I attended the Freestyle Drill (FSD)
course from 17 to 20 November 2015. The course was a very good experience as I
had learnt a lot of interesting things and made some new friends.
I had to report to HQ NCC at 8am,
while everyone else was still asleep. Although I had to get up really early, it
was worthwhile as all the trainings that I went through were fruitful. At
first, I was a little scared as I did not know most of the cadets but it
improved as the trainings went by. There were several ice-breakers for me to
get to know my group members. We shared jokes with one another and had a good
time chatting during our lunch breaks.
When it was time for us to get to
training, we had to march from one point to another, which, to most of us was
very tiring. Although I was tired, I knew that we had to do the drills properly
and the company gave their best to finish the marching. The course instructors,
who at times were fierce, made me disciplined and focused. They taught us well
and we had developed friendly feelings with them.
We were also taught American foot
drills, which had a distinct difference with SAF foot drills. This was because
FSD originated from the United States, when a few officers from the US came to
conduct the first FSD course and the response was overwhelming then. I was
amazed when I heard about this.
The first performances were
completely silent drills, which turned out to be too boring so music was added
to the performances to make them livelier. It was really good to know that we
could do this in NCC. Also, the different moves can be customized as we wished.
This was the hard part when it came to coming up with the performance moves and
the music we wanted to use, which we needed to discuss as a group.
Although trainings were physically
demanding, the instructors would joke about with the cadets, especially in my
company, when the overall IC asked some of the cadets to make their faces look
like different emojis. The two companies also challenged each other when it
came to responding to the instructors, seeing which of the two could shout
louder. We also had to come up with our different warcries. When we heard each
other’s warcries, some of us made jokes about the other company and made us
laugh out loud.
On the last day, all the groups had
to perform the drills for the actual performances. Although we were nervous
about what could go wrong during the performance, we carried on and all the
hard work and effort we put in had reached fruition. We delivered enjoyable
performances which everyone congratulated one another for and the guests who
came from America were impressed with our performances. There was a competition
for the top 3 performing groups. Although my group did not get into any of the
spots, we were still happy that we finally completed the course and then came
what everyone was yearning for – the certificate and badge. All of us were very
joyful upon receiving them and our hard work has earned it all for us. Although
it was sad that we had to go our separate ways, we still kept in touch after
the course through social media.
This was truly a memorable journey,
delivering a good performance, learning interesting things, gaining knowledge
and making new friends.
CPL Virgil D’souza, 2/1 (2015)
