How I keep fit - by Michelle Joan Valbuena

How I keep fit – by Michelle Joan Valbuena

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By Michele Joan Dalman Valbuena

As a kid, I engaged in various different sports. I played soccer with my brothers. My father got me into tennis. He was a tennis player. My mother was in volleyball. That, too, I engaged in. I did basketball in our school’s intramurals because I was the tallest in our batch. I played softball in high school as varsity.

I come from a family of athletes so physical activity has been our norm. My parents, even at their age now, continue to be very active. I make sure that I am, too.

Because sport participation has been so much a part of me while growing up, and found that I am at my happiest when I am engaged in a sport, I continue to participate in various sports as a way for me to stay fit. Currently, I do dragon boat.

In dragon boat, we have regular training three times a week. When we are preparing for a race, we do training six days a week. We run, do core exercises, lift weights at the gym, and paddle at pool and sea. Unlike any usual exercise, our training is intense, and pushes team members to go beyond their comfort zones.

There are days when we just feel like puking from exhaustion. But as the days and weeks of training pass, the workouts become easier. Personally, I feel more endurance and stamina, and stronger. I heard my team mates say the same thing about themselves. And that always has been translated into our race performances. Our paddling time becomes better.

More than doing exercise to stay fit, I participate in competitive sport because I love to test myself how far I can go and improve my skills. I always want to know what I am capable of, and at what level of performance I can further stretch myself towards.

Growing up with a limitation to do as much sport participation as I wanted because of health conditions, I never really knew how far I could go. Having recovered now from that health condition, I now have a chance to do sports at greater degrees. I love the thought that I can now practically do what I want.

Beyond the physical fitness I gain from sport participation, I also develop and maintain mental and emotional fitness. In competitive sports, our psychosocial skills are also challenged. I would have to say that these sets of skills are the most challenged because they dictate our attendance and quality of participation at training, management of anxiety at races, sound judgment at decisions made, and more importantly, they define how we relate with team mates and others especially when situations get tougher.

Engagement in sports requires mental and emotional toughness. In my experience with dragon boat, individuals who have lower degrees of mental toughness cannot push themselves to go beyond their comfort zones. They give up whenever they feel tired. They give up whenever they feel a bit of pain. They give up when training becomes harder. When they are challenged to do more and push themselves more, strong emotions surface. Many of them get angry. Others fight with team mates unnecessarily. Because they lack the skill to address their feelings appropriately, they displace their frustrations about themselves to others. Without emotional toughness, one can never survive the sturdy challenges of competitive sport participation, and will never improve into the kinds of athletes they want to become.

Also, in competitive sport, the physical skills have been developed already at training. If one has been able to develop one’s physicality at a level that is required, they should remain at that level at competition day. What makes one slack off at a game is the lack of psychosocial skills to manage anxiety levels when pressure is high. When the mental and emotional components of an athlete are weak, the physical component follows. The lack of mental and emotional skills at competition day often dictates the low levels of sportsmanship an athlete demonstrates, and will tend to do irrational blaming when race results are upsetting.

I continue to participate in competitive sports because I not only stay physically healthy but I also continue to develop my mental and emotional toughness. I love to participate more in team sport than individual sport. Team sport is more challenging because there are many different and diverse personalities I have to deal with, and the presence of others hones my discipline and responsibility in my participation at training. Having the chance to deal with different personalities hones my people skills. Facing tougher challenges in both training and dealing with team mates makes me tougher emotionally.

Beyond the pain I experience at training and races in workouts and team relationships, sport participation has increasingly contributed to my well-being.

______________________

Dr. Michele Joan “Bing” Valbuena is a full-time associate professor at Silliman University. She is chair of the Psychology department. She finished her bachelor in Psychology and Master in Psychology major in Industrial/Organizational Psychology at Silliman. She later pursued a Master of Humanities in Women Studies at St. Scholastica’s College in Manila as a scholar of the United Board for Christian Higher Education. She took her Doctor of Philosophy in Research in Sport Psychology in Melbourne, Australia. For over 15 years, she has conducted researches on women studies and sport psychology, been a trainer of various workshops on crisis intervention for victims of abuse, peace-building, conflict transformation, body movement through playback theater and sports.

Author’s email: [email protected]

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