All the best to our Penang Langs!

Let's temporary forget about politics and EPL/FA Cup this weekend and turn our attention to the two Penang langs. Nicol will be meeting Natalie Grainger in the final of KL Open at Berjaya Times Square today. Nicol should be able to clinch her first of the many titles for the year. As our fellow Bukit Dumbar Pepsi Court kaki, we are really proud of her.

We hope that Chong Wei will also bring cheer on Sunday night. Chong Wei should beat Finland's Ville Lang. Hopefully he will beat either Taufik or Peter Gade to progress to final. Then, let's stop that Lin Dan.

I managed to interview him before Chinese New Year in a Maxis internal event. He was describing to us on how he has to do 4 dope tests leading to the Olympics finals. Lin Dan remains his key target for this year.

I thought the chemistry between him and Misbun was real good. My impression of Misbun changed after this interview. He is really dedicated, humble, good in analysing opponents and is really a good mentor to Chong Wei.

Let's hope we have a Penang lang as the new All England champion come Sunday night!

In years to come, am sure Goh Jr will also do us proud by winning the same title :) By then we can watch and cheer together at Jasmine Tower.

Once a brother always a brother

With the instruction of Hui Chang, I sent invitation to 11 brothers to join us as co-authors for this blog. I sent to Angtau, PBK, Boo Wei, Bong (also known as JC), PK (yes, believe it or not :)), Beh, HowKor, Birdie, PBK's cousin :), Elephant, Joo Chuan.
We now have 15 brothers as co-authours - and this is really great. It will be greater if all 26 brothers come on board.
I got the inspiration from Tua when thinking of the picture to attach with this posting. I agree with the saying 'once a brother always a brother'. But what we do need is some participation and voice from those dormant brothers. If that is also not possible, I think it is fair that we leave them out from our future plans.
We leave it to you, our honorable Hui Chang.

We used to beat many in badminton when we were young..

I managed to take this picture with Eddy Choong at Bellevue, the Penang Hill Hotel. Eddy and I used to win championships when we were young.

Eddy Choong won All England Men's singles title for four times between 1953 to 1957 and Men's doubles title for three times between 1951 to 1953.

For me, I won Wo-Men's singles title once in 1991.

Btw, this hotel is really nice - it is Penang's best kept secret. We can have our gathering there one day. They have 11 hotel rooms and another bungalow with 40 beds. The hotel rate is between RM150 to RM180 and is negotiable. The rate for bungalow is RM800. I also checked with the guys there. The old bungalows that we used to stay - Woodside, Hillside, Fern Hill, etc. are all no longer there. What a pity.

If you have not been to Penang Hill lately, go and spend some time there.

齐豫潘越云

Yesterday I watched TV and saw both of them. Decided to SMS the gang who went to Genting for the concert. I still have few articles to write about the trip. This song reminds me again on our good old days :)

Squash Tips

Inspired by Chiang's article, I would like to share few squash tips that I learnt. Hopefully this will encourage more brothers including Tua to play the game.

I had 2 sessions of squash coaching session with Aaron Soyza, the Penang State Coach. I still lost to Tatto after the coaching sessions. Hopefully I can keep on practising the reduce the gap.

Enjoy the game!

• tilt your shoulder lower to retrieve the balls
• try hitting the ball in the movement as single hand golf swing
• follow through the movement to have a smooth swing
• after the swing, hold the racquet straight towards the front
• the position of the foot (one of it, the one followed the direction of the ball) should be behind the ball when retrieving shots
• don't try to hit hard on every balls. Try to just lob it using trajectory. The height of the ball when hitting the wall should be close to the middle line.
• only kill the ball when the opportunity arises.
• practice backhand and forehand by hitting and lobbing repetitively.
• go back to T after hitting your shot. Then watch the movement of the opponent.
• on footwork, turn your body to the direction of the ball, then run towards the ball.
• on handling of racquet, try to hold it and with thumb on the rest of the fingers. It is not important whether to hold it close to the edge or to the frame. It depends on the power of shots that you would like to have.
• take time to retrieve the ball. Get use to the rhythm. Hit it when the height of the ball is appropriate.

Btw, Tatto is still our No 1 player. He played against one of the 业馀 China National players (as shown in the picture). Tatto heat her 9:3. Ultimately, this match helped achieving this : 马中绑交更进一步!