Long, long ago, when I was still very young, I used to live in a housing estate in Singapore. Singapore's housing estates are communities of public housing with many apartment blocks and common recreational facilities that anyone can use. These facilities usually include a badminton court and table-tennis tables. Which makes these two sports kind of popular as something to pass the time. (There are also basketball courts and open fields for soccer too, but these were never sports that drew my interest.)
I vaguely remember my mother getting a couple of badminton rackets. This allowed me to play badminton, hitting the shuttlecock around to each other. But I remained ignorant about the rules of the game; I remained largely ignorant about the game except that the goal was to keep the shuttlecock in the air.
So when I started to visit the public library on my own (I think that was Primary 3), my curiosity and love of books came together and made me borrow some books on badminton. I learnt the rules of the game (which has changed since...) I also learnt the names of the basic serves, how to perform them, and things like drop shot, drive, and smash. And the desire to be able to replicate what was written in the books motivated me to practise. Which I did. And that helped me get better at badminton, enough for me to slowly improve over the years to be able to play it at a recreational level with friends as a social event.
A similar experience awaited me when I was in Primary 4. A friend of mine was in the school's table-tennis club, and I wanted to pick up the sport to be able to spend more time with my friend. Having no idea how to play table-tennis at first, I was really bad... I was more a spectator at those regular after-school (or rather, before-school, since we were in the afternoon school session) table-tennis sessions.
And once again, I turned to the public library and books to help me. Books taught me about the rules of table-tennis, about what is the difference between a topspin and a backspin and how to execute them (in theory). The different ways of holding a table-tennis bat, and different ways of serving. Books gave me the idea of playing against the wall; which was basically taking the dining table and pushing it up against the wall so that I can play against myself at home. Being able to practise on my own meant I could play a lot more, and I soon got a lot better, so much so that I could spend more time playing rather than watching when playing in school against friends. (Given the lack of tables and abundance of players, we took turns to play. Short games where the loser goes back into the queue while the winner continues to play against the next "challenger". The better you are, the longer you get to play, which serves as a motivating factor to improve your game.)
Today, I look back and feel amazed with myself. I realized that I have been learning many things on my own through books. Badminton and table-tennis are just two of the sports that I picked up on my own through reading. There are other things too, which I will find time to write about.
But the common skill is: self-learning via books. A skill which has served me well over the years, and continue to serve me well today.
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