Footdrills: The 5 sizing drills

Table of contents

Introduction

I will be covering the 5 sizing drills in this post. It is the only FD Silver thing: sizing. The entire process is quite long, so I’ll be breaking sizing down into each command.

What is sizing?

Sizing is the way to get your contingent arranged by height, so that the shortest I in the front row, and the tallest is in the back row.

⚠️ IMPORTANT: Please be proficient in your FD Bronze drills before attempting sizing. These drills use multiple components of FD Bronze drills like turning, marching, and GERAK.

Let’s get to it! I’ll be starting with the first drill.

YANG TINGGI KE KANAN, RENDAH KE KIRI, DALAM SATU BARISAN, PARAS

Thought that was a long command? Wait until you see the 4th. Anyway, this command means to arrange yourself by height in one line, with the tallest cadet on the right and shortest cadet on the left. The timing is like KELUAR BARIS: turn-check-one-check-N-C-D-C-C. Execute this like KELUAR BARIS (see my post on that on how to execute it), just that after you’ve marched off, go and arrange yourselves with the tallest on the right and shortest on the left. That’s it. There isn’t any timing for the arrangement (as in, drill timing), but your commander may give you, say, 20 seconds to arrange yourselves. Make sure you time the allocated number of seconds.

⚠️ IMPORTANT: Cadets are to line up with shoulders touching. There should be little to no gap between cadets.

ANGKA SATU DAN DUA, DARI KANAN BILANG

This command just needs all of you to either call ‘satu’ or ‘dua’. How it works is this: the first person says ‘satu’, the second person says ‘dua’, the third person says ‘satu’, the fourth person say ‘dua’, and it goes on until the last person, who, after saying either ‘satu’ or ‘dua’, says ‘Last man, [rank of commander]!’. So if your commander is a Sergeant, you say ‘Last man, Sergeant!’. Got it? Also, make sure you remember what number you were (‘satu’ or ‘dua’), as you’ll need it for the next command,and the command thereafter.

Here is a quick diagram of who is ‘satu’ or ‘dua’. They are ‘S’ and ‘D’ respectively.

NOMBOR GANJIL SATU LANKAH KE HADAPAN, NOMBOR GENAP SATU LANKAH KE BELAKANG, GERAK

This still isn’t the longest command yet. Essentially, this command needs all the odd-numbered cadets (i.e. ‘satu’) to GERAK one step forward, and all the even-numbered cadets (i.e. ‘dua’) to GERAK one step backward. Remember that the timing is 1-2, and you start with your left foot and stomp on 2 with your right foot.

Here’s a sketch of how it’ll look like after moving:

ORANG YANG DI-SEBELAH KANAN DIAM, NOMBOR GANJIL KE KANAN, NOMBOR GENAP KE KIRI, BARISAN KE KANAN DAN KE KIRI, PUSING

This is the longest command in existence, but is really just turning. Basically, all odd-numbered cadets (i.e. ‘satu’) KE KANAN PUSING and all even-numbered cadets (i.e. ‘dua’) KE KIRI PUSING. That’s it. What an anti-climax.

Here’s a picture of which direction the cadets turn, as indicated by the arrows.

JADIKAN DUA/TIGA BARISAN, CEPAT JALAN

This command just gets the cadets to march into ranks of two/three. All odd-numbered cadets march first, followed by the even-numbered cadets who turn and follow the odd-numbered cadets from behind.

This may be confusing, so here’s a handy illustration (yes, I’m running out of synonyms for ‘diagram’), where the red arrow is how they march, and the numbers to the right of each cadet in the 2 rows after turning corresponds in the falling-in part of the picture:

Upon marching to your spot, don’t turn to face the front yet (still face to the right, the direction you were marching). Stomp on your leg and stop, then KE KIRI PUSING to face the front, then SENANG DIRI. The leg on which you stomp on to stop may differ. Doing a BERHEN-TI is the safest option.

Conclusion

These 5 sizing drills are of a more complicated type, as you would expect from FD Silver drills. Memorising these commands aren’t necessary, unless you’re FD Gold and you’re commanding, but you do need to know how to execute these drills. Good luck!