Few years ago, an incident left an indelible mark on my mind. Nandini had gone for an international tournament in Europe and came back without a medal. When we sat down for some failure assessment and analysis, the enquiry progressed to her nutritional pattern while she was there. That is when she said, "Sir, I was feeling extremely shy and afraid to ask for eggs to the canteen personnel - also I couldn't frame my question in English and was afraid that everybody would laugh at me."
That is when it hit me that no matter how much we work on what we assume are the pillars of sporting development - coaching, training, performance nutrition, mental training (a vastly limited approach IMO)..we are missing out on a very basic intervention which would enable the athlete to put those critical learnings into motion! Confidence building and communication skills are something that we take for granted because we fail to see the issue from the perspective of a promising athlete from the rural landscape.
But I thought - not me, not ADOPT Sports. Here my team and I have vowed to start right from the basics and instill these skills into these budding champions so that other critical skills can be imbibed and utilised with ease. I like to call it 'Functional Education for Sports'.
In many ways it is akin to parenting a child - the process is slow and steady, the progress is subliminal, but the outcome and payoff is worth it - as was evidenced during the first such session conducted under ADOPT Sports.
Ashwini Godse - who is an early childhood education expert and an authority in constructivism in education - has been an integral part of the ADOPT Team in designing this never-before intervention. She led the team through the first session under this intervention, conducted for 60 wrestling students at of Sadashivrao Mandlik SAI Wrestling Centre in Murgud village, Kolhapur. Not to sound too dramatic, but we were blown away by the insights we took home based on the response of the athletes.
As the process and its impact unfolds, I can say one thing for sure - such sessions will be a game-changing regular feature in our Athlete Development Programme!
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