Will I ever recover?

Training today was.. arrgh.

For warm up it was terrible.. well, not really, but quite bad lah. Had to sprint the width of 4 courts, walk the length of 1 court, sprint the width of 4 courts, walk the length of 1 court. That was considered 1 round. Had to do 25. Actually not too bad lah, need to improve my cardio.. been going down down down lately. Lol.

Played a doubles game after that. We somehow managed to go into rubber set. Lol. In the 3rd set at our game point(20) I was discussing with my partner whether to win the one point right away or play around with our opponent.. then saw my coach coming and quickly served, didn't manage to decide. Lol. But anyway, we won.

After that was shadow footwork.. I usually don't mind footwork, but this one was especially a killer.. had to squat down and get up in the centre of the court before going to each corner of the court.. before every single corner! But I found it easier to move with the 'spring' from getting up after the squat.

1st 2 sets okay... 20 times each set. Infact, with the squat way I found myself springing up and going faster.

By 3rd and 4th sets the effects of the squats are beginning to sink in.. man, the springing up started to hurt. Hahaha. Nonetheless, I survived through it, reasonably well. The 2 small kids who counted for me were kind.. gave me 'discounts'. LOL. Intentionally or not I didn't ask. =P Anyway by 4th set my footwork was slow. I'm not a machine, after all.

But I really pitied the 2 kids.. hahaha. Their expressions really showed P-A-I-N. Especially the girl.

We took turns after each set.. My group had 3.. the others had only 2 people per court.. so they finished pretty quickly. Anyway.. the 2 small kids with me kept doing the wrong footwork, or forgetting to squat. Forgetting to squat I can understand.. but to still have the wrong footwork?? Those kids have been in this training for quite a long time already.. From when I first joined MBA in March they were already there.. they should have the right footwork by now. Then again, maybe training once a week/4 times a month isn't enough to get the right footwork.. But thats still impossible... maybe by 3-4 months should be able to get it right.

Anyway, then they did wrong and I was just leaning against the pole relaxing.. then my coach starts threatening to make me do push ups if they make a mistake.. *roll eyes* Who's the coach now? Hahaha. Anyway I did shout out a couple of times to "SQUAT!" when they nearly didn't. 2 small kids trying to avoid some pain in their calves wasn't worth my pain of doing 10 push ups. Hahaha. Footwork of course I can't help them lah, takkan I grab their legs and force them to do it right. Haha. But anyway, 1 coach supposedly saw a mistake and my coach wanted me to do 20 push ups.. I didn't, surprised she didn't comment, but hey, who's complaining? ;-)

After that did some shadow side-to-side jump smashes.. wasn't that tiring. Lol. I think I know why. The 4 sets took so long in my group that the so called 'advance' group started without me.. the coach pointing either left or right. They went exceptionally fast! Hahaha. And many times too. =P As for me, I joined the younger group. Coach was forced to go slow.. or slower than the previous group anyway. Lol. So I got off pretty easily.

Then came my worst nightmare.. lunges.

Lunges aren't so bad.. but when you've just endured the shadow footwork as described above, it's one step away from the pit of fire. Lol. Plus I absolutely HATE lunges. Causes pain in every muscle available in my legs.

That was the killer. I say if I didn't do that I'll probably just be feeling slight aches from the numerous squats I performed.. but now.. oh boy.

In the beginning there was this really cute kid, 1st time in training. I was supposed to lead the warm up, and a coach asked me to teach this guy if he did it wrongly. So how was I supposed to warm up while teaching him? Let others hold each position for 30 secs while I attempt to teach him? Lol! I didn't do that.. left the teaching to the coach.. she taught. But that guy.. for a standard 3 guy, he's really tiny. And so quiet + shy! I could barely hear him.. he kept muttering something and looking at me.. he tried to tell me something but I thought he was speaking Chinese.. turns out it was English. Hahaha! Everything I did he said, "I don't know" and lifted his shoulders.

Anyhow, I don't know how my coaches ever taught me until I am where I am now.. looking at that guy he didn't even know how to grip his racquet! I was like that too.. amazing eh all my coaches are. Hahaha.

But the thing about the training in MBA.. what puzzles me is that there are players there who still don't know how to count, how to serve properly etc. I'm not talking about a perfect serve, but just one that is proper. I left MBA in form 2.. there I left behind some kids that are now standard 5, 6... but joining MBA again I find the same strokes, same footwork.. still don't know how to count properly.. Even a few advanced players still don't know where to stand after each point!

But I don't know if it's the coaches' fault.. or the players. At first I thought it was the coaches.. but now I'm beginning to think it's the players themselves that need to change.. I noticed many students in MBA who just want to play games.. when there is some hard training they'll fuss and try to get out of it. I mean, sure sometimes I make some noise for the fun of it, but no matter what I'll continue with the exercise.. what is training for after all? If want to play games then just go and book a court, invite some friends.. join some group.. no need to join training. Perhaps many of them lack the will to improve... maybe the players there are mostly spoilt children of parents who are rich, seeing the training fee is exorbitant, plus its only 4 times a month. If it's 8 times a month the fees are even more.

I am not stopping MBA because I enjoy it. The price may be expensive.. but Megah is by far the most convenient place for me to go.. the training time is suitable too. But those factors aside I just plain enjoy the training. Maybe because I've got some friends there.. but I doubt so.

Tomorrow tiring day... going around the whole of KL with my bro.. by LRT/KTM and bus 11. My 2 legs. Lol.

Joanne