Collaboration I 🐛

IIUM CHESS CLUB

Assalamualaikum,
The IIUM Chess Club is one of my favorite clubs because I really enjoy playing chess. Here, I want to share my experience in this club that has taught me something important in my life as a student. I have participated in the friendly match which is IIUM chess players versus APG chess players (ASEAN Para Games). ASEAN Para Game is a biannual multi-sport event held after every Southeast Asian Games involving disabled athletes from the current 11 Southeast Asia countries. Participating athletes have a variety of disabilities ranging from spastic, cerebral palsy, mobility disabilities, amputated to intellectual disabilities. That was the first time in my life I saw disables athletes play chess very well. I was really impressed. I was given the opportunity to play with one of the APG players and unlucky, I lost the game. To be honest, I’m a little bit frustrated because I didn’t win. During that frustrating moment, one of my seniors at that club told me,

“do not be frustrated with ourselves. In fact, we are lost and not strong enough, we always have time and chance to fix ourselves for improvement”.

Those words inspired me, I just realized that even how weak or disabled we are, we still can change and make improvement for ourselves as long as we don't give up. Actually, that friendly match was the IIUM players' preparation for the MASUM tournament. Alhamdulillah, my team managed to get the bronze medal for that tournament.