Page 39 - Mind, Body and Spirit 2016/17

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12 Regt Xmas PT
British deployment to Estonia. 12 Bty are part of 16 Air Asslt Bde providing very close air defence. This Bty are mainly P Coy trained and are on a constant state of high readiness. The last Bty is made up of HQ elements. The reason why I mention this is that they all work independently of each other, and are in different stages of the AFORM cycle. Thus creating a challenging yet rewarding role for myself to make them as robust and as physically t as possible. I do this with the total soldier concept I incorporated into the training programme covering all components of PT underpinning the training programme.
With over 800 troops on Island the gymnasium has been massively upgraded over the last year, and is now looking state of the art, especially with SSgt (SSI) Brett Steels 16 Regt RA bringing more to the party. The way in which I test the Regiment on PT for the Commanding Of cer to assess his troops, is the CO’s challenge. This is made up of 7 PT events in which the whole Regt competes in varied PT events from a 5 mile Log race, Mud races on Thorney Islands Beaches to exercises, and Orienteering up and down the South Downs with 20 kg on their backs. We also run an in house inter Bty Sport Competition, covering 10 sports over the year.
The Regiment is very much sport orientated with Rugby and Football being the main sports played. Having played football all my life, I tore my ACL playing for the Regiment. I needed a new sport to keep my passion ery, so I decided to take up Rugby. The Rugby team took me with open arms and I quickly learnt the basics of catching and throwing an odd shape ball. Before I knew it I was addicted. I was quickly established as IC water and ball boy, with the odd chance of coming on as a nisher. However I was learning fast and I went from getting ten mins here and there to starting most games on the wing. The standard of rugby played in the Regiment is very high being the team to beat in the Premier league and also Navy league. This is by far the best place to learn rugby. We eventually won the Army Cup nal beating the Yorkshire Regt 22–14. I now look forward to starting next season injury free, defending the title as Champions and representing the RAPTC.
I’m a rm believer that you need to embed yourself 100% with the Regiment to get the best out of any posting. I have done this and more, volunteering to run the Games night between the Of cers Mess, and also Xmas function for the seniors mess. I also ran
SSgt Boyd In South Korea