Well, maybe first let me share a little knowledge with you guys about Chinese New Year if this is the first time you ever hears about this holiday.

The Chinese New Year holiday season is not fixed on the usual calendar because it's based on Chinese's Lunar Calendar. It works a little differently from the usual calendar thus every year it will falls on a different date. This year it will falls on 7th Feb 2008. Traditionally it will last a total of 15 days. But for different countries which celebrate The Chinese New Year, the authority will have different official holidays period allocated. For us in Singapore, it is two day of public holiday for the Chinese New Year.

So what do we guys do during this holiday period? There are plenty of stuffs to be done. Preparations start way before it arrives. First and most important is to ensure everything is new and clean. New meaning that on the first day of Chinese New Year, we will have to don ourselves in new clothings so a lot of shopping to be done. From head to toe from outside right down to your undies, everything has to be new. Then about the clean part, it would be about cleaning up your Home Sweet Home before the Chinese New Year comes. Making sure everything is spic and span.

Then what happens when the big day comes? Well, we will try to stay throughout the night as much as we can in order to help give our parents blessed with long life. And yes, it's the only time of year which you do not get yelled at for staying up past midnight. In certain country which firework are allowed, they fireworks are set off throughout the night in the neighborhood. It too is to help to get blessing for your home and family.

The comes the morning where relatives pay each others a visit. During this visit the best part (if you are still unmarried) is that you will receive Red Packets from the elder. You must be wondering now, what in the wold are Red Packets? Well, they are like present you get for Christmas, except instead of stuffs, they are hard cold cash. Money are put in small red envelope by elders and given to those who are unmarried. But before we get them, we have to say auspicious blessing to them, like wishing them good health, good fortune, success in work or anything that are nice blessings.

Of cause, for any important holiday another important things are good foods. There is just one special food in Singapore that no Chinese will ever miss out. It call "Ba Kuah", also known as BBQ meat. Traditionally they are made up of mostly pork, but recently there are made of other meat like chicken mean, beef and to the more exotic meat like crocodile meat. If you never taste this before, I advice you to try if you ever get a chance to. Trust me, it is heavenly. There are other wonderful foods that are mostly seen during this holiday season like Mandarin oranges (like orange but much sweeter) and pineapple tarts.

Well above give you a very brief idea what this holiday is about and what most probably most of us Sword is doing and will be doing. There are many most to this wonderful holiday we have but we do not want to bore you guys with the details.

Anyway, most of us are doing individual training currently since there are no nearby upcoming major tournament to participate in during month of Feb. Most probably team training will starts soon but have not been fixed yet, maybe right after the Chinese New Year.

Guess it will be after the Chinese New Year before all of us starts to be actively training as a team again. Right now they are training their own time and own target to keep their skills sharpened.

So do check back often on how are the Sword doing. Thanks for your constant support and we love you all.

And to all the Chinese fans, supporters and visitors.

A Happy Chinese Lunar New Year!!