across the spectrum

Sports a great thing. but understanding sports is an even greater experience. I have been lucky in that my dad was always encouraging us to play sports. We had a club membership in Dubai and when I was of age (and of wage) I invested in a membership that is paying me huge dividends. Now we have Jispa, who is bringing another angle to the sports discussion in the family.

While I have been playing sports for long, I first started understanding the mental aspects of sports only much recently. I guess it all started when I started playing in the team as a captain. I forced to think about the game and not only of my game. It made me aware of my game as well. It helped me think completely different about sport in general. Post which I have tried to understand and bring the brain into other sports as well. I have played cricket, squash, swam, run and a lot of badminton these days. The more I understand any sport the better is the understanding of sport in general. Over a period of time one understands different sports but is able to draw a set of lines going across all sports.

For example let’s take the head. The head position is so critical in sport. As a general rule, the head position must be as stable in sport. The head position maintains the balance and posture. It helps you see better and your hand eye work great. You don’t fall over while playing and you play with a firm balance. It also helps you recover better. I have seen this is batting, bowling, fielding, badminton, squash, billiards, TT… everything. Natural athletes typically don’t move their head too much. It’s only the eye that follows a moving object. Very little of head movement is done. Swimming is also similar. You keep your head stable as much as possible and you only turn enough to breathe. As little movement as possible. While I was being coached for swimming I realized that the head position is also critical for maintaining a position that keeps your body afloat. You don’t look ahead; you don’t look down – you look at an angle that is roughly 45 degrees ahead. This keeps you afloat.

Recently Jispa attended a swim camp organized by Rehan Poncha. Rehan was one of the Indian swimmers at the Beijing Olympics. He is now running camps and trying to fund his golfing career. He is very good with the kids and he basically is giving tips on land training, stretching, followed by swimming drills and then a talk on nutrition, mental preparation etc. one of the things he explained was to have loose muscles. Keep your body loose then they move faster. Hands if kept loose move faster than if they are tight. That’s an interesting thing. It works well with what my coach was trying to show me to do while swimming as well.

Now one of the things that I can’t do in badminton is smash hard. As in – I can but I don’t do it consistently enough and I only do it from far. If I am close to the net I try to rely on placements and not on power. But that’s not enough to kill a point. I am always worried that I will hit the net and so to avoid an unforced error I tap the shuttle. This then extends further and then I stop smashing altogether as I realized today. I just refused to smash. My partner then looked at me and begged – Smash kar yaar. I do have a decent smash when I pull it off. Then I just out of the blue decided to loosen my muscles and try. I remembered what Rehan said. Keep them loose. And then boom boom bang.  A flurry of smashes later my friend exclaimed – Your smash is back. We won five points in a row with my smashes. Just keep them loose and let it go.

Cross sport understanding is a great thing. You have to keep the basics simple. Its always the case. Placing is important in squash and the similar principals work in badminton. Head position is crucial, less movement, more balance.

Such is also in life. You learn from everywhere and anything. You have to understand and know a lot of stuff. This helps you think clearly and apply lessons learnt from one to another. Of course it obvious that to apply you have to exposed to a lot. That’s what I always try for. As many exposures as possible. I try and expose Jispa to various experiences and I try and expose myself as well. Anything new – worth doing once or twice. At worst – the worst experience will tell you what you don’t like about the experience. The principal is simple – if you have enough exposures you will have enough learnings. You must be curious at all points of times. We had a management meet recently with some psychometric tests thrown in. I went off the scale on the curiosity parameter – and the shrink was telling me that I have a practically insatiable appetite for learning. Yes of course. Insatiable. Constant and always on. I will try and learn every second and form anyone and from everything. It drives me crazy but it’s the only thing that keeps me sane. Hah. After a long time – opposites reconciling.