The hockey way: Bonding and refuelling off the pitch

It was a troublesome tablet to swallow. Five matches, 5 losses. The formidable Aussies had not simply overwhelmed India however ripped aside the momentum and perception Harmanpreet Singh and Co had been constructing over the previous couple of months since qualifying for the Olympics.

Chief coach Craig Fulton knew it was essential to maintain the temper vigorous. He often took the crew to the seashores in Perth the place they spent hours swimming within the sea. The South African additionally inspired the crew to spend time with the Indian group Down Under who had invited the gamers for dinner.

“These activities will not necessarily improve your hockey but what it will improve are your relationships, understanding and trust of your teammates,” says Fulton. “Investing in team and individuals and doing things outside hockey are ways to refuel the process because if you just train, you’ll end up running out of fuel.”

India resurrected themselves by beating 2016 Rio Olympics champions Argentina within the Pro League on Wednesday of their first match because the debacle Down Under, emphasising on the significance of protecting the temper gentle.

The actions in Perth weren’t a primary however a part of a course of which Fulton, with the assistance of famend psychological well being knowledgeable Paddy Upton, often devise to get the squad to detach itself from hockey to give attention to friendship, belief and bonding inside the group.

In such an outcome-based atmosphere the place the chatter frequently revolves round profitable and shedding, it’s important to loosen the temper a bit, take the size just a few new notches decrease. Otherwise, you may get a situation just like the 2023 World Cup the place the Olympic bronze medallists buckled below strain to complete a lowly ninth at house.

Take the crew’s tour to South Africa in January for instance the place the crew trekked up Table Mountain, a distinguished landmark overlooking the town of Cape Town.

“You don’t get many chances in a programme to invest in the group from a cultural and team point of view because it is always about high performance results. The relevance of why we went to Cape Town was geared around hiking up Table Mountain which is beautiful but at the same time it is quite a tough hike; it resembles our journey from Tokyo to Paris which is having to qualify and trying to summit the mountain,” said Fulton.

“That is our objective – to be very competitive and not be too far away from our best when the time comes. It is like summitting a mountain where you don’t want to be too far away so you set up camp at base camp. That is what we are trying to do, have a certain level of performance and when the time comes, we are close enough to summitting the mountain and that is by playing our best hockey when it counts in Paris.”

Following a climb of three-and-a-half hours the place the athletes halted a number of occasions to benefit from the view and take pictures, Harmanpreet’s outfit stood atop the mountain to soak within the majestic view, later holding a gathering there.

During the assembly the crew mentioned that there have been some gamers who climbed rapidly, some have been gradual whereas some wished to spend extra time at particular spots to absorb the view or simply click on photographs. The concept was to grasp that in a crew you could take care of everybody, talk, perceive and go up collectively, that there can be variations in concepts and learn how to overcome them and summit collectively.

“They were small but important things. Some had issues with the altitude, some were nervous looking at the climb, some got tired. The idea was to support, boost each other and take everyone along. That is how you win,” mentioned India ahead Lalit Upadhyay.

Fulton additionally launched the gamers to browsing, one thing many of the crew had by no means tried. The unit had amusing riot in each South Africa and Australia as everybody saved slipping off their boards. Harmanpreet lastly appeared to get the hold of it as he stood on the board, driving the waves.

Another train that induced excessive hilarity was the ‘Oscar night’ simply earlier than the 2023 Asian Games. The whole squad, together with the employees, was divided into teams who then needed to make quick movies based mostly on sure themes. They needed to give you their very own scripts, act, movie it, edit and put all of it collectively. The whole squad then watched the movies collectively throughout a particular screening which turned out to be amusing riot following which ‘Oscar’ awards have been additionally handed out.

“The name of our movie was Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar. Just think – Akashdeep (Singh) was a king who had to deliver justice. Raj(kumar Pal) was playing a female dancer who had been teased. I was senapati (military chief), the movie was shot by Shamsher (Singh). It was super fun. All teams had a director, actors, cameramen. We shot the entire day and it was screened during a team dinner. The entire campus was filled with laughter,” says Hardik.

The brainchild of Upton, the purpose of the train was to take away an individual from what they’re good at and put them in a completely totally different atmosphere and see whether or not they can excel there too. The activity was to current an unknown scenario and the way the crew makes use of presence of thoughts, enjoys creativity and brings out one of the best regardless of the suddenness

A number of days later, a rejuvenated Indian crew climbed out from the failure of the World Cup to the highest step of the rostrum at Hangzhou to qualify straight for Paris. One hopes these bonding workout routines additionally assist the crew in Paris.