prayer

wednesday 27 feb: after our usual fijian touch warm up mutaks took us through ballwork. endless passing and realigning followed by a combined attack/defence drill. at first mutaks was unimpressed and punished dropped balls, no tries being scored and poor defending with pressups, situps and bupees. we went through the drills over and over the entire session then to wind up he switched to a bit of fitness. we did shuttle sprints between the 22 and try line for one minute (i think he forgot his rule of every fitness drill is a 7’s half i.e. 7 minutes - phew!!).

we did one more fitness drill where we ran after him as a team in whatever direction he led us then on his whistle we hit the ground face down bounced up immediately and then ran again. we had to work from one try line to other doing that. lagging behind him, not working as a team and staying on the ground longer than a second would lead to punishment i.e. more running and more hitting the ground. mutaks told us that the more tired we got the more we should talk. ha! initially we were talking but after 2 minutes the only talking was by some girls praying fervently that mutaks would get a muscle pull. didn’t we wish! it now took us longer to get up from the ground and it got harder and harder to keep in front of mutaks. christine (in photo) was next to mutaks and at one point as was she struggling to get in front of him she almost reached out and pulled him back to make her task easier. wish she had – i would have helped. after about 4 minutes we had reached the opposite 22 but we were all silent (not even a prayer), half the team was behind mutaks and we were all taking about 5 seconds on the deck (some were not even able to go to ground). mutaks responded by taking us all the way back to the halfway line!!! aaaaaaarrrrrrrggggghhhhhh!!!

labour pains

monday 25 feb: blazing hot day. beautiful. we warmed up with fijian touch. at first we were a bit careful and played while trying to conserve our energy cos we knew it was a fitness session but as we got into the mix we threw our cares aside and everyone gave 100%. the game was fast paced and we soon passed the warm stage and we were just hot! after a couple of thundering runs and some deft sidesteps yogi developed a stitch that had her complaining that it felt like labour pains. ouch!!! we had a brief injury scare as christine seemingly twisted her ankle as she tried to grab a sidestepping dot. it turned out to be a false alarm and although limping she was soon good to go. still no sign of doc and we were literally cheering: no torturous workout.

we worked on kickoffs and just as we had started scrum downs mutaks jogs in. “i’m late” he apologised “but let’s go.” so much for our premature celebrations at doc’s absence. lungs in our feet we followed him jogging to the lugogo hill. asha (in photo) had conveniently carried boots only so she remained behind. we paired up speed/size wise and sprinted up the hill and walked back down. christine, yogi and fortunate were together and it was great to see them moving up that hill all the while pushing each other to the limit. christine seemed to have miraculously recovered from her earlier ankle injury and yogi’s “labour pains” did not seem to be bothering her anymore.

this time round our drama queen, charlotte, was the victim of dizziness. she swayed off to the roadside and collapsed in a heap and spent the rest of the session trying to straighten out her world (ha!! so much for dodging monday's lectures) as we huffed and puffed our way through our sprints. at one point mutaks had hadijah and i chasing after a car that was going up the hill!! unrealistic you think? no!! just shows how much confidence he has in our abilities. well we didn’t catch the car – we would have but it accelerated just as our fingertips we were about to touch it’s bumper … after 7 sprints, just as i was getting into the rhythm, mutaks called a halt and decreased the distance we had to sprint. not much relief cos the sprints were continuous. sprint up, jog down then sprint up again etc. i’m not sure how long we did that for but i think it was 7 minutes. everything is done in terms of one 7’s half. sprints done we jogged back to kyadondo and without giving us time to catch our breaths mutaks made us do 45 situps, 30 pressups, 10 bupees. situps and bupees i struggled to get them done, pressups … enough said!

sleep

friday 22nd feb: hot hot hot day. great weather. i couldn't ask for more. we warmed up with fijian touch then mutaks had us doing sprints between cones: forwards, backwards, sideways, diagonally - for 7 minutes. we are getting better (i think). we did a bit of contact - crashing into tackle pads and rucking (so much enthusiasm here) that no one wanted to act scrum half. it was a literal battle over who would ge to crash and who would ruck. we then switched to a ball handling drill that required lots of concentration. prossy (in photo) went to sleep at one point and messed up the drill so mutaks sent her round the pitch to wake up. we finished up with doing 2 attackers versus 1 defender followed by 3 attackers versus 2 defenders. any attacking pair/trio that did not score had to do 10 pushups. initially, there were a lot of pushups being done then we got more creative.
"sneakers and boots on monday," says mutaks. yipes! what do he and doc have in store for us?

Dot says ...

dorothy (dot) nekesa (lady cranes' 15's loose forward and 7's hopeful) is a scorpion (Zodiac sign) and was born in the year of Rabbit (1983). She says ... the very first days of training were ugly - filled with lots of unfitness, too much weight from the off season break and just worries like shall we get there again! A couple of muscle pulls later, i believe we are on our way there.
Ladies, one fact that I know (basing on the Chinese Calender) is that all born in this year (rabbit year) never give up on what we have started. So even though the rest of you are not rabbits it must be the same story or close to it. Hmmm ... Ladies we are close to getting there now, we have waged a war against unfitness and sloth (i know that's a tough battle) but believe me success has showed us a wide gap so let us take it at pace. Lets go for it then.
Catch you again here same page.

charlotte says ...

charlotte mudoola (23 year old law student and lady cranes veteran) has this to say ... I love the training sessions. It sucks that i miss monday sessions (cos i have to go to class) especially when i hear my teammates talk about it the pain doc puts them through. I wish it was possible to divide myself into two: one half attends class the other goes for training. Ha! as if ... Hmm ... wednesday training was intense and short. I liked it and wanted more. It helped me physically and especially mentally but i miss tackling. Wish we could tackle every training session ... but sometimes guys are too serious that i feel like making funny faces so that they can laugh, even though we are all so tired. Come on guys, we need to have smiley faces.

no drama

Wednesday 20th feb: it rained the whole morning. good enough the sun came out in the afternoon so it was a warm evening. not warm enough to dry up the pitch though. one half was submerged and we religiously avoided it. as we waited for numbers we started off with our coordination game. anne and alia have got lots better at it. perhaps doing pressups or situps for every dropped ball was motivator enough to focus? we then moved to working on defence as we waited for mutaks. yogi and harriet had missed the initial defence sessions but they picked up really fast and soon were working in tandem with the rest of us. it's beginning to come together. we'll have mutaks in smiles at this rate. when mutaks arrived he let us wind up our defence workout then split us into groups and took us through ball handling with emphasis on spreading the ball wide and re-aligning. that went ok.

we then paired up (same speed pairs) and went through a fitness drill: sprints between cones, sideways, backpeddling - first without a ball then with ball in hand. we did it for 7 minutes i think- one half of a 7's game. not as torturous as doc's sessions but tiring all the same.

after that it was back to defence - a drill that mirrored our movements in defence. at intervals mutaks would instruct us to hit the ground and bounce up immendiately and continue running. at the start it was easy enough but as we continued our legs seemed to get heavier and every time we went to ground getting up took an age. after like forever, mutaks called the session to a stop and instructed us to stretch. he appointed christine the acting captain and tasked her with making sure we all got water.

no muscle pulls, no fainting and the like this time round. great. mutaks says on friday we'll be doing game situation.

hypoglycemia

Monday 18th Feb: a nice hot sunny day. i love this weather. we started off with the coordination game. even ann and alia had got the hang of it and we were looking good. doc arrived and had us warming up by passing the ball - nice long passes. we were meant to go for roadwork but a couple of players had boots not sneakers. so he had to improvise. when he thought we were warm enough he had us all on the touch line. we had to sprint from one touch line to the other and back, 10 second breather and off we go again. we would be doing it for 7 minutes. at the start it was ok then after about four of them i got dizzy and bells were ringing in my ears. i remained on the touch line and tried to stop the ground from moving round in circles. doc at my side in a flash and his first question "did you have lunch?" i slowly shook my head. "hmmh. hypoglycemia" he mutters. allergy to what? "how can you starve yourself and come for training? how are you feeling apart from dizzy" he asks. "black spots jumping up and down" i replied. he sighed. "your body has exhausted its glucose supplies and that's why you are feeling like that. lack of glucose in your body - that's hypoglycemia." he sent for a fanta and had me drink half of it. yuck i hate fanta. all the while the rest of the girls continued with their sprints. when the 7 minutes were done he had fortunate, yogi, stesh and alia continue running. "you were slower than the rest so expended less energy so in order to use the same amount you've got to run for longer". yogi looked liked she wanted to get violent then took a deep breath and soldiered on. it's tough for her and fortunate - it's only their second session so though we are all still unfit their level is really really low. later he called everyone together. "lesson one" he lectures" do not come for training without eating lunch. take in lots of carbohydrates. lesson 2: all this is for your sake. i do not get a kick out of making you suffer. you can hate me now and call me all sorts of names, i'll understand but we want you fit." doc is sweet. we all like him - except when he's making us run.

we changed to saturday's game of hold where all the attacking team had to be in the 22 before a try could be scored. after 10 minutes of that, we did a passing drill then back to shuttles. we did 5 metre shuttle sprints for 2 minutes with 10 second breaks. we did about 6 sets of them, maybe more. i lost count. on the very last set halfway through i wobbled off feeling dizzy again. doc had me lie down and said that the fanta had given me a temporary boost of glucose which the body had quickly used up. after the sprints were done he re - emphasised his earlier point "eat before you train". he promised us the hills for the next session and asked us not to conveniently leave our sneakers behind. sure. we wound up with pushups, situps, bridges and a stretch. yes, in spite of all the drama we are getting fitter.

murder

Saturday 16th Feb: the early worms started off with a hand/eye/reflexes/coordination game. ann and aalia were soooooooo uncoordinated that they had us all in stitches. the rest of us were pretty good at it though. then as the rest of the team joined us at 1.30 we split into red and yellows and switched to fijian touch. fijian touch is great way to work on quick recovery in defence and played in the early afternoon heat it gets you warm in about 30 seconds. doc came in and switched us to a game that would help us in support each other in attack. in defence we had to ‘hold’ (in between tackle and touch) the ball carrier and before an individual was allowed to score her entire team had to be within the 22. getting used to the new rules was confusing at first: the yellows set up charlotte to break through the reds and she dived over the try line BUT she had forgotten her team mates behind. most of them were lounging outside the 22, hands on their hips, cheering her on as she scored. classic! doc disallowed the try and it was a turn over for the reds. we all soon got the hang of the game and both teams were within the 22 when it came to try time. both teams worked hard at getting the defence sorted and it started to pay off. i hope we keep on that trend. we had a water break at 2.30ish then changed ends. at 2.45 when we were all well and truly tired and our tongues sticking to the roofs of our mouths doc stopped the game and we thought we were done for the day. “not so fast girls” says he. “everyone on the try line. a bit of fitness now. 5 metre shuttle runs for 2 minutes ... sprinting.” he can’t be serious! fortunate (in photo), aalia and ann looked like murder was on their minds but i guess they reconsidered after thinking they still had their prime years ahead of them. we painfully did two sets of the shuttles and doc was quite pleased with our effort. that done we did pushups and sit-ups and then thankfully wound up with a stretch.

defence

Friday 15th Feb: it did not rain today or yesterday so it was a nice warm evening. the pitch was not hard and was not squishily soft either. we warmed up by passing the ball before mutaks split us into 3 groups of 6. 1 group holding tackle bags and the other 2 groups taking it in turns to go through a defence drill that was meant to help us master our defence pattern. we repeated the drill over and over again until mutaks was satisfied that we were doing what he wanted. he then divided us into 2 teams and we had a short game where we were meant to apply what we had been practicing into the game. at first neither team was doing the right thing but with constant reminders from mutaks we started to get it right and made rugby easier for ourselves.

so far so good. we're bonding well as a team - management included. mutaks and doc are so soft spoken: we've never had coaches that do not yell.

ball work

wednesday 13th february: cold again but at least the pitch was muddy rather than flooded. some areas were actually dry - ish! we warmed up with fijian touch. my side were defending the muddy half which turned out to be disastrous with charlotte 'tiptoeing' after the opposition cos she did not want to slip and get muddy. brenda (in photo) took advantage of that to ensure she ran through the mud each time and scored 2 tries with that ploy.

muddy warm up over, mutaks started us on ball handling. usual stuff, passing the ball and realigning. in between passing the ball, we did press ups, bupees, squats, situps (i really hate those - all of them) after which we did shuttle sprints between the try line and the 22 for one minute then back to ball handling. we passed the ball lots before mutaks switched to movement in defence. he's still not happy with how it's coming out. he'll work more on it on friday.

psoas muscles

Monday 11th February: still a cold wet day. we warmed up playing fijian touch on a drier side of the pitch. after that we went on a run up to the kira road roundabaout. stretched briefly and back to kyadondo rugby club. before we set off doc had told us to run as a team making sure there are no stragglers. instead of stopping and waiting or reducing our speed in order to stay together we keep running back to collect girls lagging behind. it meant running extra but at least it meant we kept a constant pace, stayed together as doc wanted and encouraged those struggling to match our pace and to keep pushing. all in all, the run felt great. to wind up we did push ups, stomach exercises and calf raises then had a nice long stretch. we thought we were done but doc had other ideas. he lined us up at the pitch side advert boards and had us inclining our bodies at about 45 degrees (i think - geometry was never my forte). "women tend to have underdeveloped sore a*s muscles." i beg your pardon doc. "p-s-o-a-s. psoas. it's a latin word." aaah. latin. of course doc. "i need you to sprint on the spot at that angle for 2 minutes then you'll have a 30 second break then back again ... " The session didn't seem as if it would end.

game 1

Saturday 9th Feb: The pitch was water logged and there were mini lakes in some areas. Some of us mentally mapped out the areas to avoid while playing. Mutaks selected the early birds - Joan (otherwise known as boda boda - in photo) and I as team captains for the day and told us to choose teams. When we were done, we got onto the pitch. Mutaks had simple instructions for our first game: focus mainly on applying our defence pattern and using the width of the pitch in attack. He added that the game would be one of many that would help him make his selection.

The game kicked off. Quite a number of girls got tackled face first in the numerous lakes on the pitch. Yuck!! So much for trying to avoid them. We were quite a sight after the game. Mutaks had a few points to make:
1) We have good hands.
2) We don't use the width of the pitch.
3) The tackles were great but our defence formation sucked (he didn't use those words though).
4) Our lungs need opening up so we should all carry our sneakers for an 8km run on monday.

Endless running

Friday 8th February: another sprinting session with doc. From the try line to the 22. Endless running - sorry sprinting. Legs felt like lead and it was cold and wet yet again. Dot got a rather painful muscle cramp and doc had to attend to her so that gave us a much needed breather. His medical duties done and Dot resting, he got us sprinting between the try line and the 5. During one of the 10 second breaks Mutaks and doc had a tete a tete then doc informed us he had 10 minutes left with us before Mutaks took over. "We'll do a bit of upper body strength to wrap up." he says. "But first, on my whistle sprint to the opposite try line and back within 40 seconds. We all went flat out (Dot included) and made it back in time. We were all rather pleased with ourselves and doc re enforced that feeling when he announced "Girls, you were great. At this rate you soon won't be needing me any longer." Then he added, "Ok, back on the line. You're going back. You have 4 more to go." I almost collapsed! Feeble gasps of protests came from girls' mouths but their was not enough breath in our lungs to voice our complaints audibly. All the same we got ourselves onto the try line. We did 4 more with 10 second breaks in between. A short stretch later we paired up and did fireman's lifts. Stesh (in photo) ended up with Christine!!! She was not very successful.

We were pretty thankful when Mutaks took over. We worked on our defence pattern. After a couple of false starts we got the hang of what he wanted. Sort of. Lots of room for improvement though. "We'll have a game tomorrow." says he. "Try apply what we've gone through in the game."

End of session. Girls complained that my blog profile was in French. I've tried to sort it out. Charlotte keeps promising to do something outlandish in training so she appears on the blog in style ...

wet wet wet

Wednesday 6th Feb: a very cold dreary day. It rained most of the morning and the sun attempted to come out mid afternoon. Not much good because as we warmed up with touch rugby we were wading on one half of the pitch and wallowing through mud on the ‘drier’ other half. English style rugby I guess.

Our coach for the session was ‘doc’ - a former rugby player with a medical degree. After warming up doc called us in for a fitness session. We did fitness drills that simulated a 7’s game and it was painfully fun. We rediscovered muscles that had long been inactive since last year and learned their medical names as well. We’ll be doing this (the fintness drills not the anatomy lessons) weekly. ‘Doc’ told us we need to start going to gym and sprinting up hills. I can do the hills anytime but the gym!!! Ditto some of the other ‘lightweights’ – Joan, Harriet … though I believe I hold the record of the least number of kgs bench pressed. Christine and Ann would probably opt for the gym rather than the hills. Not that I’d blame them. Moving 70+ kgs up a hill is no easy task.

Mutaks joined us at the end and informed us that Friday would be an introduction to game plan and on Saturday a couple of games.

camaraderie

friday 1st feb: the dreaded steps session did not materialise - coach got held up on his way to training so we ended up playing touch rugby as we waited for him. unfitness aside, so far it looks promising: elusive footwork, support play, creativity ... we were able to identify our individual weaknesses and learned how to play with the new faces. it also brought about the all important camaraderie needed to keep a women's team going. unfortunately, mutaks arrived and after watching us for a while he had a chat with our TM (jero) then they interrupted our fun. sets of 1 minute shuttle runs between the 22 and the tryline followed by more sets between the tryline and the 5!!! sprinting - supposedly - but by the time we were done we were literally crawling. oh, we did get 30 seconds break between each set but had to do pressups and situps as we 'rested'. i hate the beginning of season!!!

after the session mutaks requested us all to cut down on our alcohol intake. i can see sacrifices have to be made early on...

catching up

wednesday 23rd jan - second session with mutaks. ballwork mostly and a bit of running. from all the huffing and puffing it's obvious we are seriously unfit. mutaks announces a fitness session for friday and tells us to carry sneakers. it's the dreaded lugogo steps!!!

wednesday 16th jan 2008 - first lady cranes 7's session of the year. the usual suspects turned up as well as a couple of new faces out to 'fight' for a number. still too much x-mas and new years fat on us so nothing too strenuous. we jogged a bit, passed the ball a bit and got to know our new coach - mutaks. he's had lots of experience playing for uganda on the wing in both xv and vii rugby. he's never coached ladies before - he tells us - but is all up for the challenge. hmmmh. i wonder how ready he is to deal with mood swings from 15 plus women at a go ...

short intro

hi,

welcome to my blog. uganda is one of the countries that will be battling out with others on the african continent to qualify for the 2009 IRB womens' 7's world cup in dubai. lady cranes will be representating uganda at the CAR qualifiers this year. we are all pretty much in the dark about who will be hosting these qualifiers and the date of the actual tournament. other countries to join the fight will most likely be kenya, rwanda, burundi, south africa, tunisia, zambia, zimbabwe and ivory coast.

i'll be writing weekly to keep you up to speed on our efforts from the perspective of a lady crane.