This is a self appreciating post. I am generally not like this but I wanted to keep a track of how my personality has evolved through the sport of ultimate. I found of no better way to express this best phase of my life. People who know me since 10 yrs or above can skip the Intro too!
I have written this after playing 9 ultimate tournaments. I was part of the winning team in my first ever HAT tournament in which what I did was just run and also part of silver pool winning team in Malaysian HAT tourney.
Intro:
I am fortunate to have found this sport. Have always been fortunate in my life somehow. Be it having a supporting family, with them having no problems whatsoever with what I was doing and having a great set of friends who were there to inspire, guide me all along. I had never struggled to get anything in life. My parents wouldn't force me to do anything against my will and I never did care about how it would be perceived by others or what it would have an affect on me. Naturally, I was not pressurized to do anything. I generally took my own time to do anything. I still suck at acing pressurized situations as I am not used to being forced to do something.
Ultimate Journey:
I had a health complication in early 2013 which made me to give a thought of improving my health condition. So, I started running and very very light gym workout. 3kilo dumb-bell lifts and run on treadmill to be precise! Running outside was mostly on weekends and once in weekday in our office run club. I was fit enough to somehow run, walk a distance of 10k too in a time of 70 minutes.
Then my classmate KK who I should be indebted to, introduced me to this game. He told instead of running, come play Ultimate which is running and fun too :) So this lazy man who was never into waking up early on weekends started a new habit. I knew some of my teammates from college, but most of the people in the team were new and the team was reaaaly big in number. We had atleast 30 ppl in the team which was naturally difficult for me to gel with considering my social skills :P But my ultimate team is so easy to get along with. We not only play but we make sure that person is welcome. Little did I know that I would be so hooked to this game mostly because of my team, the challenges that this game presents when we are competing and ofcourse continuos learning
Initially I used to suck at this sport. If you are from a non team sporting background like me, its not difficult to understand why. This game is extremely easy to learn, but extremely tough to master. Playing competitive ultimate requires you to be in your prime physical, mental fitness, apart from the frisbee skills. It is applicable to all 7 players of a team for playing on the field. I remember that I made a successful pass of the frisbee after 3 long days of playing :) My initial aim was to somehow throw and catch well which I did with assistance from my team, a very young 50 year old Narendra who is excited about every object which flies. Then we planned to play tournaments to see where we were at executing our skills. There were already main players in our team(both men and women) who were easily better than me in frisbee skills. I was part of the sideline squad for my first tournament mostly and I accepted that as the other players of my team were better. Even while playing less, I had faced severe vomiting in my first ever tournament. Such was my fitness levels :P
I could have thought of saying it quits as at that point I had no chance to play with this team. Even if I was in the team, I would be definitely water boy or warming the bench! So, an idea struck me. Even if I am not getting to play in tourneys, why not aim to do well in practise. So, I was religious about giving my best in all practice sessions. Somehow I got the confidence to get to the next stage which was being efficient in the game. After some days, I worked a bit on strength training to work on my speed, jumps.
So, when we played subsequent tournaments, I thought speed was enough to play well. But it was not quite. Having speed only will make you a uni dimensional player. Better if coupled with game sense which is the prediction of how opposition player moves. Then came the stage of watching games to understand how other teams play, how the teams across the world plays offense or defense.
When I got better skillwise, I also noticed that other teammates too were getting better and naturally they all wanted to contribute to the team. I then changed my game to compliment the dominant player(s) and clearing out the space for that dominant player of the team to make more plays. I also took up the responsibility of talking to the team while on sideline as this was a thing which I enjoyed doing!
This transition of working on 1 thing at a time has helped me so much. I now feel I have come a really long way from being a guy who was puffing and panting after 100 mtrs run to running a 10k run in 49 mins, my personal best till date. My binge eating has reduced drastically as I have begun to realise that good diet is what makes an athlete a better one. I feel a lot more confident of my body, the amount of wear and tear it might take and how much recovery time I might have to take.
My learnings, results from this beautiful phase of life:
- I have gotten more confident about my health
- Understood that most complex things can be solved in life. Requires time, perseverance and hardwork.
- My speed has improved a lot. I can do 40 yards in close to 5.5 seconds. Have been observing that the NFL guys also do 4.4 seconds for 40 yards.
- I have begun to appreciate the value of teamwork in team sports.
- If an athlete is a better athlete, I would get an idea of how much that athlete has endured, worked and experienced to be one!
- I am able to manage my personal, professional tasks better than before.
- Got the privilege to meet and play with great people from around the world
- Most of all, I got the realization of a person I am and what I intend to be
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