look very confident and walk out to the backstage.

8.00-8.55 couldn't help but whine about the stupid crappy pedal outside. Then, suddenly one guy who couldn't stand the band performing went out and saw me. The conversation went like this:

Guy: Oh, are you the one who played the piano just now?

Me: Ummmmm.... yeah...(feeling a bit embarrassed)

Guy: Wow, you played so well. I really enjoyed your piano playing, you're good!

Me: *Speechless* .....Uhhhhh..... thanks a lot.....

(thinking, wtf, I played so crappily you can still praise my performance, pengsan)

The one that surprised me, there were a few other conversations like this which made me want to pengsan already.

8.55 Accompany the string ensemble, hoping that nothing goes wrong this time. Goes in, pretend to be very confident, then start. Luckily they all had a strong sense of timing now. Everything went well until the last part, when i started the end part two of the violinists were not there yet....what to do? repeat first bar of the ending again... they got the idea, then all jumped to the ending... then start the ending part. HAHA, what a good trick. Nobody noticed the trick! Everybody still clapped like mad at the ending...

Then went in the hall as a listener. I was in time to see the third band called Tainted Covenant. They're really good. The drummer is crazy good. Can see that they're professionals. Unfortunately the speakers were not up to standard with their expensive amplifiers, so everything got drowned out by the drums. The singing couldn't be heard at all, but i think he's quite good as well. Then I asked around about the band, then heard an amazing thing. The drummer actually holds the Guinness World Record of Grade 1 - Grade 8 ABRSM drumming in 8 months. No wonder he's that good!

Anyway, went home at 10.40. Had to carry the heavy and bulky digital piano back again. Although it's not very smooth, at least I learnt how to keep cool when something amiss happens.

Lesson learnt: Always at least have 1 rehearsal for every event.

Photos:

http://picasaweb.google.com/koayyijie/MemberSNight2008

Taylor's Member's Night

2008-04-03T18:54:00.003+08:00

Ok...I'm really slightly screwed up on this one... Tomorrow is the real day for my performance... and first I haven't even touched the pieces I was performing at all, including an "unfinished" composition which actually needs to be improvised everytime i play, and a schumann virtuoso piece which is pretty demanding. PLUS my accompaniment. YIKES! I haven't even sight-read through the whole piece, if the string ensemble screws up it'll be because of me, and I'm sure i'm going to get killed for that...

Anyway, on a lighter note, today in ECA centre, my table tennis technique has improved a lot until I could finally beat one of the top players there called du yong or something like that...(sorry don't know the correct spelling) and my flip is working much better(aggressive slower smash against low balls near the net) and jacson was actually studying maths there...first time see him NOT playing table tennis.....lol...

LAUNCH of my website

2008-03-30T18:30:00.001+08:00

Just did a quick job to create a new site
http://koayyijie.googlepages.com/
It's live now, and you can download music from the music section.
It looks cool right?

Bach prelude and fugue

2008-03-25T23:31:00.002+08:00

Ok, I'm going to try playing the bach prelude no.2 in a completely different style, something like a rock song, because it sounds cool playing like that.... will post some recordings soon....

Competitions

2008-03-21T17:56:00.002+08:00

Competitions= super fun...
Now i'm going to try an impossible competition, HSBC Classics. I only found out about it yesterday and looked at the impossible requirements... deadline for audition cd is 4th april and I have to learn a completely new bach prelude and fugue in less than 10 days... plus a bit of cheating... i already have recordings of my lizst un sospiro(still considered an etude), chopin etude, lizst hungarian rhapsody no.12 . Then the competition is in july and I'll have to prepare a full chopin concerto which I haven't played for 2 years, and also a beethoven appassionata which I have not yet mastered, and a piece by a Malaysian composer which I haven't took a look yet, which are mostly atonal music which I don't quite like.

Although the time is impossibly short(3 mths), I'll just participate for fun...pray that I'll get something out of this competition....:P
GO GO GO!!!!

Addiction and doing nothing

2008-03-20T18:49:00.003+08:00

Better not start to watch tv series, gaming, and surfing internet... it'll be a big time sink, sucking all the time away which could be used for other beneficial things like practice. Key to success is self discipline, so have to learn to say no to these things!

The heavy expenses of living in KL

2008-03-17T20:00:00.002+08:00

Today my wallet is bleeding hard.
I bought a yucky mee from success that costs RM4.00 that I ended up throwing 2/3 away
The fine for my overdue "Multiple Intelligences" was 50 sen/day X 7 days = RM 3.50!!!
Music club finally has a member's fee for RM10.

Becoming bankrupt soon....

Updates

2008-03-15T15:26:00.002+08:00

I'm disconnected from the rest of the world for the past few days, was in Ipoh, enjoying all the good food and meeting up with my previous piano teacher. I just realised that I'm keeping in touch with about approximately zero primary school friends from Ipoh. Maybe because I was in two different schools in Ipoh for a total amt of 2 years. Ipoh food is still the best. Nothing beats the mee and bean sprouts there.

Just went for a haircut today... As I watched my hair fall on the cloth, I was totally shocked.....I estimate about 5-10% of my hair on the sides are WHITE hairs! I'm on to becoming Dr Brown from Back to the Future....lol... but seriously it's total crap.

Went to watch 10,000 BC with my family a few days ago, it's the lamest movie I've watched in a long long time. The music didn't suit the movie at all. If you heard the music, it's so organised and grand that you would think that you're watching Gladiator. The fight scenes were lame as well, but that's my own opinion. BUT, the scientific inaccuracies are totally funny. 1st example: By going over a mountain range and walking a few days, you go from freezing icy climate to a rainforest climate, then to a desert climate! Then, there's a freaking huge prehistoric carnivorous bird which is supposed to exist few millions year ago. The natives hunting mammoth have to fight with wooden spears with 4000 BC Egyptians which have STEEL weapons and gigantic pyramids and ships. Then they could possibly communicate with a few thousand slaves all from different origins with absolutely no language problems. The best part of it all: After being pierced by an arrow through her body. And after she died for a few minutes, everybody was so sad and the director obviously having a sense of humor, decided to wake her up with the lame excuse of the grandma hundreds of km away giving her life to save hers. What a FANTASTIC movie!