Page 47 - DAIS - DAISPORA ISSUE04

PICK UP A the very act of playing

a sport is an equal split

SPORT between the body

& the mind

coordination, foster social skills, build confidence
AND inculcate a healthy habit! We often teach our
children about success, how to achieve it and how to
celebrate it. Yet, what about teaching them how to
Pick up a sport! We started December off with a Liverpool vs. Man. City game, we are fail? How better to learn to be resilient than from
living in an era of a Murray Djokovic partnership—yes you read that right, cricket veterans losing to someone who played better than you?
are currently marinating in the test tour happening down under, and tennis loyalists are
still hating on pickleball. Our intention for this introduction is not just the December We see most of the world today through the screen.
sports briefing, but these are talking points that would spark conversation in most rooms. Information is at the click of a button and loved ones
I say our, because my partner today on this article is my pickleball partner, a current DAIS are too—and so the world is smaller but our world is
IBDP student, Anhad Gill. also becoming insular. Sport helps break this barrier. It counters sedentary behaviour,
common to the nuclear and insular lifestyles of today. It provides opportunity for
Anhad and I met via our fathers, and we’re part of a pickleball crew that ranges from ages socialisation—it gave us an entirely different set of friends, ones that saw us with fresh
17 years (Anhad) to 60. We meet on the weekends and spend early hours of our eyes and a new perspective. For Anhad and I, playing a sport with our fathers brought
Saturdays and Sundays battling it out over several games of pickleball. The breakfast that back a core memory of our childhood, through the new lens of the people and players we
follows is a happy truce. Our community is a family, we may not know each other’s are today, but most of all it gave us something to truly bond together over.
anniversaries but there is something special about a friendship based on sport. For
one—it’s what gets us all jumping out of bed on the weekend and racing to the club to At a recent alumni event, a fellow alumnus Harshjit Sethi, briefly dwelled upon the job
play. Shared victories and defeats on the court have forged a lifelong bond between us. market changing in the face of AI. We’re on the cusp of a complete transformation of the
Trusting your teammate on court forms the foundation for a friendship that lasts far way we live with the age of AI. Artificial intelligence takes large amounts of data to identify
beyond the last game. patterns and trends— and there is food for thought here for younger alumni and young
parents reading this. YOU can ride this wave early by positioning yourself on either
Cawas Billimoria is a sports legend, and his face is one that is inextricably tied to every side—the team that engineers AI to enhance performance, or even as the player that
DAIS student’s memory of school. When we asked him what Judo did for him, he told us actually implements it on the court.
of it’s threefold effect—mental, physical and emotional, and I was instantly taken back to
my IGCSE P.E. classroom! “Take two sets of people that are stressed, and ask one to go Meanwhile for us old codgers with our not-so-gelatinous knees—With our AI assistants
and play a sport whilst the other set acts as the control; and what do you see? Levels of getting better and better at doing our jobs for us, perhaps we can enjoy the rest of our
stress far lower in the group that’s gone out and played.—That’s just one of the many lives a bit more. Perhaps we have convinced you to pick up a sport.
things that sports does for you”. He is absolutely right, of course. The endorphin rush and
the dopamine and serotonin hit that follows , mitigates cortisol, thus reducing stress and
anxiety.

Now, we have dwelled briefly on friendship and emotional well-being, but the very act of Avantika Ahuja & Anhad Gill
playing a sport is an equal split between the body and the mind. For our readers that are Class of 2012 Class of 2026
young parents, kicking/throwing/hitting a ball—pick your poison, forms the bedrock of a
core memory with your child. As a happy coincidence they also pick up hand-eye