“So how do you compare this week’s performance to the first week’s performance?” “Ah, I see a great improvement as I no longer find it difficult to try and use some moves, my ball control has improved, and I can now make 3 press-ups,” I reply to the coach while silently complaining deep within my heart of hearts. Is he seriously evaluating my performance while my arms are suspended in space and vigorously shaking? Even in my complaining, I am still grateful that I have a coach who loves to see me improve. I was fortunate to have someone interested in training me during the intense lockdown period, so I didn’t get to rust as projected but instead benefited more from the lockdown. I was fond of dodging around any coach or anyone that proposed that I should do press-ups. With the new coach, he made it a point that press-ups were my major warm down activity. No excuse went past his eardrum; hence I had to dance to the tune of lifting my body. The first day, I could barely suspend my arms for more than 1 minute lest my face went slamming to the ground due to the force of gravity that was stronger than my efforts to stay suspended. Day two, same story (and even worse) as the joints’ pains from the former day’s conditioning were not recovered. This went on for some good two weeks. Finally, I could make 3 press-ups nonstop. This was an outstanding achievement. Within 5 weeks, I had graduated to 5 press-ups, and in the next 2 weeks, I had added 2 more press-ups making them 7. As of now, challenge me to 10 press-ups nonstop! Resilience and determination can’t be separated from sports. Let it be sports for leisure or physical fitness, or competitiveness. Every time I show off my sporty body in a picture, I get flooded with comments: “Nagudi, mama I also want,” “I want to start exercising, inspiration!”, “Us with big stomachs what can we do,” “I want to work out with you come next term,” and the deadliest of all comments, “Please guide me on how to start and maintain consistency with my workout.” I always recommend the easiest of all exercises, walk the shortest distance possible tomorrow even if it’s just 30 minutes. Day 1 will be full of excuses for some. Others it will an exciting evening walk. Others will ignore my texts because they can’t bear the beast I can be behind the keyboard. A few have gone on with the workout and progressively added more routines to their jogging or running. Some have reached out and straight off with the sporty body posts informed me of how they were inspired to workout but had not been informed and probably were working out consistently in their 2nd month. It’s all in the mind! What you set your mind to achieve, the body won’t deny. Sometime back, a friend showed me praises for how athletic I was, and she needed to emulate. I advised her to take advantage of the streets and jog every evening. Please wait for it. She couldn’t jog because people always stared at her while she jogged on the road. Ok, good reason, but have you considered that your focus while jogging is also foiled as you are watching out for who is watching you. This is how self-esteem dies out because you pay attention to what you shouldn’t be paying attention to. Your primary goal is to jog or walk or run, maybe plug some earphones and hit the highest volume so that you don’t listen to those comments and keep your eyes focused on your track rather than scanning through the passersby who could be watching you. I have an issue when it comes to learning a new drill, in that I am a bit shy with the fear to blunder. While practicing recently, the coach identified that weakness and called me over. He said, “It’s all about confidence. Every time you are learning something new, pretend like you already know the drill, and confidence will automatically build-up to playing better and mastering the drill.”
I pull everyone reading this article aside, “It is all about resilience, determination, and confidence.”
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