Thank you Mum.

THANK YOU MUM 

Since November 2020 I have been going through personal health problems which have affected my breathing and therefore has limited what I have been able to do during this time but one person who has been of great service to me in this difficult period, especially during the pandemic is my mother. 

She has provided me with so many useful things during this time of which without, my life would have been more difficult.

Thank you Mum and I will forever grateful for all of the good things that you have done for me throughout my life.

Returning to chess.

 

Returning to Chess

Hello everybody. 

On the 5th of August 2020, I officially announced my retirement from tournament chess. The reason was that I wanted to pursue a carrier as an  English as a second language (ESL) teacher. This thought was originally motivated by the fact that I had started to learn Brazilian Portuguese while I was working for a charity shop which at the time had 2 Brazilian managers. The head manager decided to make an advertisement in a magazine to encourage people to call me language exchange and English lessons. He believed that I would one day find love through this journey. As much as I looked forward to the challenge of helping people with their English (and practicing my Portuguese at the same time).  

However, this journey came with some major difficulties from the very beginning. Firstly, I had no prior experience in teaching anybody. Secondly, I had to travel to far-away places in London which would involve long and awkward train journeys which at one point saw me have to wake up a 5 o'clock in the morning for a 22 stop underground journey. I needed headphones and Spotify to on my android phone to help me cope with the crowds at the station and the rumbling noises of the underground train. Thirdly, I have had to do this virtually without anybody on my side to give me guidance or advice about how to do the job properly. Essentially this was a lone journey where I had to do everything by myself.

I went to different parts of London to see different members of London's Brazilian community and then... suddenly... the pandemic happened. Lockdown of the UK was announced in March 2020 as the world was gripped by the effects of the Coronavirus outbreak which meant that all but necessary travel was banned in order to keep the public safe. Therefore, virtual measures had to take place for me to take language exchange sessions and English classes. I downloaded Skype and Zoom on my laptop and had various sessions with different people. During the same period, I was looking for a personal Portuguese teacher. I saw an advertisement in the same magazine that my advertisement was in, saying 'Learn Brazilian Portuguese'. I emailed the teacher about my interest in working with her as a student of the language. We agreed to meet at a certain time of the week. 3 O'clock on Friday on Skype. So I arrived at my laptop at 3 O'clock of Friday as we agreed by email ... or so I thought. after many attempts to video call her by Skype, I decided to phone her. complaining in Portuguese about the one hour wait that I had. Then she angrily replied in English that I did not confirm the date and time of the class and even claimed to give me an email, asking for confirmation. (which I didn't see.) In the end, she said  that maybe she is not the right teacher for me and therefore, terminated or relationship. This would prove to be one of many fallouts that I would have throughout this journey.

I also seemed to have many miscommunications with other people who contacted my service. Some wanted English lessons, some wanted language exchange and I wasn't always sure what the person wanted. These moments really destroyed my confidence as I felt like I was desperately letting them down. There were many moments when I asked myself "What did I do wrong?". I got the awful feeling that luck was simply not on my side when it comes to working with other people. 

Then, come the start of 2021, my family got upset with me after I made a post , giving possible reasons why I have not been able to find a girlfriend on Facebook. I had demands from my family to delete the post, even though the post had absolutely nothing to do with them. To this day, I still scratch my head about what the fuss was about. I got into trouble with my family again in July 2021 when I wrote a blog about how my family can better support me. Once again, they were offended by the post and demanded for it to be deleted. It is obvious to me that my family does not want to know about my life desire, nor do they want to know about my ambitions.

One thing that I have known for a ling time is that people with Asperger Syndrome seem to have a much harder time making and maintaining relationships with other people. No doubt that I have experience this in so many ways in the last 2 years.

There has been a handful of moments in my life where I thought that I can get something out there that is somehow 'better' than chess. As you can see from the stories above, that has proven to be just a big illusion. No matter what happens to me in life, I will always love the game of chess and I will always have the game o chess in my life. It's simply what I do when the worst comes to the worst in life. Quite simply for me, Chess IS life. It's my past, my present and my future.

Hence, I will be making a return to over-the-board chess at some point. However, the return will not be an immediate one as I plan to start a ESL training and accounting courses before returning to the real life 64 square battlefield full-time.

Moral of the story is this. Never leave your biggest passion in life. You never know when you might need it.

Thank you for reading.

My retirement from Chess.

My retirement from Chess.

It is with deep regret that as of today, I officially announce my retirement form over-the-board Chess after 15 eventful years. I believe that Chess can empower people in so many ways. For me, it gave me the opportunity to prove to the world that I can achieve things independently. It has also given me the opportunity to make new friends and meet inspiring people. The game of Chess has really made me the person that I am today.

My achievements within the game includes winning the Wernick Cup, 2 Ellary Williams Memorial Trophies, The Stoneleigh Trophy, The CCF Division 1 title and a CCF Super league title.

I would like to thank everybody within the Surrey Chess fraternity who have contributed in some way to my journey in Chess. I especially want to thank everybody at South Norwood Chess Club for their immense support towards me and my chess goals , Coulsdon Chess Fellowship (CCF) for their great hospitality and organisation of tournaments and all the other venues with in the Surrey County Chess Association who have warmly welcomed me before team matches.

 

AS things stand, my goal in life is to one day become an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teacher as I am currently helping certain people with the English language while I am also learning foreign languages.

 

Despite this decision, my passion for chess will never completely die. I will continue to play online and continue to run my Facebook group.

 

Finally, I wish everybody the best of luck with your continuing journeys through the great game of Chess.

 

Miss you all.

 

Richard Davis.

O metro do londres é eu.

O metro do londres e eu.

Uma coisa eu que  odeio so viver em Londres e o metro do londres (London Underground) que é normalmente úmido e pode ficar um pouco assustador, especialmente quando se tem muitas pessoas dentro dos trens.

Recentemente, eu tentei ir dar uma aula de inglês mas eu foi em  uma hora de pico ("rush hour" em inglês)  é por causa disso chegei atrazado para a  aula a minha aluma me disse que ela precisava ir trabalhar. O boa notícia é que agora tenho eu consigo  entender melhor o metro, especialmente o Northern Line. 

Para dar a minha primeira aula de inglês eu levanto a 5:00 horas para pegar o meu trem a 6:45 da manhã. isto  significa que  eu chego a ao meu destino evitando então 1 hora de pico.

Uma outra coisa que  eu nao gosto de sobre o metro e o ruido, como eu tenho os ouvidos sensiveis  eu escuto completamente todos as coisas. Mas felizmente, eu posso colocar os fones de ouvido e com o meu iPhone ouvir  algumas das musicas brasileiras. Isto me ajuda lidar com os problemas que eu tenho com viagem do metro.

Minhas dias da formaçao.

Minhas dias da formaçao

Quando eu tenho 5 anos, eu não pode falar. Porque de isso, eu não começar escola de normal antes eu tenho 7 anos. Eu  comencado da escola de especial.

Quando eu comencado escola de primeiro, eu tenho  uma professora de suportar e ajudou me com trabalho de escola da classe.

Minha matéria melhores na eescola era matemática e francês.


Quando eu comencei escola de segundo, eu serra um garota com cabela ruiva quem eu realmente gostei. Eu realmente querei ser com la. Eu amei la muito muitos esse eu comencei abraçar la, mas ela falei a minha  professora de suportar e ela dizei esse eu não devoria abraço la. Eu sei muito triste. Quando eu tenho 14 anos, eu sentei esse não pessoas amei me. Eu  realmente odei-me. Quando eu tenhei minha finale exame de GCSE.





Quando eu era do ensino medio, eu estudou tecnologia da infornaçao para 2 anos e contabilidade.para 1 ano. Eu sair meu ensino medio quando eu tenho 19 anos.

Premeiro blog em Português. (BR)

Premeiro blog em português (BR)

My first blog in Brazilian-Portuguese.

Eu nome é Richard, eu tenho 33 anos e eu vivo em Norbury. Eu tenho aprender o português para 3 meses. Eu trabalho com 2 pessoas brasileiros em um loja de roupas. Eu trabalho para 11 horas para semana em segunda-feira, quanto-feira e domingo. Eu gosto de andar trabalhar e velo todo árvores em estradas em streatham.

Eu tenho um pae, uma mae e 3 Irmãs . Minha mãe e para gana e meu pae e para são vicente e Granadinas en o caribe. Ma família vivo en uma casa  do croydon e eu vivo en um apartamento no  norbury.

Meu aniversário e en 12 de abril.

Meus hobbies isso xadrez, meditação, yoga, andar, livro, e escita.

Eu gostaria ir brasil um dia.

Obrigado para livro.

My road to Chess Glory: Part 5: Hollow Victories

My road to Chess Glory: Part 5: Hollow Victories.

During the summer of 2012, I found myself playing in the Wernick cup again after just 1 campaign in the Felce cup 2 years before. (I was too unwell to play at all in the summer of 2011) I won my section comfortably, dropping just a half-point along the way with 3 wins and a draw which meant that I qualified for the 4-player, 3- game final of the tournament in the autumn. I had 2 wins and 1 loss in the final, losing only to the eventual champion. During that time, I also started playing as a member of Coulsdon Chess Fellowship. (CCF)

On the 13th of September 2012, South Norwood had their Annual General Meeting. (AGM) which I had to attend to as a captain of the Stoneleigh trophy. I was also technically a team captain of the Ellary Williams Memorial Trophy team at that point but the competition did not run in the previous season.

I actually went into the meeting with a report on a small piece of paper. After I mentioned the Stoneleigh Trophy team's record of 2 wins, 1 draw and 3 losses, I told the club at the AGM that I had felt a lot of scrutiny from the vice-president of the club who also happened to be the inter-club tournaments director. He responded to the summary of my report in a way that would have a strong emotional impact on me throughout the 2012/13 season. There was one quote he made that still remains in my memory to this day. He said "You don't pick your mates". I found this statement very upsetting because throughout my whole life, I have always struggled to make friends and have lived a predominantly lonely existence. He also said "As a captain I have won over 30 team titles. If it did it your way, I wouldn't even have 5". It was clear that he was not in favour of me being captain of the team. Another reason why I found those words so upsetting is that like in the previous season, I felt a lot of excruciating pressure to include the vice-captain in my team. A feeling that would lead to a small series of anxiety attacks. In fact, the humiliation of that night would continue as he also said things about me like "With all due respect, he hasn't set the world alight" and then another demoralising quote. "Take Richard's picture down (from the official club website) and replace it with a YouTube video of Yang-Fan Zhou. (A new member of the club at the time who was already a grand-master.)

I remember leaving that AGM feeling hurt and deflated my the vice-president's comments. I momentary thought about leaving the club at that point but I also thought that I am not going to give up on the chance of winning a team title as a captain, especially as I had a clear game plan to win the Stoneleigh Trophy so I decided to brave the season and hope that things would go my way. That said throughout the season, I felt obliged to have the vice-president in all of my matches.

Our first Stoneleigh match was away to Streatham. Around this time, I announced that I wanted to take a one-season break from playing for my county because of persistant illnesses. After mentioning the rules and dynamics of the competition, the vice-president decided to humiliate me again by saying that I wouldn't play in his county team but I still select him for my Stoneleigh team. He made me sound like I could not be bothered to play for his county team when in reality, I was struggling with allergic rhinitis and migraine headaches.

Before each Stoneleigh match, the two team captains try to work out the correct target scores for both teams. The target scores are based on the differences in combined grades between the two teams. In the end, Streatham needed 7 and a half game points just for a draw and all 8 to win the match while my South Norwood team only needed a half-point to draw the match and just 1 to win.

In the first half of the match, we all lost our games on all of the boards. I remember missing a tactic from my opponent in my first game with the white pieces. However, it was in the second half of the match (when we play with reversed colours) I won my game with Black. My opponent played a rather unorthodox opening, but I found a way to get into a good position and eventually out played him in the endgame. That was the full-point that won us the match.

Later that week, I would give an e-mail to various members of the club about how I felt about my treatment as a captain of the Ellary Williams Memorial Trophy team as well as the Stoneleigh team titled "Asking for Respect". In the e-mail, I mentioned that I had a series of illnesses and difficult events that I had in the 2 previous years as well as the fact that I had felt very humiliated as a captain.

A month later, we would have our second Stoneleigh match when our visiting opposition came with a team that had a combined grade that was over the 700 point limit. The match commenced as normal, however, the visitors were eventually penalised accordingly. Interestingly however, we would have won the match anyway as one of my teammates beat a player graded over 200 points in one of his two games while our top board also scored a victory. After that match, the vice-president complained about the content of the e-mail mentioned above saying that I insulted him. I replied almost tearfully by saying that he said things to me in the AGM that I would have never said to him. He eventually apologised.

After that, my season as a captain went smoothly. In fact, the season went perfectly as on Monday 21st January 2013, we won the Stoneleigh trophy after winning an away match at Guildford with a match to spare with a perfect record of 5 wins from 5 matches. My Stoneleigh formula was a flying success. I cannot even start to explain how proud I was for myself, the team and the entire club. It was quite frankly one of the most satisfying moments of my chess career. On Thursday 21st March 2013, My Ellary Williams Memorial Trophy team would also win their title with a perfect record of 5 out of 5 with a match to spare after a home win against the same club.

You would think that with all of that success, my chess life would be very enjoyable from here on. However, on the following Sunday evening, I would see an e-mail from somebody saying that a match which I was due to play in for someone else's team was postponed because there were certain people who would be playing in that match who wanted to watch a football match. It was the World Cup qualifier, England vs Macedonia. I was absolutely outraged by this decision. The idea of a chess team-match being postponed because other people wanted to go to Wembely Stadium or watch the game on T.V. was to me a total disgrace. I phoned the inter-club tournaments director who also happened to be our vice-president to question the decision. The reaction that I got from him was equally shocking. After mentioning that both captains agreed to the postponement of the match, he went on to say "it has nothing to do with you" "What do you mean it has nothing to do with me?" I angrily replied. After further angry exchanges, he hung up the phone on me. I was so appalled by both the postponement and the phone call that I decided to cancel the remaining matches of  both my teams' schedules out of protest against the postponement . I doubt that any football match is ever postponed for a chess event of any description so why should a chess event be postponed because of football ? I just don't think it is fair .

Although the final Ellary Williams match remained cancelled, the Final Stoneleigh match still happened with the inter-club tournaments director taking charge of the team. I twice attempted to reason with him but in the end, it was clear that he was just one of those people who seem to think that they are in the right all the time and was simply unreasonable. In the intervening time, I also suffered an asthma attack. No doubt that the stress and emotional pain would have played some part in my admission to hospital back then in what was an incredibly dramatic and  traumatic period for me as a tournament chess player.

My Yoga Routines

My Yoga Routines 

I have started to develop morning and evening routines to help me better wake up or fall asleep.

Although they may vary slightly from day to day ,the main poses are the same in both routines. First I start with head-rolls then shoulder-rolls, 5 revolutions both before I start my routine.

Apologies in advance if I miss-name some of the poses. 

Morning

1. Twisting Triangle
2. Warrior 2
3. Tree (Basic version)
4. Downward Dog
5. Extended child
6. Cat
7. Cobra
8. Upward Dog
9. Locust
10. Camel 
11. East Stretch (Eased version. You could call it "Table pose")
12. Various breathing exercises
13. 3 "Om"s
14. Start my morning meditation.

Evening

1. Rag-doll
2. Downward Dog
3. Extended child
4. Cat
5. Cobra 
6. Shoulder-stand (My favourite pose. It makes me feel like a pro🙂)
7. Plough (as far as I can go )
8. Spinal Twist
9. Corpse (normally with pillows and cushions)
10. Rest on the mat before going to bed. (Or I sometimes just sleep there till morning . haha!

I am aiming to make these routines a daily ritual where and when possible.

I am really starting to enjoy yoga and meditation and I am now finding ways to implement my spiritual practices into my everyday life.

Namaste.

Too Much Noise!

TOO MUCH NOISE

My life long struggle with Auditory Sensory Overload.

What is Auditory Sensory Overload?

Before I talk about experiences with Auditory Sensory Overload, I think I need to explain exactly what it is. Sensory Overload is any experience of overwhelm caused by an over-intensity of one of the 5 senses.

What are the signs?

Although temporary, the signs of auditory sensory overload become obvious after a few attempts to communicate with the person in question due to a louder than average environment.

• "Shut Down" a period of inability to respond to one's environment or to other people.
• Increased anxiety (sometimes even panic attacks) 
• Short and heavy breathing.

How does it affect my life?

To cut a long story short, I avoid going to places where I know that there is going to be a lot of noise like discos and nightclubs. This had made dating extremely difficult for me as those are the most common places for trying to find a partner. Personally, I would rather meet my date in a dining place like a restaurant and a cafe when there would be only minimal noise.

I often cover my ears when I hear the siren of an emergency service vehicle (i.e. ambulance).

When I hear somebody shout suddenly, it is as if the voice of the person shouting goes into my body and I feel overwhelmed very quickly.

How do I cope?

There are times when I buy ear plugs in order to reduce the intensity of the noise when I am outside. Thankfully, these days, I also have things like an audio book collection and YouTube on my smartphone with earphones so I can listen to music when I am travelling.

How common is it?

Among people on the Autistic spectrum, Auditory Sensory Overload is very common. It is also common for people on the spectrum to experience more than on kind of sensory overload.

What are the other sensory overloads

Sensory overload is an over-intensity of one of the 5 senses. This means that there is a form of sensory overload for all the 5 senses. They are:

Visual sensory overload: This is based on sight which means a person has sensitivity to the brightness of the environment.

Olfactory sensory overload: This is based on smell which means a person has sensitivity to strong smells.

Gustatory sensory overload: This is based on taste which means a person has sensitivity to strong tasting food or drink.

Tactile sensory overload: This is base on touch which means a person has sensitivity to external physical sensations.

Right Swiping: my review

Right Swiping: my review

I recently finished reading a four-page article on spiritual internet dating in the March 2019, 40th Anniversary edition of the American Buddhist magazine “Lion’s Roar”. Since the beginning of 2019, I have been taken about joining an Internet dating website which has been made specially for people on a spiritual path.  For a while I have been looking for some guidance and advice in the world of internet dating says and it was a nice surprise that in this edition of Lions Roar, there was an article about someone’s personal experience of dating. One thing from the article that I learnt is an Internet dating seems to be a very emotional experience.

People’s demands

There is no doubt that there are people out there who have specific desires for their potential date.  Some of them are VERY specific.  For example, I learnt that there are people out there who list their likes and dislikes.  The writer of the article also mentions that she met a person who gave a long list of likes and dislikes.  For example: “I hope you into hiking, love dogs, and want to eat all the chocolate out of the Neapolitan ice cream.” and “no drama, no head games.  No people who wear blue socks on Tuesdays.”

It is clear to me that on that evidence I’m going to feel the pressure of other people’s expectations.  Naturally, my personal question to what’s this is; “How do I deal with such expectations?”.  Thankfully, the article provides an answer.

Emotional Athleticism.

The writer of the article was given some advice from somebody which I found very useful.  “Dating is an athletic event of the heart.  Athletes stretch before they start playing.  Dating requires the same amount of warm-up.  First, assess the situation.” The quote basically means that we must be honest about how we are feeling and be emotionally prepared before interacting with a potential date. 

I think that is important to ask ourselves meaningful questions about the person we are thinking of dating like “Do I feel positive about this person?” and “Is he or she the kind of person I want to spend time with.” Such questions help us confirm how we really feel about the kind of person we are about to date.

Relationship goals

The article also mentions that it is important to know exactly what you are looking for in a relationship. Do you just want a girlfriend or boyfriend?  Do you just want to have fun?  Do you want marriage?  Do you want to children?  Do you want sex?  Do you just want a close friend?

I recently learnt on the internet that there are several different types of relationships.

Robert Sternberg’s triangular theory of love may help. 

Swipe left or right

If we are on a dating website on our smartphones, you will probably be asked to swipe left for “no” and right for “yes” based on a picture of the person we have seen.  This forces us to make an immediate judgement based solely on physical appearance.  Hence, we must find or create a good picture of ourselves in order to attract other people.  This may be difficult or both you and other people to accept.  If you’re feeling guilty about rejecting somebody solely on an image of their face and you can internally say a small consoling message to that person like “may you find your love” or “I hope you find what you’re looking for”.  This will reduce the amount of guilt that you feel for that person and maintain your positivity when searching for the right date.

Hope and expectation

When we are dating, it is natural to have feelings of hope and expectation.  However, I think one of the biggest problems that modern society has is that they are often attached to hope and expectation.  This often leads to a lot of unnecessary stress and disappointment.  When we are dating, we always had to bear in mind that there is a lot that is out of our hands.  As much effort as we put in our profiles, appearances and mannerisms, there is never any guarantee that your date is going to work out.  We always must be conscious of this fact when trying to find a partner otherwise we’ll always open ourselves to emotional pain from other people.

This is the reason why you should always…

Love yourself first!

There are many people out there who go into relationships feeling empty of love.  This means that they try to find a partner from a point of resentment and desperation.  This is the worst possible emotional state to be trying to find an intimate partner.  Therefore, you should look inside yourself to see what kind of inner emotional pain that you are suffering and find a way to resolve it before attempting to find a relationship.

One thing to remember when you go into relationships is that regardless of your past or present, you are always worthy of love!

If you love yourself first, and loving others will be a lot easier.

Good luck with your search for true love!

My review of 2018

My review of 2018

Usually when I do an annual review of my life, I end up writing a long essay about all of the meaningful moments of the year. However, this time, I am going to do things a little differently. Instead of the essay style description of what has happened to me during the year, I am going to put all of my experiences of the year in 2 categories. "Gifts" and "Lessons". The gifts are things that I have directly benefited from in some way and the lessons are things that I have learnt from the course of the year.

Gifts

• A greater understanding of Yoga and the benefits of Yoga.
• A greater level of self-value.
• A heightened ability to deal with difficult people.
• A better understanding of my own family.
• A greater resistance to physical pain.
• A greater understanding of Shogi.
• Weight loss mainly due to a vegan diet
• Winning the online Shogi title of "10th Purple Dragon".
• A second consecutive whole calendar year without an asthma attack.

Lessons

• People can get emotional about other members of a family.
• There are many people in the world who have a rather "black and white" view on how the world should be.
• Mothers are eternally emotional beings.
• Women are generally more emotional than men.
• There is no point in fearing failure
• Japanese is a complicated language with a lot of "half definitions" and "context"
• I often struggle to deal with cold and flu symptoms.
• I still struggle with anxiety.

How I lost my fear of failure.

How I lost my fear of failure.

Failure is NOT a bad thing.

Many of us believe that in order to succeed in life that we have to avoid failure. By this, I mean that want to push away , abandon or somehow, react adversely to any thought of failing at any time. We always want to believe that we can be successful right from the very beginning and throughout.

This however is a lie that we sub-consciously tell ourselves when we pursue our goals in life. We sometimes act as if we are entitled to have success in life all the time.

However, if we look at our lives carefully, you will find that we are destined to experience failures right from the very beginning of our lives. When we are babies, we are taught to walk and talk. When we first try to walk, we would normally just crawl on all fours with our arms and legs in order to move about as we are not able to keep our balance on our two feet.

When we are growing up and we fail a school exam or we do not do a certain job in the way that our parents or teacher would like us to do it, we are shamed, told off and occasionally even disgraced for our short-comings. This gives us the internal signal that we are "failures" in some way. However, sometimes our failings actually have nothing to do with us. We might have forgotten or mis- understood an instruction or maybe we simply do not have th right "mental toolkit" to succeed in a certain task of job.

One way of another we are constantly told that failure is bad and wrong and that we should avoid failure and be adverse to it all costs; and yet failure as we are about the discover, is actually the most important and valuable part of out road to success in anything that way try to achieve in life.

Talk you way to success

One thing that I have learnt through my journey is that you can actually programme the way you think about life. I first learnt this from a book called "What to say when you talk to yourself" by Shad Helmstetter. This small  book taught me how powerful affirmations and inner mental messages can be. Positive self-talk can be a very powerful tool on you path to success. For example, I convinced myself for a long time that I was bad a blitz (speed) chess because I was not a naturally fast player. When I play chess, I usually like to take my time and double-check certain move before I played them. However, I started to encourage myself by saying "I AM a good blitz player" This helped my lose my fear of failure and before you know it, guess what! I actually won an online blitz tournament. Hence, my life has proven that this method really works. There is a common expression that comes from successful people. "Fake it till you make it!" Sometimes the best way to be successful is to pretend that you already are!

Self Forgiveness

While reading the book "Forgiveness is power" by William Fergus Martin I realised the importance of forgiving oneself when falling short of our goals. Many of us are often harsh on ourselves when we are not able to achieve what we wanted to do. Many of us blame ourselves for our lack of achievement in a certain task but we have to remember that there are usually more factors in achieving a certain goal in life than we realise. These are many external factors like:

• Atmosphere
• Social Settings
• General Environment
• Education
• Location
• Upbringing

These are only a small amount of external factors that may prevent us from succeeding. As we can see, it is not always our fault when we fall short of our goals in life. Many of us have barriers that we may not even be aware of. 

Self Forgiveness is about realising that sometimes  our ability to achieve a certain goal in life is simply our our hands. When you fall short of your goals, remember to tell yourself that you did your best in the given situation and your results cannot always be helped.

Failure LEADS TO success!

As explained above, failure is not a bad thing. In fact in order to succeed, we actually have to accept  that we are initially going to have our failures first. What we have to realise above all things is that failure is not the opposite of success, failure is part of success. We have to look at our short comings as opportunities to learn valuable lessons instead of seeing problems and losses. If we look at all challenges this way, then we can attempt any task or challenge and embrace the journey that it leads to the full. During my chess career, I went through a lot of failures and difficulties. I even wanted to quit at times, but I decided to keep going and finding different ways of doing things and eventually, I got my rewards for my efforts. Any path to glory will have it's bitter moments but sometimes you just have to be patient for success to come. Eventually, you will get there in the end.

Summary

The realisation that I have described above has given me a sense of freedom and joy. It has given me the desire to try new challenges in life and enhanced my motivation to improve on the challenges that I am already taking. I can now pursue dreams and goals without ever worrying about what is commonly called "failure". I look forward to new challenges (and continuation of old ones) that come my way in the future.

Good luck with yours!

Richard Davis

My road to chess glory: Part 4: Scrutiny

My road to chess glory: Part 4 : Scrutiny

The 2011/12 proved to be a difficult season for me not just as a player but also as a team captain. At the time, I was the captain of the Stoneleigh trophy team and the competition recently had some major changes to the format. The Stoneleigh trophy was an inter-club,rapid-play team competition where there are 8 game between the two teams in each match. Each player score 1 game point for winning a game and half a game point for a draw. each match is essentially in 2 halves with 4 games played in the first half and the other 4 being played in the second half (usually, it's the same 4 players playing reversed colours; although they a team can choose to have 4 different players for the second half.) Whichever team scored the most game points for their team wins the match. However, before the start of the new season, I was told that there would be told that there would be a new handicap match format for the competition which meant both teams would have to reach a "target" score in order to draw a match and exceed it to win.

Before the season started, I had a game-plan about how to win the Stonleigh trophy. I wanted to be
one step ahead of my opposition. Basically, I wanted as bag a grade range as I can possibly get. As high-ranked a player as possible on board 1 and as low-ranked a player as I can get. on board 4 with average players on boards 2 and 3. New thinking for a new format. however , this philosophy cane under heave criticism from a member of the club who also happened to be the inter-club tournaments director of the Surrey board and vice-president of South Norwood chess club which I was a member of at the time. he simply wanted me to select the strongest players that I can get. Infect I almost had my captaincy for the Stoneleigh team stolen from me as he phoned the day after the 2011 A.G.M saying that he should take over the opposition because he thought I was "depressed" in the A.G.M. I had to tell him that I was not depressed but tired and I was still willing to run the team .

In the first match, we narrow lost by 1 point and the vice-president told me on my mobile phone on my way home after the match "you need to get someone who will get you a point". He simply didn't appreciate what I was trying to achieve with my player selections and first thought I chose a weak team. The results were not going our way and we only had one match win in our first four matches which meant we were unable to win the competition.  What made things worse for me was the fact that before our fifth match I had a serious stomach infection where I had to go to hospital one early Saturday morning which left me feeling weak for a few days. During  that time I had a very rude phone call from the vice-president accusing me of "falling asleep", clearly unaware of what happened to me during that week-end. The illness also meant that I had little time or energy to think of what kind on team I wanted to have for the match. I thought that I might as well experiment with one or two players who had not previously been in the team. However, the vice-president decided to take the law into his own hands and demanded that he should be in the team over another player. This lead to me having a strong panic attack as I felt as if he was denying me my rights as a captain to select the team that I wanted. Out of shear panic, I gave in and asked him what team he wanted me to have. He gave me the list of 4 players he wanted me to have for his team which inevitably included himself in replacement of another player. I felt like my power and rights as a team captain were instantly taken away from me. It was a moment where I felt named and shamed. We eventually won the fifth match our only victory that season. The final match ended in a draw.

I will never forget that phone call from the vice-president for as long as I live. The feeling of powerlessness I had during that moment haunted me for a couple of months and changed the way I viewed the vice-president. However the worst was yet to come. 

My road to Chess Glory: Part 3: The road to recovery.

Going into the 2011/12 season, I decided to make major changes to the way I played chess. Before the start of this particular season, I had a style that I eventually called "Tempo Hunting". This style of play was aggressive, but was also tactics dependent and required sharp calculation for it to be successful. I realised that my ailing body was not able to compete in the tactics department. Therefore, I adopted a more positional style. I changed my repertoire and relied more on judgement rather than calculation. After a while, I saw my results improving. However in the summer of 2012 when I was preparing to make my debut in the CCF Cup, I found myself suffering an asthma attack and had to go to hospital about a week before the start of the tournament which ment I was forced to take a bye in the opening round. This left me feeling fatigued for the rest of the summer as I could only manage an equal score of 3 wins and 3 losses. I did however did better in the Wernick Cup that year as I won my section and therefore qualified for the final on my first appearance in the competition since winning it in 2009. It was a 4-way final where I finished runner-up after 2 wins and 1 loss, losing only to the overall winner.

Different (A poem)

DIFFERENT

If they are red then I am blue.

If they are false then I am true.

If they are right then I am wrong.

If they are short then I am long.

If they are hot the I am cold.

If they are fresh the I am mould.

If they are square then I am round.

If they are a penny then I am a pound.

So here I am, something new.

So here I am, out of the blue.

So here I am, fitting in

So here I am, blending in

So here I am, it's all change.

So here I am, let's re-arrange.

So here I am, It's only me!

So here I am, can we just be?

I am different, something new.

I am different, a point of view.

I am different, rain or shine.

I am different, a pure devine.

I am different, so they say.

I am different come what may.

I am different, so it's true.

I am different, ... but then so are you!