The Wonders of Sailing | Ziyan H | TEDxYouth@HarrowHK
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRxK8Nqpt6g Video ID: LRxK8Nqpt6g ============================================================ beep and hkg 252 xan Hong crosses the Finish Line she's won the final and sixth race of this rata and along with that the regata itself now I'm six points ahead of second place and I have a trophy a medal and my golden ticket to the Optimus World ch championships to show for it the Optimus World Championships the dream the vision the P the Pinnacle of every Optimus sailor's career and the place where the best of the best come to compete alt together from all around the world the place where Stars Are Born where Champions are born the place where future Olympians start their career and so me and my four other team te members arrive at the location of the worlds which is in bodam turkey and it's beautiful out there it's 15 knots the beautiful seab Breeze coming in every afternoon the clear Cerulean Crystal Blue Waters and the White Caps of the Waves as they break strangely close to Shore and it's amazing and it's wonderful and it's and it's exhilarating but I'm not scared of this wind because I know that one of my strengths as a sailor is heavy wind I love the feeling of flying across the waves moving so fast and we launch that afternoon on the first day of training we set out in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea and so we're we're on the we're on the water we're sailing and there's wind coming in our sails and it's windy of course so I'm stretched out of my boat pulling in the sail I can feel the wind and I can feel the waves as they brush against my boat and the salt that's spraying on my face and how it brushes against me and this is all familiar you know it's not like I've never sailed in heavy wind before as I said earlier it's personally I thought it was one of my stronger suits as a sailor and I'm sailing and sailing and sailing and I'm hiking and I'm pulling and then something's wrong something's different because the waves they keep breaking on my bow and I'm pulling so hard against the power in my sail but the boat just doesn't seem to flatten the water keeps coming in and it's coming in and in and I'm bailing with my hands to try to get the water out and I'm bailing as hard and as fast as I can but the water is coming in Faster only and it keeps feeding itself in this vicious cycle the more my boat heals the more water that go it goes more water it goes in and it's slowing me down down down and down and we do a practice race and I sail and the same thing happens again again and again I'm bailing and bailing and the waves just keep coming and it feels like it's never going to end this painful excruciating upwind which is supposed to be enjoyable but I'm tired I'm exhausted from the bailing I'm sick of all of this now when is it ever going to stop and I'm just trying to sail I know it's supposed to be a race but right now I don't care where I'm going and I'm don't and I don't care how this race is going because all I'm trying to do right now is keep the Boat Moving and all I'm trying to do is stay afloat until I don't because I sank literally it's funny when I say it now but the edge of my boat was submerged underneath the the ocean the water completely covering everything The Optimist we make fun of it because it's shaped like a bathtub but it literally was at this point and I submerged in the sea I couldn't move the boat stopped in the middle of the race course and I was the only one because everybody else kept going and I waited and I stopped and I tried to to save it I tried to capsize the boat to dump out the water but I couldn't even do that if I wanted to because there was just too much in there all I could do now was sit in my boat and wait and wait and wait as my sail was flapping and the water was just kept coming in and just wait for my coach to come save me put me out of my misery and that waight seemed to drag on for eternity maybe it was only 15 minutes but during those 15 minutes I kept wondering to myself why is he taking so long why isn't my coach here yet I'm in the middle of the ocean in a place I don't even know and I'm stranded basically I'm just waiting in this bathtub and finally he comes and that's when he takes up my boat manually dumps out all the water and I can actually sail back to the club now is at that point where I realized why he took so long it was actually because he had to go back and save the other four of my teammates because all five of us had had either capsized sank or both and none of us had actually finished the race we hadn't even made it halfway up the upwind a sailor unable to sail much less race at the world championships we came here to show what people from Hong Kong Sailors are made of not to sink not to come last in every race that day after training I went home to the hotel and I kept asking myself what is the point in all this what had the past three years of work of dedication of effort amounted to we'd worked so hard to come here to the World Championships only to finish last only to bring shame [Music] humiliation this was not how it was supposed to be I felt pride in coming here I felt Pride to represent the community I loved doing the sport I love the people I love even more but was this the truth of it all was this I was shocked I couldn't believe it what had I become what had we become or was this the truth of how always was why didn't we know and so the rest of the championship seems to go by in a blur and that's really all I can remember now but I remember going back to Hong Kong going back to Hong Kong marked also the end of my Optimus career because I outgrew the boat and hence I had to move to the laser class which is also the boat I sail now I remember going back with lost and confused with not a lot of plans to do with what's next but that was when I got a call my parents did from the Hong Kong Sports Institute they wanted me to join the Hong Kong sailing Team National sailing team not the one we' done before but the big one where they help Olympians where they help where you get money from the government to go and saale and compete in competitions overseas this was their real deal and so I decide to take this Challenge on I'm trying to forget about what happened before I'm trying to leave the office Optimus in the past behind me because it's something I don't really want to remember and so I joined the national team and I get to meet these amazing people from all over Hong Kong these Sailors these Olympians these Idols I've admired for so long ever since I was a child ever since I started sailing and it feels so exciting so exhilarating so I feel so honored to be able to sail with these people but at the same time that was the thing that also only reinforced the feeling that I didn't belong that I didn't deserve to be there I was somebody who went to a championship to represent Hong Kong only to come last and now I have the right to stand side by side with people who go to the Olympics people who are aspiring to win medals I was scared I was afraid that history would repeat itself I was scared scared that they'd sent me off to a champion they'd send me off to a championship to compete and I'd only come back even worse than before but sometimes I really just wanted to run away to go to the place where International competition would never ever find me you know just to hide in my tiny hole of like a yak club and just enjoy sailing as it was the fun sport you know nothing's too serious but me being me I was selfish so I didn't really have it in me to leave like that I didn't I wanted something more I wanted a chance to rewrite my story a chance to change the ending a chance to redeem myself and make it better so I find myself back at the club back at the slipway back in my boat and I'm sailing again I'm riding the waves I'm chasing the waves I'm following the wind and I find myself staring analyzing at this nautical chessboard before my eyes this physical breathable game and playing sailing is a beautiful addictive struggle of perfection of highs and lows because if you think about it there are only so many factors you can control in this sport unlike anything else sailing takes place out in the open in the middle of nature we are at the mercy of the elements the wind the waves these are all things we cannot control of course it takes some time accepting that and we know that things like forecasts exist and stuff but there will be never anything accurate enough to be able to predict the future just like how you will never ever ever be prepared enough for what's coming but with that what the things we cannot control also comes with the power the freedom because there is no road on the sail to follow on the sea to follow there's no path there's no set course that cages us you're free to go wherever you're like you like and you're free to explore the entire open ocean and with that is also the power to make mistakes you see sailing is not a game of who can sail the most perfect race in fact it's basically impossible vice versa sailing is the game who can of who can make the least mistakes and from those mistakes who can recover from those mistakes get back up again and keep sailing like nothing ever happened who can keep fighting who can keep racing despite it all sometimes I don't really know where to go on the water like I said before there is no path to follow and that can leave you feeling lost confused even when your plan goes like sideways but that's when education also comes and helps me that's where school comes and gives me a safety harness where I can come and lean back on the change the shift of what I'm doing of that's completely different from sailing also refreshes my mind and builds character my books and pens are a safety harness I can fall back on being a music scholar and an academic scholar at that also gives me a great sense of comfort because sailing is not the only thing I do it's important to be a well-rounded well-balanced person and that can help you later on in life I'm very very honored to be to have been chosen to be part of the national team something I'm incredibly grateful for and nothing really in life I think at this point gives me more joy and more happiness than to be able to do the sport that I love so much for the people and the place I love even more and there's a reason why there is a flag on our team uniform that's put over our chest there's a reason why we wave it during the opening ceremony if there's a pride there's an honor that comes but also a responsibility when representing overseas this pride and this honor the word elite athlete was both the crowning Jewel in my sailing career but also a shackle to my wrist and a weight that I seem to drag around everywhere I went an anchor that kept me chained to expectation after expectation to perform perform and perform and the pressure to do better and the pressure to not screw up because your reputation relies on it and so does the rest of the sailors competition at its simplest degree is also Warfare really but only by more peaceful means it's actually more of an animalistic atavistic tussle for territory a fight with tooth and nail that not only brings out the worst but also the best in people but with that said can also be intoxicating suffocating there was a point where I felt way all of this pressure all of this stress all this anxiety seemed to collapse on me there was a time where I felt I couldn't continue anymore because I'd lost my purpose I'd lost my bearings my eyes my my judgment had been clouded crushed by the sense of competition after competition race after race this voice in the back of my mind every training session telling me doubting me you're never going to be good enough you're never going to succeed you're going to fail and it's going to be just like last time I felt the anxiety crushing me the stress washing like this gigantic wave I it was crazy it was emotional I became so attached that every training session felt like this roller coaster of just crying and then happiness and then screaming and there was just a point that I reached where I didn't want to do this anymore felt I felt no motivation to voluntarily put myself in a position that turned me into an emotional wreck every single time the fire inside me that fueled me forwards was starting to burn out and it set everything around me a blaze in the process so I thought to myself why did I choose to do this in the first place my mom likes to ask me from time to time Zan racing is just you know a couple boats in the middle of the ocean just a couple random marks and we're just competing who can go around it the fastest what is the meaning in all of that what is the purpose in all of that what is the reason for competing what is your reason for killing each other so that you can cross the finish line first well let's just forget about sailing for a minute okay what is our reason for doing anything in life what is our purpose what is our motivation what is the thing that drives you to wake up every day get out of bed and do the thing you want to do why do we set goals in life why do we want to pursue them is it for for satisfaction is it for entertainment is it for self-fulfillment or is it for something bigger something greater well my dad likes to say that if you a for the sun you'll land on the moon but if you aim for the moon you'll land on nothing and at first know it sounded it sounds very business oriented it sounds very pragmatic it sounds like a very practical approach to think about things almost pessimistic but let's take this thinking and put it in another scenario another way look at it from another perspective you guys all know Leonardo da Vinci right the Italian scientist poly maath engineer artist well Leonardo had many dreams and among one of these dreams was the dream that humans could fly that humans could one day take to the sky like birds and soar amongst the clouds his dream may have sounded lofty audacious crazy at the time but he did it anyway at least he pursued it anyway his dream was to soar to the sky not to reach the top of a tree because if your goal is to soar to the sky then you're definitely going to reach the top of the tree even if you don't make it to the sky yet but if your goal is to reach the top of the tree you're not even going to make the top of the tree after all to air is human and whilst Leonardo might not have been able to achieve his dream in his lifetime the fact that he dared to dream the fact that he had the courage to try and to believe that he could one day achieve this or at least humans could one day achieve this was why he put in the time the effort and his work that laid the foundation for people like the wri brothers later on to fulfill this Legacy to fulfill this common human dream that we could One Day Fly and that's why they invented the airplane that's why now we can fly but maybe not in the way Leonardo imagined but in our very own way at the end an Olympic medal is nothing more than a piece of circular metal hung on a string without the journey behind it without the process and without the path you've taken to walk on the podium and stand there to receive your medal the journey the process is far more valuable than your metal will ever be because the Metal's worth is not in the metal or the design or the color if it's gold if it's silver if it's bronze the worth in itself is in the people you've met and the places you've been and the person you are today and the person you'll be tomorrow and the person you'll be next week and the person you'll be next year the journey and the process is the immeasurable but also the most valuable part of the entire thing and that should be the reason why we do this for the process for the person you're chasing for the goals not the go because the goal you're chasing is not the medal or the reward that it might seem like the world in the moment but really the person you are chasing is nothing more than yourself the person you'll be like I said tomorrow and next week next year and way after that the person you'll grow to be the the Places You'll Be and the things that will force you to change for the better so this is exactly what sailing celebrates our Humanity our faults our flaws our errors our mistakes but also our strength to overcome them and our strength and our belief to pursue something greater than ourselves or maybe ourselves but a bigger mission that is worth so much more than a medal or an award to have the courage to dare to dream that you can don't that you can achieve something greater than an award that the award or the title or the power is not something that limits you from going places have the courage to Dare To Dream let your goals transcend space and time let your goals transcend your lifetime they can be crazy they can be audacious they can be it can sound like you've lost your mind but really once you've set those goals and once you believe you set those goals once you find the courage to work towards them and the time and the effort and the grit then you're already halfway there because if you don't believe you will be there you never will be thank you