11th Dec 2006

News Flash!

The Sneakers Survival Series at MGS kicked off on the evening of 11th Dec 2006. The contestants had been divided into two tribes - the unfit tribe and the fit tribe. Their body language spoke a thousand words about how prepared they were for this competition. However, with the luxury items of water and towel that they could bring with them might make all the difference between a win and a loose. When the unfit tribe was asked about their chances of winning, they said:

4th December

Yesterday was another day of fitness training. It was a new program week, and the first reaction I got out of Yee Leen was "WHAT... POWER CLEAN?!" And yes we did power clean yesterday. In fact there was three circuits last night. First it was a circuit for building anaerobic endurance, then there was a power circuit which we did power clean, plyometrics, and medicine ball work. Finally, it was an agility circuit. We were pretty much "ladder-ed" out at the end of it. We wanted to play Volleyball, and I had my long trusted team mates around... Jenny and Wenhui. But my super Volleyball-pusher teammate, Kwok Huimin, did not make it yesterday. Poor thing, she said she sprained her big toe! Anyway, I pulled my back muscles, and asked Yee Leen's group to "slaughter us" in Volleyball another day. But wait a minute, I think we'll win the next time... so you guys watch out!

27th November 2006

Yee Leen's pictures came through my email finally!


I made a music cd for today's training and my very low tech music player could not play the disc. So sad. My stand-in disc was a new disc that Ken bought the night before from HMV. It wasn't bad just not sure what band it was. Then after a while, Lili became the DJ of the night. She was using the CD album I brought out from my car, and she was changing music for different phases of the training.

Well, tonight we have a couple of newbies more and a couple of spectators less. Li Ching and Peilin joined us this week, and Yanxin and Elton decided not to join us. As usual, we ran around cones, agility ladder and we threw the ball around. It was a rather high impact night, I was soaking in sweat at the end of the night.

However, I think we can crank the intensity up a notch next week, so are you ready guys? Also, next week we are planning to have another session on Wednesday night, and it will be court work.

The finale for the night, unanimously, it was Volleyball again. I could not give Jenny up as my teammate. So she was in my team with Lili and Kwok Huimin, and Yee Leen has Peiling, Li Ching and Pat to suuport her. And boy can Huimin "push" the volleyball! We played three sets of volleyball game and the most exciting moments were between Huimin and Yee Leen, both blocking and pushing the ball like a real showdown! They definitely overshadowed my teammate Jenny this time! Hahahahaha....

P/S: Yee Leen, awaiting your pictures from your brand new N73 Nokia phone to post here. Stay tuned people :)

20th November 2006

This week's SS/fitness training was on Monday. Monday is a good day for fitness training because pushing yourself hard at something physically is a good way to get rid of those Monday blues. Besides, there is going to be music and great laughs. This week's music - some superband disc which was not very super after a while. Got to find new music...

Anyway, this week there were new non-slackers (maybe our code name for this training session should be NSFM: Non-Slackers Fitness Movement). The newbies were, Kowk Huimin, Huijie, Lili and two spectators, Yanxin and Elton. Elton said he might join us next week (I am writing this now, but I think I am putting words into his mouth... but let's take it that he will... hahaha). So maybe our NSFM is taking shape afterall.

Talk about taking shape, my belly is definitely taking shape from all that laughing, particularly during the Volleyball game at the end. My six packs will propbably be squeezed out sometime soon as I am super working my inner abd muscles at laughing ... hahahaha...

Any-anyway, Wenhui and Jenny are my long trusted team mates at Volleyball. We defintely made waves at the beginning of the showdown match by leading 2-0. But, like we always do, we lost a lot of steam in the middle. Wenhui's unorthodox moves were only effective at the beginning, as the opposition learned quickly. After a while they also started to mimic her, intentionally or not, I don't know. They were dropping the ball at unexpected places and catching us off-guard many times.

Fortunately, Jenny finally started to move from her spot and we managed to stage a mini come back, and her very I-don't-know-what-to-call-it move made us laugh so hard that it helped us to distract the opposition and we managed to score a few points in a row. Alas, Yee Leen, Lijuan, and Huijie (all PE teachers mind you...) forced us into duce a couple of times, and they stole the game from us once again. So Jenny, I am tasking you to come up with more of your unusual moves to help us win a game, at least... ok!

PHOTO MONTAGE


Abds, abds, abds...

Resting, stretching and contented

16th Nov 2006

Thursday night, another fitness night. This week we trained on Thursday because my class got shuffled around and so I had to shuffle the training days around too.

Choice of music tonight - assorted. I was playing some grammy award music disc and Yee Leen said it felt like we were in a bar and she felt like having some beer while we trained. That set me thinking... maybe we could have a beer or two after every fitness training... what say you Yee Leen? When I was playing Netball in New York, every training ends at the bar. We could do the same here?!!!

The happily tired...

Anyway, tonight's highlight was Wenhui. She was almost zoombie like and she cracked us up big time. Well, she was like that because she caught a nap in the afternoon. You know she's a nurse, and she would catch some sleep whenever she can. When we were doing the zig zag runs with the cones, I was wondering to myself why was Wenhui running like she was weaving with her legs. Then when we were doing this quick hand ball drill with verbal commands for reactions, the verbal commands made no difference to her whatsoever. She just kept on passing and passing ... for me I just had to be keep my eyes wide open and be ready to catch every single one of her ball.

The unusual view ... no people did not get drunk from this training

This time, I think I "out-done" myself in the planning. I did not think the zig zag runs would not be as tough as it actually was. But hey, I think it was a great challenge and I am looking forward to next week. So see more non-slackers next week!

But maybe a little...

after all... I don't know what Lijuan is doing

Signing off... the non-slackers leader... ;)

New Program 1

Fitness Training 2

General fitness

Zig Zag running – 6 X 20sec – 2 sets (1st Week); 6 X 20sec (2nd and 3rd Week)

Ladder Drills – Using Hexagon Shape Ladder
§ Normal pattern + some change of directions
§ come out off ladder to get anywhere ball

Cones
§ T shape + one back cone – response to color call + passes
(3 sets of 2)

Ball work
§ Quick hands passing (2 balls in pair; and then in 4s)
§ 4 to a ball – square pass + front option (up and down 6X – 3 sets)
§ Front drop, move back for a lob (2 sets of 8)

Finale
Frisbee / Volleyball / Rounders with soft volleyball

Training on 6th November

Today was the third session of the Super Sunday Fitness Training (albeit that it was not a Sunday today ha ha). Running up and down the court to try and get fit with a few other people was definitely easier than doing it on my own. Besides, the highlight of the night was Volleyball and Limbizkit music, so the night was upbeat and without a dull moment.

Wenhui conquering the agility drill!

Our new addition today was Jenny and she was super psych about the running except that she could not really count to six in series of sixes. Let me explain. Our runs were like this - run six times up and down 1/3 of the court and do it 6 times for 3 sets, and she was losing count half the time... hahaha ...

Jenny was also the "star" at the Volleyball "showdown" match when we were finished with our workout. When we began, she "issued" a disclaimer that she would only hit the ball back to the opposite side when the ball was hit directly to her. So no chance that she would dive or reach to save the ball, even if we were trailing in the match. Guess what, she was on my team when we were up against the team of Yee Leen, Lijuan and Pat. Sigh. Luckily she got some brownie points back with her graceful, ballerina inspired volleyball move.

Volleyball, Jenny and poetry in motion??!!

Wehui was on my team too. Unlike Jenny, although she proclaimed that she could not really play Volleyball, her unorthodox moves won us many points and in fact we were leading Yee Leen's team at the beginning of the match. Unfortunately, our form suffered many ups and downs, and the opposition became even more unorthodox than Wenhui. Eventually, we lost to Yee Leen's team at 26-28, after playing deduce twice.

The Volleyball Showdow

Anyway, I left the session feeling great even though I did not really sleep the night before due to my homework assignment and I look forward to next week session.

Next session will be a new program and I am going to bring my softball gloves and ball to play during our warm up! And Kwok Huimin, hope you feel better next week to join us!

Happy Campers :)

Were you taking a nap, Pat?

P/S: Jiao Lian said that he will give us "non-slackers awards" if we contiune with the efforts and session. Can't wait to see what goodies we'll get.