Vinluan: A bigger picture

BUILDING something of great strength is as much art as it is a science. It takes hard work, persistence, and unwavering attention to detail to be able to create something that will last and impress. This holds true for individuals wanting an athlete level-physique, as it does with the sports field that supports it.

No doubt that trainers and coaches in the different disciplines have tried hard to provide and develop athletes within international standards over decades ago. However, even as they have laid the foundation for proper training, and coaching for the essential know how for an athlete to excel, it seems that our athletes always end up where they started.

The finer ways to lay the foundation for our athletes have not been overlooked either. Our athletes do excel in other international competitions, and are capable to be instant zed and be competitive. However, equipped with the uniqueness of their talents and skills, the question lies over the support the sports industry provides them.

Given this premise, the athletes’ response is always linked with that of training because these have been what they were made to be aware of. Where training and learning to the athlete becomes an occurring automatic fashion. The athlete then becomes a typical recipient of environmental stimulus, not a selector of what motivates him best.

Behavioral changes also occur in these situations where athletes lack the support, because they tend to adhere to a robot model like training, they train as programmed and the consequence, the concepts of growth and development had to play, at most, a secondary role.

Although more recent developments for conditioning and training are implemented provided through our national sports programs, for example the grass roots sports programs of the government, or private sports programs that involve the youth and offering a strong challenge, has not the same responses from recipients as that of other countries.

Sports practice mainly involves the youth where a solid foundation must be built supported by his environment as to his family, trainers/teachers, peers etc. and the training programs that he learns.

Although all of these support are present not to mention the financial needs of the athlete. Motivation is needed that predispose the athlete to learn more of the sport.

An athlete must also have a dream and a goal to be able to grasp the structure of the discipline and understanding it in a way that permits many other things to be related to it meaningfully. Where motivation is curiosity, this must be channeled into a more powerful intellectual pursuit. He must have the drive to achieve confidence, and finally, reciprocity so he can work well with others, because the society itself developed as a result of this basic motivation.