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Women’s hockey team: Tips from ex-air force pilot to take wings
Handling pressure, especially in the dying moments of a match, has proved a major issue for Indian hockey teams.
What is similar between a fighter pilot and a hockey player? Though their jobs are as different as chalk and cheese, Sjoerd Marijne, chief coach of the Indian women’s hockey team sees one major thing that is common—both must know how to handle pressure, make split second decisions.
“If you are in a war and you have to fly, you cannot make mistakes because it is a matter of life and death. Though hockey is not about life and death but winning and not winning, we also can’t afford to make mistakes. Dealing with that pressure, pressure of qualifying, of winning, is special,” says Dutchman Marijne.
Handling pressure, especially in the dying moments of a match, has proved a major issue for Indian hockey teams. To improve his players’ ability to hold their nerve, Marijne recently invited a retired Air Force officer to conduct a session in Bengaluru, where the team is preparing for the Olympic Test Event in Tokyo slated later this month.
Some aspects of handling pressure were handled by Australian player Fergus Kavanagh when he held a clinic for defenders while Wg Cdr (retd) Abhishek Sinha addressed other issues.
“We are doing psychology sessions twice a week, we are training the body with specific skills on the pitch; for the mind too, we have to do the same. We have to keep training it, we can’t do one session once a month and it would be fine. For the mind, we have to keep training in different ways.
“We had a session with this Air Force pilot on how to deal with pressure. He had some great, great stories (to tell). All these will eventually help in making the team stronger in every aspect (of the game),” Marijne said over phone from Bengaluru at the weekend.
Taekwondo lessons
Besides the special camps for goalkeepers and defenders, the squad was also given lessons in taekwondo to help improve coordination and balance. “One of the things you need to do is force your opponents to make mistakes when in possession. Taekwondo is a sport in which balance is very important, and if you are not well-balanced, you will lose your match,” said Marijne.
One of the things on his to-do list is to hold sessions like shooting for his players as he feels it will help them improve concentration and precision.
The 45-year-old Dutch coach guided the team to silver in the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta and to the Tokyo Olympic Qualifying Tournament last month.
India will be up against the likes of world No 2 Australia, China (11th) and hosts Japan (14th) in the 2020 Olympics Test event (Aug 17-21) and Marijne is looking forward to it. India will get to play 4-5 tough matches in the event and it will be great opportunity for the players to test the lessons learnt in the special training sessions against strong opponents.
