OF 1Bombs and 1Bootcamp....Day 3

Friday, January 8th 2010 was the day that clearly shows that Malaysia, being led by the present ruling Government is politically trying to separate us. This was the day that our Christian churches were torched across Klang Valley. My friends, I think if we are to look around us – of our fellow Malaysian friends of all races, we as Malaysian are already and have mostly been practicing the 1Malaysia respect and friendships amongst each other. But unfortunately politics of our ruling government are trying so hard to tear us apart.

I must admit that on Friday I had to consider carefully whether to attend Day 3 as our Astaka field was near a church but I was happy that I decided to proceed.

As we gathered waiting for our Day 3 session to start – I looked around us and I saw hope. I was surrounded by men and women of all Malaysian races (all Malaysian races were represented!) and also expats of all nationalities. And as we talk and share with each other, mostly about all the muscle pains that all of us are experiencing, I definitely could not see what the fuss were all about! We were all in 1harmony and I can truly feel that we were sharing together with no regards to race, color, religion......this gives me HOPE - it feels good to be in a 1Bootcamp where race and religion has no role to play – we sweat and share pains together as Malaysians.

If we ever catch the disrespectful bombers or even the “cow head” protesters of last year – I suggest that we should just throw them all into this bootcamp...and maybe we can knock some “unity” sense into them.

Ok – enough about politics.....Day 3 was going to be a wet one. The field was wet and muddy from the heavy downpour all afternoon. And it continued to drizzle when we all got to the field to start our warming up (and with my recent research info on DOMS – I paid serious attention on the warm up session!)

After the usual warm up routines – we were then put into our teams.....our first taste of Bootcamp discipline was ordered upon us. A team member arrived late – the result was all of us team members being made to do 15 crunches! Bad start for me as i was hoping to save all my energy for the challenges ahead, and now got the punishment to deal with! I hope no one goes AWOL or late next week – I don’t think i can deal with crunches very well!

Day 3 was again focused on time based exercises. Again there were 3 stations – each led by a Corporal. And upon the first whistle, we were instructed to get to each respective stations. My team got the cardio station first.
Station 1: In the Cardio session – we were asked to do cardio exercises which included mountain climb exercises, jumping jacks etc- on 20 seconds full paced routine followed by 10 seconds of rest then continue 20 seconds followed by 10 seconds and so on. It sounded “fair” when it was explained – 20 seconds was not too long and we have 10 seconds of rest!

Again – like all other optimistic assumptions that i have made this week in Bootcamp – how wrong was i! The intensity of an “all out” 20 seconds workout, with the corporal breathing down you, followed by just 10 seconds of rest proved to be a very very challenging station! This is because the fast paced of the 20 seconds of cardio exercises was not fairly compensated by the 10 seconds of rest. I could barely catch my breath during the 10 seconds and the next 20 seconds started again!
It was 8 minutes of hell! And again, because a few of us – including me, stopped at one point or another, the corporal added another 1 minute of agony.....so I was thankful when our 9 minutes was finally up.

We were then given 2 minutes to run and drink some water and proceed to Station 2. A few of us didn’t arrive at Station 2 within the 2 minutes and the entire team had to do 10 crunches! These additional punishments really add to the tired misery! I sure hope we can start getting more discipline as a team as i can’t afford to do crunches every time! I hate that, it is painful!

Station 2: Here we had to do an “army style” duck down body flat to avoid “Bullets” after 2 large steps forward. Body must be flat on the ground. We had to keep doing this till the end of the 20meters, then do a “bear crawl” back to the starting point. 3 minutes of this.

Then, the routine changed to 2 steps followed by ducking to ground but with 2 push-ups then jogging back FAST at the end of the line....after 3 minutes, we change to ducking on our backs for 2 sit-ups and jogging fast back for the final 3 minutes.
In this station, I was happy with the “ducking” routine of flat on ground, 2 push-ups and 2 sit-ups. But because of the muddy field – this was the exercise station where ALL of us got MUDDY all over! This was truly the real welcome to BOOTCAMP! The killer part of this station was the “bear crawl”, we had to bear crawl on a push up position and wow – it really hurts, it was bad and this really got me! I started feeling giddy after 2 rounds and had to stop a few times. I had my head down resting but was then instructed by the corporal to “put my head back up” as head down could result in me vomiting!

Station 2 ultimately knocked me out.....by the time I went to the final Station 3 – I was out of breath, out of energy and body was aching all over......Station 3 will be horrible. And I was right.

Station 3: Here, we had 6 cones placed around us and as explained by the Corporal, each cone represents an exercise and we were split equally between the 6 cones. The exercises in each cones were: Army crunch, Crunch with jump, Push ups, King Kong push ups (normal push ups plus having to do a one hand on ground and one hand reach to heart routine rotating both hands), sit ups and finally a legs flip on back exercise.

Again it was time based 40 seconds, followed by a dash to the next cone to do the next exercise and so on – we had to keep going until 9 minutes was up......I started at the crunch with jump.....and the next 9 minutes were blur to me......by now, the mind was willing but my body was breaking down....so started doing all the exercises slowly.....till time was called.

By the time we finished warm down and a final HOOYAH! Shout by all, it was already dark....for the first time, everyone was dirty muddy and wet – our first true bootcamp experience. And it was a timely way to end the week – one week of Bootcamp experience.

This has been a week full of PAIN, full of discipline to keep pushing myself harder to not give up, to complete each task as well as i could. Can’t wait for Week 2 and my only wish is that i stop feeling as much pains on my muscles – DOMS please stay away!