SPORTS

My adventurous journey of hating  sports until 30 years of age TO playing 30 to 50 hours of sports in a week  and then TO giving up on sports again.

Playing sports is almost next to crime where I was born and  grown up. Those who show interest in playing sports are perceived by school teachers as not so smart ,  cannot do academically better , can’t make a decent living and may become useless through out their life. When the entire society, teachers, friends and everyone around carry this  feeling since the birth of man kind, me too has grown up with same values and always focused on books . I loved hating sports n those who play in those days.

After my studies , my first job was in Japan and then in Europe, Australia. Despite of these places having great sports culture and living there for many years I never made any friends who play sports n haven't played any sport. I was still having  same feeling towards sports, as smart people don’t play sports. 

And then Singapore and Murex happened in my life. As I make more friends at work and share life experiences , everyone whom I think as smartest and most intelligent at work and in general, all of them are exceptional in one or many sports and has lot of achievements to their credit in sports too. Foundation of my belief system got shaken, everything I used to believe for 30 man years about sports seems to be incorrect. The more I interact I started changing my opinion that sports will help to activate dormant part of the brain and body which may help to be more smarter and live quality life. Back then my fitness also at its lowest level, getting sick often , physically weak. I was 30 years.

Which sports to Consider:

So I decided to play sports but no idea how to start and which sports to consider. Started with cricket , which is easy being Indian. It took few weeks just to bring so many people together for  one game and after so many hours of waiting hardly I got a chance to play. Cricket is not working for me.Changed to badminton as it needs  2 or 4 players and coordination may not be a problem, also thought that its easy to control shuttle cock and anyone can hit. 

BADMINTON: How did I learn:

Then struggles began. I have no skills in this sport, good players I know are not interested to play with me for my beginner skills. Started playing doubles so that I can play under the shadow of good players. I was always on the losing side and I am useful only for others to feel superior by thrashing me. Thought of going for training but its so expensive and it takes lot of time to go through a full course of the programme, from 3 to 6 months. I am still motivated and want to master the sport with out spending even a dollar on training and with shortest possible time. YouTube having thousands of videos and instructions, not sure which technique is right and which one works for me, not a good idea to follow videos. Getting restless and not finding any direction.

Once a taxi driver told me that he studied BODY MECHANICS but not much career options for that in Singapore, its about how to move different parts of the body for a particular activity. That was just casual  interaction but later I realised I should know what parts of the body movements are required for badminton. Then I subscribed to Racket channel which telecast badminton all through the day. I was observing only body parts movements and didn't care about anything else like shuttle cock or racket etc while watching game on tv. This process was so interesting, understood that badminton is about wrist movement and just one step from the centre of the court is enough to reach every part of the court. I was just practising this wrist movement every time whenever my hands are free and forming MUSCLE MEMORIES. This process worked like a magic and my game improving exponentially. Entire process took me four months to become fully comfortable with the game. Started enjoying the game and playing it almost everyday after work with so many people. Moved from doubles to singles as I will not have anyone to complain for my losses and it requires lot of stamina too.

With in 1.5 year time I played with around 200 players or more of various nationalities , players with international standards n those who played at national level, 12 years old kids. Participated and won at many tournaments, conducted tournaments . Except taking badminton as profession, I was putting every effort of a professional player. Giving it back time, defeating and dominating all those who didn't show interest initially with respect, so many memories and 100's of players became friends.

In this entire process learned so much about my self, my abilities, my temperament,honesty, focus, determination, team spirit ,  stamina, endurance, hard work, passion for things I chose, inexpensive ways of learning, appreciating others, success, learning from failures, celebrations, style in the work I do, uniqueness, observing and continuous learning, positive attitude, helping others. My world expanded so much and quality of life improved and so many better things. Life is also being nicer to me and good things started happening in life. Everything I learned at sport having positive impact on my work life too.

TENNIS:

Saturation in badminton then moved to tennis. Process is same, subscribe to tv channel, observe body movements of players, form the muscle memories (this time its shoulder movement ) and slowly build up the game. For tennis its relatively easier because one can practise on their own with a basket of balls or ball machines, no training needed.  Started playing tennis even crazier than badminton, both before and after the work every day, starting from 4 am and hitting balls when there is no light in the court. In less than 3 months learned tennis to a level which made me comfortable to play with anyone. 

Tennis also gave me so many things in life so is all other sports I played later , 100's of contacts , so many freebies for international tennis events and top level contacts, watching Roger Federer and all the best international players as a vip, gala dinner invites ,WTA events tickets, and may be life time free tickets for international events in Singapore,which otherwise would have costed me thousands of dollars.All this because of my association with people which I formed though my sports skills. 

SWIMMING

Then swimming, learned it in four days of time. For swimming focus was on breathing, practised breathing inside the pool for many hours and fourth day I was able to complete a lap inside olympic size pool without break. This is the shortest learning experience.

Table tennis,Squash, Rowing, Running.  Learned every sport for 3 to 6 months time without spending a dollar.Body building ( hired a personal trainer for this), this is the only I spend a bit of money for training.

GOLF

And finally GOLF, best of all . Most challenging game of all the sports I played. Those who think that its lazy and slow, give a try and then think again. It tests every aspect of person abilities and character. I am in love with this sport and learned it with practise from 3 am at kids play area swinging empty club. In one year of weekend play without any training I am able to play below 100 which gives me decent acknowledgement and appreciation in golfers world. I have so many memories and able to reach many levels of people with golf, my first prize in golf was three months after I start the game at a prestigious tournament. In my last golf tournament few weeks back I won prizes in all the three categories in one game ( longest drive, closest to pin and gross score) which is not easy to repeat again for me.

Playing 5 to 6 hours during every weekday and 15 hours at least on a weekend . Thanks to many sports clubs and great skillful players I know in office, where lunch time sports is allowed. Not sure how many such companies exist in the world. Played sports with so many colleagues from each department in the office and know all of them personally now.

My typical weekday starts with gym and swimming before work, Badminton or golf practise or rowing during lunch and tennis after work. Weekend- tennis for 2 hours, squash or badminton for 2 hours,swimming for an hour , golf for 5 hours.

Time management:

With lot of time requirements for work ,family and sports in this priority, every half an hour of day is very important. Cant afford to spend time on non important things. Two things I hate in life are spending time to eat food and sleeping. Reduced my lunch time to 10 minutes with food packed from home,I sleep 3 to 5 hours a day based on requirements of the body. Getting out of facebook helped me a lot to save quality time, minimise internet usage or completely get away . Don't enter into useless discussions, do not think about others or their life not even a minute, no gossips, have only positive thoughts always all the time. All these helped me pursue my sports career for  four years. Day starts between 2 to 3 am and go to bed at 10 PM.

Sports portfolio: 

My portfolio of sports spanned over 5 years - very good levels in badminton,tennis, golf, squash, swimming, billiards and decent levels in table tennis, gym, running , rowing , wakeboarding, rock climbing, basket bal. Never got injured even once in all these years. Was running some training sessions also to teach sports for others. Thats about my sports career. Its not the same me whom I know 5 years back, completely transformed physically and mentally. Became part of many cultures and tons of players and their families became friends . Without Murex and colleagues , I should have never had this amazing eventful sports journey in my life. Me and my 1000 generations of grand parents families are indebted to Murex forever for giving us a family member who can play Golf and other sports.

What next:

Without wife sacrifices and  contribution to family I should have stopped at badminton. Swapna thinking that I am addicted to sports now, where as sports just happened by chance in my life. Quitting sports for sometime. Going to university on weekends, hoping to learn something new and entertain my brain, super excited.