It's the month of October: a little over 2 months since we've started this virtual Work-Out of the Day (WOD)! We feel like we've properly incorporated it as part of our daily routine. We seem so comfortable with it now and that made Miss Susie, our Head of Scholarship Section DAM, decided to challenge us to work in pairs starting the middle of the month. We started off October with a relaxing Ashtanga Vinyasa yoga organized by Liessa. She led us beautifully despite it being only her second time leading (and first Friday session!).
After a good weekend, Alya made us do a full-body workout for the beginning of the week. It consisted of the two primary constituents of the Individual Fitness Assessment (IFA) which are the push-ups and sit-ups. By this time, our formation has improved a lot already compared to the first time being introduced to it a few months ago. I'm sure that the number of reps we could do per minute has far increased as well.
A funny incident has awoken us the next morning: the big three social media apps we often use were totally unusable! I remember wondering if our WOD through zoom was still on because we usually send the Zoom link through Whatsapp and on that morning my Whatsapp never stopped 'connecting'... Miss Susie even called me to alert everyone that Hanan's signature upper body work-out would be done individually. Since that incident, our Telegram group was born! Here is where the Scholarship Section would send us our recorded videos post-workout so that we can all see what went well and what could be improved in the future.
That short 'break' didn't stop Haziq from planning his infamous Leg Day though… Haziq immediately made us go back to jump squatting through the camera the next morning. He introduced us to Kneeling Step Ups which looks simple but actually strengthens our legs, tones our butt and works on our core when we lower ourselves to the ground.
Syasya challenged us even more that week with a core workout that is comprised of 70% planks and its variation. Finally, Raziq ended the week by pushing us to our limits with his own version of High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). This was a nice session to work on our cardio despite being restricted to stay inside the house due to the tightening of strict precautionary measures in this pandemic.
It was a dreadful moment when the wheel chose Haziq to start off the new week with an explosive Leg Day. Despite having limited body-weight exercises that challenge the legs, he managed to carefully craft a piece which equally tires out our whole quads, hamstrings, glutes and calves. Bless Syasya for making a workout that focused less on the legs the next day! She introduced us to a variety of new workouts with fancy names yet were still so effective for our upper body. Such foreign workout names include back bow pulls and supine push-ups.
For the following day, Alya combined a whole setlist of variations for crunches which she named as a 'crunchy' workout. She aimed to let everyone feel the super 'crunch' in the core and ab muscles after doing 5 sets. Liessa then proceeded to build up our arm muscles with her arm workout. The usual arm exercise videos I see on youtube are boring... But Liessa was smart to make hers interactive and more intensified (you can literally feel your arms being pulled out!).
We ended another exhausting week with Hanan's surprise Friday session. She made it fun by letting us first do a cardio warm-up and then introducing us to the Sally Song. The rules were simple: we just needed to squat up when the lyrics go "bring Sally up" then squat down when they go "bring Sally down". Although simple, it sure was the longest three minutes of my life!
Starting 18th of October onwards, Miss Susie introduced a duo led initiative where scholars were paired up together to lead the workouts. Pairs were randomly chosen each Friday and are given their designated days for the week onwards. This initiative intends to test our leadership skills when faced with working with a partner and to see how well we can work with another party to design and lead a workout.
To start off the initiative, Syasya and Alya designed a full body workout to start our week. They highlighted how partners can lead a workout by dividing the sets with each other and with one leading the warm up and one leading the cool down. The following day was a public holiday to celebrate Maulud Nabi Sallallahu Alaihi Wassalam. Hanan and Liessa's workout was therefore postponed to Wednesday where they focused more on Abs and Core exercises. They showed their creativity as they led a 'court' theme workout as they both are an established lawyer (Liessa) and future lawyer (Hanan). Haziq and Raziq, the alpha males of their circles, paired up to bring a fiery Leg Day which brought everyone to their knees; literally. The soreness can be felt in the following day where Syasya and Alya ended the week with some Zumba.
Not to forget on the 22nd of the month, we all had the lovely opportunity of being invited to attend a virtual Maulud Nabi celebration with the RBAF and MinDef personnel. There were over a whopping 400 participants in a room and it was so heartwarming to see a whole lot of new, unfamiliar faces through the screen! This session really made us feel a more sense of belonging as a MinDef scholar (I mean, they even gave us the template background to fit in with everyone else!) and we are definitely looking forward to more future gatherings that allow us to build a greater rapport with our seniors.
For the final week of October, the new pairings were established and we were greeted with a week full of intense exercises. As pairs get more comfortable with each other, the scholars have introduced colour coordinated efforts to keep up morale during our workouts. The week was also filled with technical problems and timing issues, however the scholars showed great chemistry and effective problem solving skills to ensure the workouts went smoothly.
The Duo Lead initiative was successful and not only did it manage to test the scholars leadership skills, but it garnered better relationships amongst them. The scholars hope to keep on raising the bar as they train harder each and every day. They aim to design each work-out to be more challenging than the previous ones, just like how the phrase goes: "To get to the next level, you have to learn how to be comfortable with being uncomfortable".
By:
Haziq Zharfan bin Haji Awang Hasbollah
Nur Alya Irdina binti Awang Harun
RBAF 2014 & SCRBAF 2021 Scholarship Recipients
Arranged and Formatted by:
Aiman Abdullah Tee
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