Drill is a pill....

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As I mentioned earlier me and my students were at a drill competition last week. I had a select team from grades 10, 11 and 12 and they were representing all the schools in Abu Dhabi. There were a few high profile people in attendance and the whole thing was being filmed, no pressure. We had been training them hard for about a week, just to carry out about 8 minutes worth of foot drill, but the training went really well. After issuing them all with new uniforms and some last minute practice, we jumped onto the two mini buses one of which I was driving....Bearing in mind it was a manual and I was already used to just putting my foot down without worrying about that crazy thing called gears. Saying that, the journey went without a hitch and we arrived at Khalifa University, the staging ground for the competition. We had some lunch and then moved to the open area where the competition would take place, the sun was out in full force, so the students had the heat to contend with as well as the nerves of performing in front of a crowd. In spite of all of this, the team were in high spirits and we had some good banter going around.

It was time for the competition to start, and my team were up first. They marched on without incident, a good start to a good performance from start to finish. The other teams took their turns and the standard from all sides was very high, proof that all students had put the effort in to their training. Unfortunately there could only be one winner and after getting the teams to form up one last time for a member of the govt to announce the winner, it was declared that....... we won!! My team were happy that all their hard work and 6.30am starts had paid off and we got a nice big trophy as proof. So a good end to the day and before we jumped back on the buses, we had some food and took some team photos. It was a pleasure to be part of the day.

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