Power and Skill, which is better?

Power or Skill?

I go for skill.

Why?

I would come to that later.

This goes back to my school days.

In Kandy there was a casino unit.

It is no more.

It belonged to Mr. xxxxx. 

Mr Balasooriya.

He had body guards protecting the unit.

I was told, if somebody hits a jackpot, he was followed behind and money was retrieved. 

If opposed, he is summarily disposed and dumped to the Kandy lake.

If he gives in he is given a reasonable portion and is told never to come back again.

I can remember many mysterious deaths but could not verify the above claims.

One guy who was drowned was a national swimmer.

He took a bet and ventured and died an unnatural death. 

The water at that time was freezing cold and an instant cramp in that situation is real.

The worse scenario is there is lot of mud in the lake. One gets stuck in the mud and there is no escape at all.

Little bit about the lake. 

During King's time it was actually a paddy field and muddy base has a real paddy field history. The current Boagambara Stadium was the real lake during King Sri Wikramarajadinhge Rajasinghe. 

He was not cruel as portrayed by the British. 

The current prison of course where Nilames had their bangalows. 

There was a deep well there. 

The story prevalent is that all the jewellery and valuables were dumped into this well when British cordoned it. 

Even to this day, gem merchants in Ratnapura had deep wells inside their houses and the most valuable stones are dumped there for security.

The real story was that Rajapaksa guys and the Army airlifted all the valuables escavated from this pit. I heard the story and ran to Kandy and witnessed this SAGA first hand and there were several shuttling of helicopters from the Prison. 

It was allowed for public view after the evacuation of all valubles.

I went in and had a superficial survey and I was much interested in where Maru Sira was incarcerated and there was nobody to guide me through and I abruptly terminated my inspection.

Those days, we had road races around the lake and I had seen several going off the road. They were dressed in floating armour  but It took several hours to recover them.

Eventually road races were stopped.

There must be lot of dead bodies deep in the mud. There was an attempt to dredge (remove mud) and that attempt was abruptly stopped and no wonder they would have recovered a few skeletons from British times.

Coming to British, I believe they used this circuit to train military motorcycle men in preparation of invasion by Japanese. 

It is quite similar to how Russians use motorcycle men in combat surveillance in current war in Ukraine.

I am long way off the mark.

Regarding power.

I used to see those body builders who protected the casino long after "Lake Club" belonging to Mr.Balasooriya was closed.

They had big frames but their muscle mass was no more. 

Without regular excercise they go back to base line mass.

This I checked later as a medical student and I found it true.

I never did body building but I did lot of skill training almost everyday in the Peradeniya University.

The track is build similar to the initial training for British soldiers with many obstacles. 

What a soldier needs is skill not power when in attack and in defense.

I did this skill track every day after one hour of hockey.

The worst part is climbing the tall wall over at the tail end.

Then I go to the Gymnasium and play some Table Tennis.

I was not good in Badminton but was reasonably good. 

I improved my badminton talent during my internship at Ratnapura.

On oncall days, I was always in the badminton court and I used to clerk patients in my sports kit.

Shorts is normal in Australia and New Zealand but never in UK. 

Anyway, it was very cold in UK but I preferred snooker or billiards.

Last of all, I climb the rope in the Gymnasium from bottom floor to the second floor.

We did not have a swimming pool.

I was hopeless in swimming and I could not go even 30 meters.

We collected first Rs.100,000/= in our 5 years, in the University. When I was in UK the contract to build was given to a UNP guy. It was a shoody job and it started leaking within six months.

Then when I rejoined university past 50 years,  I activated this project again and got a reasonably good swimming pool.

I could not have dip and it was working fine when I retired at 65.

In UK when an interview for job is very competitive and I really liked the post, I used to clinch it buy posing the question (when that option is given), have you got a few billiard tables in your sport complex.

Never swimming pool because swimming pool is generally a part of the hospital complex.

I really liked the hydrotherapy unit and a dip in warm water is soothing for one's body and muscles.