The Natural Sportsman

It has struck me often, that in our Indian community, there is an unspoken respect for the untrained talent. This is particularly true when it comes to sports or any physical activity. Your worth is measured, not by what you achieve alone, but by what you achieve without having persevered at it. It would be quite funny, if it was not only very predictable and sad ! These thoughts came to me again, because two days ago we had a community Bowling competition.

Now these sort of events get very competitive, without of course the participants having "practised" for them at all. It is almost as if practicing before such an event would disqualify you. The teams are not entered, but are drawn up, from the participants, to ensure that no team would benefit from having an abundunce of good players. Each of these teams now become a microcosm of hypercompetitive behaviour both within and without. Since most of the team players do not know the credentials of the others, the practice rounds are devoted to sussing out your team-mates. If you have a couple of good rounds, then your welcome into the team is just that much warmer. God forbid if you are not good enough and let the team down. Quite a few of our friends (us included) have had trepidations of enrolling ourselves for these "team" events, to escape the pressure of performing.

Of course every player there, denies ever having played the game before, and their high scores are evidence of absolute talent. We had 7 or 8 such "talented" players there who would have done a professional league proud!! The unspoken sentence is - if I can play like this, without practice, what would I be if I wanted to, and did, start practicing regularly. The icing was when a team mate brushed aside my appreciation of a visiting players game, by stating that that person played very regularly, as he had nothing better to do !!!!!

There has to be a reason for this behaviour, and according to me it is rooted in a deep fear of failure, or of being ridiculed if you tried hard and did not succeed. This is a middle class mindset and needs to be weeded out wherever seen. It is often manifest in our choice of heroes. Most people have posters of McEnroe, Rooney and Ronaldo (who have an abundance of talent) rather than the more plebian sportsmen or women who have reached the pinnacle of their sport through grit and determination. As a kid I had a huge admiration for Ivan Lendl, who was known for his work ethic.

The Indian cricket team had a well known aversion to field work and physical fitness, which was not deemed to be important enough in the greater scheme of things. It was how you wielded a bat that mattered, and not how you performed on the field for the team. That is not an attitude that breeds team-spirit, which again was the reason why a collection of the best cricketers in the world in their own right, did not make the best team.

We have to realise, and instill in the younger generation that talent only takes you to a certain level. Hard work and discipline are what differentiate the best from the rest. There is no such thing as a free lunch !! In whatever field you aspire to excel, do not get embarassed to bend your back. As kids we all aspired for better grades without having perceptively studied for them. Our disdain for hard work has its roots in the misconceptions of our childhood. Do not let our kids continue the same.

I have seen the difference in the outcome, when I worked hard without shame, and stripped away all excuses for failure. So will you.