I can still recall vividly the very first time I held a floorball stick at our first training site, Cahaya Gemilang court, while being trained under the watchful eyes of my first floorball coach, Sarah Ng.
That was almost 2 years back.

Fast forward 2 years later.

Here I am, still holding a floorball stick and on top of that, had the privilege to put on the national jersey for the 2nd time.

I recently participated with a few others in the Asia Pacific Floorball Championship 2008, better known as APAC, in Perth, Australia.
Having been to last year's APAC in Singapore, I knew what I was getting myself into -
High-level competition, nothing compared to what we have been playing in Malaysia.
Nonetheless, I knew I wanted to go from the very beginning.
Let me explain.

Initially, what drew me to floorball was the idea and fascination of representing our country.
Being coached by a national player at my first ever training session, I was truly inspired.
After playing and fooling around with floorball for a couple of months, I felt I had a knack for the sport and decided to take it seriously.
I then set a goal for myself to get into the Penang state team first, then work my way into the national.
It wasn't much about the glory and the idea of winning medals.
I never really was driven by medals anyway.
I was driven more by the virtues behind a team.
I guess you can say that that is partially why I decided to stick around in Penang for a little longer.

APAC 2008 opened my eyes to several things.
Firstly, my own personal vision of floorball.

Like I said, initially, getting into the national team was a goal, a target set by me and for me to achieve.
But it was not a vision.
I do, however, share a common vision with my club of course.
That's more of a "corporate" vision.
On a more personal aspect of what I want to see floorball happening in Malaysia,
I was left standing clueless.

The simple fact is this;
We got whooped in Perth. Big time.
We just could not compete with other teams.
To put it simply, we were outclassed.

So, the question I asked myself now is,

"What now?"

I mean, yea, I have achieved my goal in representing our country.
Twice.
But to what purpose? To what avail?
Was there any purpose in the first place?
I don't really know.
As I evaluated myself as a player and as a person, I knew that there must be something far greater, a vision or a mission that is driving me to the addiction of this sport.
I admit, it was embarrassing getting thrashed and painful to see people giving disappointing head shake all around the arena.
It was not a nice feeling being the underdog each time we stepped into the court.
People have asked me,


I pondered and hesitated to answer for a little while.
Recollection of what happened before, during and after APAC 2008 came flooding into my head.
I paused, smiled and answered,


In that brief hesitation, I recalled a friend who once told me;


I knew there and then,
what my vision was.