UDI days at HTA

Much anticipation on the September holidays was all in vain. This is because I had to go for the Unit Drill Instructor Course at Home Team Academy from 9 September 2009 to 12 September 2009.

The first day of my Unit Drill Instructor Course was the Gold Footdrill Assessment. It was not part of the UDI course which is supposed to start the following day. The Gold Footdrill Assessment requires us to teach the MOI (Method of Instruction) properly. The MOI was realtively as easy as ABC for me as I had tried the MOI before. I went through the test easily.

The next part was the commanding and the excecution segment. It was very simple because I just had a taste of being a parade commander just less than a week ago. Thus, I passed the Gold footdrill assessment easily and safely enter the UDI course officially.



The first day of my UDI course was filled with push-ups. Many groups got punished because of the lack of teamwork. My group was the worst. 2 cadets decided to play traunt and not attend the UDI course just because of a stupid reason - they do not want to cut their long hair. This lame action of theirs got our whole group into trouble.

We started the day off with the muster parade. After which, there was the training on how to conduct a parade, Water mist guns drills and how to use a pace stick properly. Also, what attracted me the most was the sword that is being used in a parade. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to use it till we become CLT or officers.

The entire afternoon was dedicated to practising the slow march and learning the flag drills. It was so tough that a cadet fainted during the course. That day, we had night training. It was only on how we can work as a team to plan out a parade. My group was entrusted to plan out the NCDCC inaugural parade. It was so fascinating to see that we managed to alter several parts and changed the layout.



The second day of the UDI course was mainly focused on the UDI assessment. The UDI was similar to the gold footdrill assessment in several ways, such as Commanding, execution and the MOI segment. The difference is that the standard and expectation were higher and that he commands were different.

Luckily for me, I passed the assessment at the end of the day and was a UDI. But all was not confirmed until the following day's parade which will officially invest us as UDIs.



The last day of the course was mainly parade rehearsals for the night's investiture parade as regonised UDIs. It was a very messy in the beginning. But after a few rehearsals, it turned out all right. However, after lunch, some cadets were not interested in learning the clow march. As a result, the black sheeps destroyed our hopes of a nice parade.

Finally, the parade commenced and within 45 minutes, the parade ended and we were officially UDI. It was a 4 long and dreary days at Home Team Academy. The training, though tough and tiring, but was fruitful in the sense that I had learnt something.



From the UDI, I have learnt values such as: perseverance, responsibility, etc. All these excellent qualities can aid me in achieving my goal of being the best person in terms of academic, conduct, etc.