Chapter 10 - Training Start
"Let's take the attendance, first," Cikgu Malik said. Khairul nodded and started calling the names one by one. A few minutes later, the attendance was taken and everyone was there.
"Since everyone is here, we will start with some warm up," Cikgu Malik spoke and he called on the club's president to take over for the warm up.
"It will not be hard, right?" Basir whispered to Akmal.
"Warm up will not be hard," Akmal answered in a low voice.
The warm up started and just as Akmal thought, it was not hard. It was similar to aerobic exercise and he also found it weird that the sports club did this as their warm up.
From his knowledge, sports club's warm up was not that easy.
While the members did the warm up exercise, Cikgu Malik and Khairul had a small discussion.
"How many Form 4 members do we get this year?" Cikgu Malik asked.
"Twelve, just enough for all of them to form a Form 4 Team and a few reserve players," Khairul reported.
"..." Cikgu Malik was silent for a bit. "The school gave us just enough students to form a team," he shook his head. He hoped to get more students but the school was adamant to be fair and limit it just enough for everyone.
"But thanks to this, the other sports clubs have enough students to form a team for each year too. This reformation is not bad because every sports club will be able to participate in many competitions without worrying about not having enough members," Khairul said.
Since quite a few years back, some of the sports clubs only manage to form the main team because they had low members. Some of them failed to even form a main team for the sports they were representing.
In school, there would be eight teams that the sports club could form if the sports they represented were a team sport.
Six of the team was for each Form representation from Form 1 team to Form 6 team. This team could only be represented by students of that class in the club.
As for the other two teams, they were the Main Team. One was for the Junior High students (Form 1 to Form 3 students) while the other was for the Senior High students (Form 4 to Form 6 students).
As the name suggested, the Main Team would be represented by the most talented members in the club and they were the main force and face of the sports club.
The limit put by the school helped the club to get enough members for the Form Team and thus, increase the club's chance to find talented members for the Main Team.
So, the limit made by the school was not a bad thing but due to this, none of the sports clubs in the school would get extra members. They would need to use whatever students they had to their fullest.
"Still, some of these students will need to take two roles in the club. One as a player and also managerial and domestic staff," Cikgu Malik added.
"Well, I am sure they will be fine. If you are worried about this, you can pass this job to the players with the lowest potential. I am sure some of them will be glad to get this job," Khairul spoke while looking at Basir who was a bit slow following the stretching.
"We will take this slowly. For now, you and the other Form 5 can take this role for a while. We will need to test the new members before we can assign any position to them," Cikgu Malik added.
"Sure," Khairul answered.
Ten minutes later, they did their stretching. It was super easy for many of the newcomers but they sweat quite a lot except for a few members.
For the Form 5 and Form 6 seniors, they did not look like they were doing the stretching at all. They looked fine as if it was nothing since they were barely sweating.
Akmal looked at them smiling and laughing as if it was a small matter but he was sweating quite a bit. Let's not talk about Basir who sweat a lot and he was almost wheezing.
"Bro, are you okay?" A concerned voice came from behind Basir.
Basir looked behind him and a student was looking at him worriedly. Contrary to Basir's condition, the guy looked fine. His state was similar to the seniors. He was one of the few new members who did not find it hard doing the stretching.
"Thanks but I am fine," Basir replied while smiling. Since the guy was asking him politely, he could not reply with a bad attitude. Although he was tired, he still needed to keep his manners.
"The training will get harder after this. If you cannot do it, don't force yourself and ask the teacher's permission to rest," the guy looked at Basir worriedly.
Basir was touched and thanked him but then, an irritated voice came too, "Why care about him? If he exercises well all the time, he will not be in that state."
Basir, Akmal, and the others frown. They glared at the guy who said that but the guy did not look like he was scared with their glaring.
"Don't say that. What if he collapses? That will be dangerous," the kind guy spoke.
"You care about others too much. Care about yourself first," the irritated guy spoke.
From their conversation and facial expression, Akmal and Basir could tell that the duo knew each other and possibly were close friends too.
Basir did not want to make the matter big, he thanked the kind guy and ignored the irritated guy, and looked at the front again.
Since Basir did not mind it, the others decided to keep quiet including Akmal.
"Now that you are done with the stretching, Form 5 and Form 6 students will continue with your stretching. After that, continue your training as usual. Form 4 students, follow me," Cikgu Malik said.
Form 4 students left the line and followed Cikgu Malik out of the gym. Cikgu Malik was silent throughout the journey and the students did not dare to strike a conversation too.
Who in their right mind would start chatting with the scariest discipline teacher?
The students arrived at the public track and field. The public track and field was a track field that could be used by any students at the school. It was a public space and thus, anyone could use it.
The track and field club had their field like the Dodgeball club with their gym. This public field was also usually used during PE Class.
When they arrived there, there were many other clubs there too. Moreover, Akmal recognized that all the students running on the track were Form 4 students.
A teacher saw Cikgu Malik's arrival and greeted him. That teacher looked at Akmal and the others and said, "New members?" Cikgu Malik nodded.
"Line up," Cikgu Malik said. "Your training today will be running around this track. Complete 5 laps in 15 minutes," he said with a stern voice.
"What happens if we fail?" A student asked.
"Another lap," Cikgu Malik replied.
'6 laps for me then…' Basir knew he would not be able to do this.
'Can I do this?' Akmal was a bit skeptical about his ability. Although he jogged once a week, he was not sure if he could run the 400m track five times in 15 minutes.