Chapter 51: Graduation Holiday
During the graduation season holiday, Ichise Guren and three teammates who graduated together, along with three underclassmen about to advance to their second year, were training intensively together at his family's gymnasium.
Originally, after half a year of training together following the completion of their matches, Ichise Guren had actually wanted to give everyone a break during this holiday.
After all, once Yukigaoka's volleyball club made it to the nationals, the Ichise Group had praised Yukigaoka Middle School for doing an excellent job in promoting youth sports.
Under the slogan of encouraging nationwide participation in sports, and in the name of corporate social responsibility, they provided Yukigaoka Middle School with a substantial athletic fund.
After achieving fourth place nationally, the principal specially held a commendation ceremony where, in front of all the teachers and students, he handed the oversized symbolic check representing the prize money to Ichise Guren.
Ichise Guren didn't keep it for himself. He immediately converted it to cash and distributed it to every player who participated in the competition. Even Hinata Shoyo's two childhood friends, who didn't compete but were registered on the roster, received participation bonuses of 2,000 yen.
So currently, all the Yukigaoka players had what was quite a bit of cash for students. Ichise Guren had thought that with money and time, if they still wanted to play volleyball during this holiday, they'd be as dedicated as Ushijima Wakatoshi, Kageyama Tobio, and Hinata Shoyo.
As it turned out, Ichise Guren had greatly underestimated the volleyball spirit of these middle school boys. These teenagers, blessed with both money and time, actually spent all day soaking in the gymnasium. After breakfast, they'd come to the gym for physical training, followed by fundamental technique stabilization drills.
After practicing until noon, everyone would happily head to the buffet restaurant in the nearby hotel under the Ichise Group to eat and drink for free. If this hotel weren't owned by the Ichise family, these growing boys' enormous appetites, stimulated by their intense training, would definitely land them on the buffet's blacklist.
After eating their fill, everyone would go to the gym's member lounge to rest properly and watch volleyball match recordings together.
In the afternoon, they'd start their individual technical training with the following specific program:
1. Receiving serves from serving machines that fired balls like mortars.
2. Spiking and blocking practice conducted in opposition - I spike, you block; you spike, I block.
3. Live serve training and receive practice sessions.
4. For those with remaining stamina who weren't afraid of death, attempting functional training alongside Ichise Guren.
Regarding the fourth item on the training list, so far only the three third-years could partially keep up with parts of Ichise Guren's functional training.
The three underclassmen were already exhausted in terms of stamina and basically had no energy left for functional training. Not to mention, Ichise Guren's training looked incredibly difficult.
Standing unsteadily on a volleyball with both feet while doing ball bumps, then switching to single-hand bumps while the other hand had to catch tennis balls thrown by the trainer.
This combined ball sense training with multi-linear brain processing training and reflex training.
With resistance bands on his legs, performing three-step lateral resistance movements, then jumping onto a 50cm box and back down, followed by two-handed vertical jumps to reach a certain height.
This simulated blocking footwork with resistance bands for explosive neural recruitment training.
Watching this made the three underclassmen absolutely terrified, feeling like if they tried it, they'd be face-down on the floor within three seconds.
Fortunately, Ichise Guren always maintained that his functional training was indeed very difficult, and without confidence, it was better not to attempt it.
'These aren't exercises for sports beginners. Don't practice randomly - if needed, consult my trainer.'
So the three underclassmen understood perfectly that this was exclusive training for the strong, and they weren't yet qualified for such training.
During training breaks and casual dinner conversations, the three underclassmen reported gossip they'd heard to their graduated senpai.
Because the school had volleyball scholarships sponsored by the Ichise Group, they seemed to be planning to recruit several volleyball special admission students this year, offering full tuition waivers plus complete scholarships.
This apparently attracted quite a few elementary school volleyball enthusiasts with outstanding performances. Moreover, after tasting the sweet success of Ichise Guren's class making it to nationals for the first time and reaching the semi-finals, the school had also spent money to hire a retired volleyball player as a PE teacher to serve as the volleyball club's coach.
With an excellent coach, superior training environment, and quality recruits, in the long run, Miyagi Prefecture's middle school powerhouses might need to add Yukigaoka Middle School to their ranks.