UFC: the Fun Football Training Can Bring
When done, the lads line up reverently for the Angelus; after which they undergo the evening’s dose of exercises to keep their muscles trim. Today being a Wednesday, first there were the abdominals…
For the uninitiated, these are routines that require the players to work out the back and leg muscles while in a difficult position which has only the buttocks planted on the ground. Excellent for building six-packs!!!
This evening, the lad who had taken it upon himself to count out loud every time we do the routines apparently had been storing up some bodily gases which – again, apparently – he had been keeping in with some impressive muscular control. If you please, there will be no names tonight – although I rather suspect one of the lads will name names in the Comments box below.
And so the counting went on: forty-five… forty-six… forty-seven… In between the numbers, there was a sudden rush of wind which I immediately realized was not the Northeast Monsoon.
Because the lad in question was contorted on the ground almost directly in front of me, and because the wind was blowing into my face, my reflex action was to get up with alacrity to sprint to the back of the lads – and away from where the sudden rush of wind would have dissipated.
Lea, who was earlier standing next to where I sat, and whose reflexes were not as fast as mine, was soon complaining about the foul molecules that were invading the glands inside his nostrils.
I initially thought it was another lad; but the culprit was brave and immediately admitted to something normal human behavior dictates we instinctively deny. To illustrate my point – and this next story happened way back in the early nineties – I was putting on my playing kit for training with only one lad left inside the dressing room.
The lad next to me let loose one of those silent-but-deadly killers, and as I complained that he could have at least have moved away, his instant retort was, “Hindî ako…!!!”
If that retort was not pure nerve, then I certainly do not know what it was! I mean, helloooo….!!! There were just the two of us in that small space and I knew it was NOT me!!!
Back to this evening’s episode – and in fairness, there was no break in the counting or in the execution of the abdominal routine – I could only lamely ask as everyone laughed out loud, “…and what note would that be?” I rather think it was Fa or So…
One would have thought that was the end of it, but as the lads were doing the jumping jacks – or, as the lads laughingly call it, the lumberjacks – there was a sudden burst of laughter towards the end of the parallel lines. Just who would have thought that another of the lads would have let loose into the night?
Where the first one sounded almost musical, like a wind instrument blown, this time it was like something got frightfully torn! Assuming a stance of make-believe shock, I slowly approached the lad and stood behind him, pretending to inspect the back of his shorts for tear. The lad instinctively patted his shorts behind him as if to show me that nothing got torn, comically missing the joke I was playing on him…
My word!!! Who can grow old in the company of kids? And for good measure, addressing myself to the college kids, I said, “We will stop calling these guys LSFC today and start calling them UFC instead!”
A pity it was already dark because I am sure my eyes were gleaming with sheer humor…
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