Wednesday, August 18, 2010 . what an experience. something i'll never forget. playing with fire, pushing the limits.

An artist will always know the pain of another artist. The blood, sweat and tears literally involved in preparing for a performance, yet knowing that not everyone will accept it. Yet, artists are the most satisfied in giving a show, and when the audience appreciates it, the artist(s) feel more joy then anyone.

So comes the topic of YOG 2010.

This year was destined to be a memorable year for me, since i had finally left the dark hole that was YTSS after 5 horribly long years and entered NP. I was going to have new classmates, and I prayed they would be fun, and yes, I got a crazy fun class. So, just going by that alone, 2010 was going to be memorable.

But seriously, what's so special about that? What's so special about going to a new school? Maybe it was the freedom. Perhaps it was the people. Whatever it was, it didn't feel that different from the years before.

Then YOG came.

It might strike some of you as ironic as i say this now: I never wanted to join YOG. My mindset was that it was going to be like NDP, Chingay, it wasn't going to be any different and that I wouldn't regret if I didn't join. True enough, when I visited the training ground at CHIJ Toa Payoh to watch and have fun afterwards with my NPSD mates, I was proven right. Formations, props, heck, these are things that are literally HOME to NDP. What was the the difference? I thought. Hence, with all these in mind, I missed the audition and thought nothing about it.

Throwing back to 4-5 months ago, when SYM was all the rage and training at CHIJ was in its infancy stage, I would drop by at CHIJ masquerading as a performer when really, I was there to watch what they did. You see, shortly after SYM, which ended in March, I had suddenly expressed a desire to join, albeit just a mild one. Still, desire is still desire, no matter how small. So, driven by this little angel in my head, I sought out the ICs number, gave her a call, and they told me this; there were no slots at the moment but they asked me to register as a reserve at CHIJ. And that was how I started.

I had a short chat with the admin ics and they told me that only the Water group still had place. I wanted to go to Fire, I told them. I was adamant about it and they said they would try their best. So, I delayed my entry to YOG 2010 because of this.

Eventually, the weeks passed, water was filled up, fire was overflowing and there was no place for me. Or so I thought. I got a call that changed everything, I seriously do mean EVERYTHING this year was going to be. It went something like this:

"Hello?"

"...........there is a new group called Pyro. would you like to join that group?"

"(some blah blah i cant rmb) ok, i will consider)

Ok, to cut a long story short, I joined.

First day (night actually) of training at CHIJ, I was late as usual and headed to the back of the school to start my training. As it turns out, I was labelled '15' and joined the rest in what would be only their 2nd week of training. I picked up the plastic, fake fish prop, which would be reminiscent of the plastic food we would eventually get when training moved to the floating platform. We learned the basic actions. Easy, I thought.

And so, for the next 4 months, we trained "hard". In SSA YOG group, pyro, at least in the early to mid stages of training, was synonym for 'slack'. Still, as the trainings intensified and props got longer and heavier, that term slowly went away.

Eventually, we would get to train at Floating Platform, which was a ncie place to train in. Until you stepped into the water pool. I slipped on my first time there. Wasn't nice. Our holding area on Saturdays was the F1 pit, and it was there that many of the final, greatest memories of SYOG 2010 would be forged for me - as I'm sure it did for you people.

Preview day came - dragon head was really imba fail. I would post a picture but its too funny/embarrassing for us.

Actual day came, and this is what happened:


Fire dancers, this is one is for you!











- this theoretic realization... 1:49 PM
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