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.