Meeting with the POC

We had a great meeting with the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) today. IPS is working on setting a consulting agreement with the POC to implement a multiple level training program with the coaches and athletes, help develop a sports nutrition program, help develop a performance testing program, and possibly helping to design a new training facility. God is at work in a powerful way.

The POC office had some amazing sport art. This is a replica of piece that a Philippine artist submitted for a contest during the Beijing Olympics.

POC executives (including the President of the Olympic Committee), sports medicine and sports performance staff were present at the meeting.

Craig and Jeff speaking with the President of the Olympic Committee

Jeff is a celebrity presenter at the APEX Milo clinic

On Tuesday night Jeff presented about basic strength building exercises at the APEX Milo running clinic.

After the clinic we had a chance to meet up and have dinner with Jim the trainer for the national team trainer and planned for out Thursday morning meeting with the Philippine Olympic Committee.

Jim is also a trainer for the Philippine version of the Biggest Loser

 

University of Makati Clinics

From Monday through Wednesday we spent time with athletes and coaches at the University of Makati. We had a great time train well over a 100 people.

R & R

Sorry, about the delay in updates we haven't had internet long enough to update. We had a couple days off after working with St. Stephen's. We went to some local sites over the weekend visiting Fort Santiago a national monument to Rizal, who was a martyr and a key figure in the Philippines gaining independent from Spain.

We were also able to visit the US military cemetery which was an incredible sight.

Dr. Phil's Public Appearance

On Thursday night APEX (the organization that runs the strength and conditioning program for the nation teams) invited Phil to talk at their running clinic. The month long running clinic is twice a week and leads up to the Milo / APEX marathon. Dr. Phil presented to over 100 runners and Jeff has been asked to help out next week to talk about leg strengthening exercises.

After the clinic we all met up and Mr. Lin took us to a Asian restaurant where the chef and owner was a St. Stephens Alum.

Walking out of the restaurant we saw the band that was about to play pray together before they went on stage.

St. Stephens High School Clinic

After working with the national coaches we traveled across town (with the traffic in Manila which is the 4th most densely populated city in the world, driving around can literally take hours) to St. Stephens School. St. Stephens is a Christian Chinese (training children in Mandarin) elementary and high school in the Chinatown section of Manila. The athletic director Mr. Lin is active with AIA and he and the school have been amazing hosts.

Our hosts at St. Stephens provided wonderful lunches each day.

Check out the real coconut

We worked with over 50 middle school and high school athletes plus coaches for two days.

In the mornings we worked with the athletes stopping before it got too hot. Temperatures are usually at least 90 degrees and get up to 95 or higher in the heat of the day.

 During the mornings Jeff was able to build into the athletes and coaches spiritually which culminated with sharing of the Gospel and prayer the second day.

In the afternoons we reviewed material covered during the morning sessions and Dr. Bishop presented valuable coaching educuation on nutrition and sports injury prevention.

Second Day at the Training Center

We had a great day taking coaches through practical stations. Totie shared the Gospel (even though they didn't want him too). We gave out over 100 Bibles (there was a mad rush and they were gone in the matter of minutes).

First Day at Olymipic Training Center

On Monday we worked with over 125 national coaches from 9 AM until 3 PM. It was pretty chaotic as we searched for the best ways to blend educational material with practical application. We have some thoughts on improvements for tomorrow, but they have already asked to have Jeff and I come back to do training after Craig leaves during the first week of June. There was even talk of exploring the possibility of my staying and working with teams until the end of July. Keep checking back to see if that develops.

Correction we had 130 coaches.

Sunday in the Philippines

We found a church close by that turned out to be one of the largest churches in the Philippines. The service was excellent and the pastor delivered a powerful sermon on family to start a new sermon series "Focus on the Family."

Later in the day we ventured out for dinner with Ryan and experienced WHAM Burger for dinner.

First Real Day in the Philippines

We got in late and checked into our hotel. The next morning we found out we were switching motels to one that was set up for us by the Philippine Olympic Committee. We are at our current hotel until Tuesday.

On Saturday we met up will local AIA staff, Totie and Ryan, and went to a local mall for dinner. We experienced real Philippine food that we prepared ourselves at our table.

The food was excellent and all you could eat. They rolled us out of the restaurant a couple hours later.

Made it to Manila

We got into Manila late Friday night a little before 11 PM local time. Craig, Dr. Bishop and I came in on the same flight (1 hour to Minneapolis, 14+ hours to Japan, 5 hours to Manila). We waited on Jeff to arrive (this plane landed with in an hour, but Jeff surfaced a couple hours later.

IPS - Philippines Trip

Come back regularly to follow the IPS - Philippines trip. The trip will run from May 12th through June 9th. The four coaches traveling on the trip are Craig Schinck, Jeff Valodine, Phil Bishop and Tim Dornemann.