Chapter 22: Free Trial Training
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
A free day of training was Dai Li's second move. The word "free" itself got everyone interested. No matter what it was, valued or not, people would rush to it. Some millionaires, even multimillionaires, would still be extremely happy to get a free head of cabbage in front of the supermarket. Did they really need it? Of course not, but they would be happy that they got something for free. Conmen always made their money easily just because they knew how to use people's greed against them, capitalizing on their willingness to pay less to get more. Salespeople who sold health supplements always held free lectures. Dai Li was neither a fraud nor a supplement salesperson, but he was using the same tactic.
A free trial day meant a whole day of training for free. It didn't matter whether they were going to stay or not, all they cared about was that it was free. In actuality, those parents had no intention of letting their children be trained by Dai Li going forward. But they would still bring their children, just for the free training day.
However, Dai Li had was confident that he would be able to keep the students coming back as long as their parents brought them here for the trial day.
…
He could see a black Land Rover SUV. Dai Li could tell that it was a rich family and he walked forward right away.
A father and son came out of the car. The father was very strong, even though he was only about 175cm tall. The son was taller than him, but thinner.
"I'm Dai Li, nice to meet you," Dai Li introduced himself.
"You are Coach Li!" The father pushed his son forward and said, "This is my son, Haiyang Chen."
"Haiyang Chen. Alright." Dai Li took out the list of names and wrote a check next to his name.
"Coach Li, my son is yours. Haiyang, listen to your coach and work hard! I'll pick you up this afternoon." The father looked at Dai Li and saw that he was very young. He couldn't help but look down on him. If it was not free, Haiyang Chen's father would never have brought his son here.
Dai Li stopped Haiyang's father as he was about to leave. "Wait a minute."
Dai Li took out a timer and gave it to him. "Let's test your son time for the 100m sprint. I'll give the signal to start. Could you please measure the time?"
"Even though he just got here?" the father asked, obviously surprised.
"This way you can check my training results later. We can compare the performance before and after," Dai Li said.
It's just one day. Can we even tell the difference before and after? The parent felt that Dai Li was even more unbelievable. Still, he took the timer and said okay.
Haiyang Chen did some warm-ups and then walked to the starting line. It had actually been drawn by Dai Li yesterday, as was the running track.
Dai Li raised the starting pistol and shouted, "Ready," and then pulled the trigger. Haiyang Chen started immediately and rushed to the finish line. The father stopped the timer right as his son reached the line.
"How was it?" Dai Li asked.
"13.03 seconds. Let's say 13 seconds!" the father answered.
"That's pretty good," Dai Li nodded with satisfaction, recording the time.
As a normal high school student, one could definitely be called a prodigy if they could finish the 100m sprint in 11 seconds. If it was 12 seconds, he or she would still be excellent, and have the talent to be a professional athlete. If it was 13 seconds, then one must be very strong, and might be able to improve with professional training. Fourteen seconds was quite normal, and didn't indicate anything special. If longer than 14 seconds, then one should definitely start doing exercises right away.
This criteria was made for people who hadn't been trained professionally for a long time. A high school student who had had professional training for a long time should finish the 100m sprint in 12 seconds as a standard.
According to his time, Haiyang Chen must have been pretty strong among the high school students if his time was 13.03 seconds. And given the fact that he was only wearing normal sneakers instead of running shoes, and knew nothing about the skills of running, 13 seconds was already excellent enough. Dai Li was very confident that he could turn him into a national second-class athlete.
Dai Li tested every student that came afterwards, and he felt pretty satisfied with the results. All of their records were in the 13 second range.
It was very difficult to turn an ordinary person into a national second-class athlete. And if one was not talented enough physically, it could take years to improve. The sports school had also thought about this, which is why they had only selected the talented ones. Only these students had the potential to be trained into athletes in two months.
The parents were not fools. They wouldn't sign their children up if they were not good at sports, since the training class costed 15,000 yuan, and they wouldn't expect the children to become athletes in two months. Instead of wasting their 15,000 yuan on sports training, they would have been better off signing their children up in some other classes for cultural subjects. People who dared to bring their children here knew that they had some type of talents in sports.
…
Dai Li counted the students who stood in a line in front of him.
Only 13 students. Less than I expected. I'm still not famous enough to attract many students, even if it's free. Hopefully most of these students will choose to stay after today. Go get it, Dai Li!
He said a prayer to himself and then added these students to his training list. He then raised his head up and said after he calmed himself down, "Let's get started, boys!"