THE ESSENCE OF BEING A WINNER 
AND LEARNING AS A LOSER .... 


In my years of experience as a the Coach of the St. Therese Culinary Team we had our shares of triumphs and defeats. We learn from experiences through the years. Every competition is different the judges perception are erratic and unpredictable.

The judges in the Philippine culinary competitions were always the same the scarcity of judges make them judge a culinary competitions an average of 3 times a year. They are always present in any major cooking competition that makes it difficult sometimes because their preferences are always the same. But in the time that you made the entry you were not considering the judges preferences but the winning factor of the dish.

You always believe that every dish would be perfectly executed and going out of the box is your main key. Sometimes you tend to force your self to the limits, however if sometimes the odds are not in your side suddenly the dish is not executed the way you want it you fall flat on the desired score.

Not all that could be done abroad in competition could win here in the Philippines or vice versa - meaning a Gold medal here could only be equivalent to a Bronze abroad or a Gold abroad doesn't mean it will also be the same in local competitions.

There are several factors that have to be considered for creating a winning dish, uniqueness and palatability are always primary. Sometimes even if you practice the dish over and over again if the person cooking it doesn't believe on the dish its very hard if it will win or not. The key is the person should have the passion in doing it  because at the end of the day he will present it to the panel of judges.

A student who have won before in a culinary contest may have been over confident and when he experience defeat he had forgotten that in a war there is only one winner. Sometimes its not the medal that you have lost but the most important thing is you have learn how it felt to lose and trying not to do it again in the next journey of life.

Sometimes their putting too much pressure into themselves but they tend to forget to invest on the true essence of competing it is to practice and improve in every practice. When you don't see any improvement into their performance whose fault is that will it be the Coach or the Competitor?

Of course luck is important but we always win in the skills that we have. How do you acquire the skills? Of course in training through constant practice and commitment. Its difficult but sometimes you have to choose only one priority did you have your own share of reading magazines and books in cooking, self improvement and improving the quality of the entry.

When I was in college every time I'm going to lose in a game I see to it that I don't have to dwell in the miseries what went wrong and what can be done correctly. I will not reach this status of mine if I don't have these kinds of experiences I will not have an experience to share. Your a deeper person because you experience the pain of defeat.

Losing is just one part of defeat but how you stand up is the most important because it will make you understand that sometimes when you reach the top you have to go down. There's no supremacy because taste is always subjective.