Sanjeevan Sandhu
It feels so good to be here. The city of dreams…
Mumbai hits different. By ‘hits’, I mean literally as soon as you arrive in the city. Whether it be the humid sea breeze, the high rise buildings or the sheer busyness once you pass through airport security. It’s something that’s unique to this city and I’ve learned to love it.
It’s a milestone moment for Desert Vipers as our schools programme commences. We are here to work with DY Patil International School Worli and All Heart Cricket Academy. Two respected institutions who proudly contribute to Mumbai and Indian growth.
Time to rock and roll.
First up is DY Patil International School in Worli and a special thank you to Ms. Pooja Patil for the invite. Ms. Kinnari and her team served up a wonderful welcome for myself, Amey and Hitesh. Every staff member we met offered us refreshments…at least twice! For an 8.30am start with Grades 10 – 12, the setup was already complete by time of our 7.30am arrival. That says it all.
For the 80+ students in grades 10 – 12 we delivered An Introduction to Mental Fitness assembly. Within our classic icebreaker, my favourite of the three questions is about a dream job. Two students bravely volunteered in front of their peers: one is aiming to be a physiotherapist / sports trainer for a Formula One driver, and another is aiming for a specialism in child psychology for those who have come from underprivileged backgrounds.
That set the tone and from that point onwards, I was impressed with the camaraderie between learners and the amount of questions students asked post-session. From a student sharing about an animal-head dissection experiment, to gold-medal sailing aspirations, this cohort had it covered. Already I’m excited to learn how they get on.
Next, we were whisked upstairs to the lovely library. A nostalgic setting for the 30+ parents. After more than 7 years working with parents, this was up there with the most special. To kick off, we enquired about what the parents wanted to gain from our time together. They are the ones who made the effort to be there and they engaged right away. From practical tips to deal with their child’s disappointment to balancing academic and sporting ambition to social media and beyond. Time flew by and combining ideas from Vipers and fellow parents, it ended on a fulfilling note. A headline for this could have been: in a world where information and misinformation is so prevalent, parents working with the teaching staff to provide a genuinely safe space is the absolute priority.
Finally, we made our way to All Heart cricket academy for another Introduction to Mental Fitness. Special shoutout to Mr.Tejas who ensured the cricketers and coaching group were well primed. From the moment we started, what shone through was deep curiosity. An example of this is how the senior cricketers (aged 17+) were the first to contribute and ask questions in a group setting. This crucially normalises the topic for peers plus the younger athletes in the room, who are traditionally more conscious of judgement. Dissecting the approach of Ben Stokes, Hardik Pandya, Virat Kohli and beyond ensured the boys were left well equipped with practical tools for them to improve their mental fitness. Post-session, the respect from the cricketers to form a line and one by one ask specific questions about building an innings, responding to being hit for a boundary, disclosing injuries, waiting for the ‘magic moment’, dealing with social media trolling, taunts from parents and beyond.
What a thrilling time in the city. Each of those sessions could have lasted 3 x the duration. This shows the thirst in Indian societies to learn more about mental fitness and we will be back soon to quench this!
Thank you Mumbai for hosting us and we are getting ready to return soon.
#fangsout
