SMK St. Gabriel School Drill Competition 2013: KL State Boys' Brigade

Written by Lance Corporal Wong Yi Sheng of 4^th Kuala Lumpur Company

April 12, 2013

KG. PANDAN, KUALA LUMPUR – It’s the annual school drill competition again. This year would be a tough one for us the BB, as many of our seniors left after Form 5 and the recruits are not quite ready for competitions yet. Our number of members has decreased compared to last year but that did not stop us from joining the competition. I've never set any expectation for this years competition but of course I really do hope to defend our title.

At around 10am, the competition started with uniform inspections. Groups by groups was inspected and we are good to go for the competition. There are 7 groups this year - Kadet Polis, Kadet Bomba, KRS, Persatuan Bulan Sabit Merah (PBSM), Pengakap and last but not least, The Boys’ Brigade.

We are the second group to compete. As we are marching in, we can hear the crowd cheering for us, the recruits are all sitting by the side, looking at all the seniors competing in the competition and it got me more nervous as the audience are putting high expectation on us.

We did our best and finished with the competition. While waiting for the results, I was pretty nervous. We did have a chance to win the competition but on the other hand, I also had doubt we can win because of the lack of members.

We’ve been called back to the marching ground for the announcement of the winners. As expected, PSBM won the competition and we have failed to defend our title. However, we did manage to win second place. We are all feeling disappointed but I’m proud of my squad members. We managed to get out on field and compete with just 2 days of practicing and preparation.

As stated on our school principle, in every competition, there will be always one winner and those who did not win should work harder to win it in the future. Most importantly, we need to have good sportsmanship. As a leader, I’m happy to see that all my boys felt happy for their friends (PBSM) who won the competition although we didn’t.

“Games give you a chance to excel, and if you're playing in good company you don't even mind if you lose because you had the enjoyment of the company during the course of the game.” - Gary Gygax.