Victoria Sapientes Elegit the minimalist blog by syarif

As per my last entry, I was yapping about the platoon vs platoon of the original bootcamp. Yes, it was tiring, but man, I have never felt so glad that I attended the event!

Well the day started very early when I woke up around 4.30-ish to prep myself. After a major err... "dump", I had coffee and a few smokes. Armed with minimal gear and mixed state of mind, I braved through the morning chill to the meeting point at Taman Metropolitan Kepong.

Along the journey, I tried as much as I can to relax and just stay clear off anything negative. I rolled down the windshield and just breathe in the cool Sunday morning air.

When I arrived, it was roughly 5.30am. The first thing that I noticed was the KL Team. My god, they were scary weh! With their red bandanas and black war-pain ala Samoan, they were singing their war cry; their lungs out! I was petrified by that moment. Huhu!

Then I walked over the PJ side. Not much significant noise. I can see in almost everyone's face that there's this scary feeling. The situation is a lot like the silence before a storm. Serene and calm. Most of us looked half dead. Well, it might just be that most of us were awake like 30 minutes before that. And I can seriously bet my leg that the majority of us didn't take any shower; and literal breakfast for that matter. What I can conclude was, we were the absolute THE under dogs.

By that time I wanted to quit. I don't want to be the guy who made my team lose even lower. But somehow the team mates, upon roll call that morning- began to have high spirit. Out of sudden, laughter burst, people were screaming - the PJ - the ASTAKA Warriors suddenly becomes alive! My heart said leave, but my guts said stay.

So I stayed.

And thank god I did!

It's hard for me to describe why. But perhaps one of the task that I needed to do for my team was to carry a big rope with another 4 team mates. We were asked to set the pace. Proudly I can say that we set the pace so high, we had to do a slow jog to wait for the others! My confident boosted really high, that I started to run up and down the file to motivate the others :D

Then comes the bazooka, rifles and tyres to add things to the challenge.

Sadly, after roughly 2.5km of the circuit, we noticed that we were lost. Honestly, at that time we really thought that we were leading, as we can't see any other teams in front or anywhere near us! Hahaha! It was a funny situation, I can tell you!

We arrived at the last point roughly at 7.40am - with the knowledge that we missed a few checkpoints.

Obviously, with that notion, it can be seen that the PJ would lose this pl v pl.

But I can gladly say that I believe we have won even at the first station (ini kata-kata orang dah kalah la... :p).

Seriously, like in my Bravo team, most of us don't really know each other and I met most of them the first time minutes before the event started. But, we all manage to do things as a team, communicate as one voice, and move with one mind. As an experienced trainer, it is quite a feat to see that number of people could just click and help each other without any disputes.

And as the last team to arrive, RJ, one of my team member, suggested that we do grunts, in good spirit of OBC.

And for the first time ever, I agreed to the motion with a smile.

I actually said yes to the grunts, as you can see in the butt-sticking-up picture of mine :p

Guys, to get more pictures and full details regarding this OBC Platoon vs Platoon, kindly visit http://arminbaniaz.com, under the subject "PLATOON VERSUS PLATOON... Amazing Race".
(Armin, I hope you don't mind)

To get more info about OBC kindly visit www.bootcamp.com.my

Or perhaps just visit the FB Group: ORIGINAL BOOTCAMP - Malaysia (open to public).

Guys, it was not easy. But it sure was a good workout. Hooyah!

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In the spirit of 1OBC, the bootcamp is organizing a platoon vs platoon telematch this coming Sunday. One of the main reason for this event is to actually build the rapport between the current 2 platoons of OBC Malaysia; the PJ Platoon and the KL Platoon. Despite having communicated in FB page, there are quite a number of recruits have never met each other- even in the platoon itself.

This is the chance.

And to make things more, err, interesting, there will be a donation drive during the day that will be submitted 100% to a charity body (which I seriously couldn't recall now).

Well honestly I'm not worried with meeting strangers and I absolutely have nothing against a charity drive. As you guys might have noticed, the abovesaid event is actually 6 hours away from the time I'm writing this entry. You see, roughly 16 hours ago, I just finished an OBC session at Padang Utara PJ. I have only 3 hours of sleep the night before, and about 4 hours left before tomorrow.

That's what worrying me. I signed up last friday in a wide hope that I could sleep soundly tonight. But the newly acquired PSP games made me wide awake since this morning, despite having sleep deprivation.

And to add spices to the situation, there were not many recruits from PJ signed up for the event. Making this handful of blokes the only hope to make PJ proud. The term ASTAKA Warriors (Padang Utara = Padang Astaka) have made the KL Kiasu (yes, the KL Platoon) all psyched and ready to combat sharp at 5.45 am.

I'm under pressured and overtired. Oh, to make things worse, it's raining now in PJ. Making the battlefield (Tmn Metropolitan Kepong near FRIM) would be a muddy arena. Darn...

Well, at least there will be sandwiches. I could now only pray that it's not as demanding as normal OBC session.

Sadly, I've heard rumours that it's going to be like Hell's Week. A bloody (literally) 2 hours of pain.

Aiyyyyyyy.......



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I managed to gather my strength anyway for this morning. Roughly with 3.5 hours of sleep, the crankiness I had this morning was utterly annoying- even to myself.

As I have expected, I arrived 4 minutes late for the roll call. But good enough, as I was on time when the sergeants yelled out my name- thus no AWOL was marked. (But Alice, I think you need to contact the sergeant to inform that you were not absent- just in case).

Anyway, with so many people arrived late, and quite a number of AWOL's, we were punished with 70 grunts.

A grunt is when you drop down squatting, pushing your legs out to your back (like in a push up position), pull it back in to squatting position, then jump up to standing position. That's one time.

Like I mentioned, 70 times were 'awarded' to us at the start of the session.

Then we went on the circuit. With rope slapping, shoulder push ups, rifle slant, sandbag squat, 'mountain climbing', sandbag sit ups and star jumps, 40 minutes just pass by.

It was a good sweat though.

And now, at home, cursing my ass off the pains, and shall get ready for work. It'll be a long day today in the office, but that story will be reserved for another day.

Well, anyway, I need to find a way to pull myself together the night before Bootcamp sessions to makee it a better, motivating session.

Or perhaps I'll just leave it like that, just to keep my expectations low, and push myself the next morning?

Not sure.

But whatever it is, I need to keep on going.

Going.


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These pass few days I have joined a fitness program under the banner of 'The Original Bootcamp'. Seriously, it's no fun at all.

Well it started roughly a week ago where myself and Alice had to wake up around 5am to arrive at Padang Utara, PJ before 5.45am. It wasn't an easy thing for me particularly, as I just a loooooong weekend before that, and my standard sleeping time was 9am.

But I forced myself to sleep.

Then comes the day.

Started with a simple roll-call, the 10 minute warm up session told me everything: this thing ain't gonna be easy mate!

To keep my cool (and arrogance; for that matter) I braved myself for the second session- a fitness test.

With push ups, grunts and sit ups, plus 400 metres round, for three rounds, it's easier said than done.

I'm lost for words to say how grueling it was for me that morning, but let's just say I have befriended with people with various ethnic background, and they all have taught me nasty words in their languages. I chanted them all.

After all that, it's the 1-mile run. Sounds ok in my full energy, but that morning it took me more than 15 bloody minutes. Damn!

But anyway, after that, the session was ended, with muscles all over my body aching like hell.

That night, I was seriously considering on going for the second day...

That, I shall regail later.

Alice seems high spirited in continuing the course- perhaps until she got her desired weight. Seriously, I wish I got the same enthusiasm.

Somehow the roll calls and the scream of encouragement reminded me a lot to scout roll call days.

And also The Biggest Loser show on telly.

Either which, it's not the most cheerful situation I had in mind.

Aiyyy... There's another session coming up in 6 hours, and I have 5 hours of sleep more.

I'm wide awake. Darn!

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