Knowledge
National Sports Day: Praveen Raju on Training PV Sindhu, Designing a Curriculum For Pandemic & Importance of Physical Activity
I have been a sports lover all my life. I played Snooker at the national level and Badminton at the university level. In those days, the pressure on academics was so much that I did not get to pursue the sports I loved so much.
We started construction of Suchitra Badminton Academy in 2015 and inaugurated the 13,000 sq. ft facility with 7 courts on November 1st, 2016. To augment the school’s facilities, I thought we should build a state-of-the-art indoor multi-purpose hall. A few months before the inauguration, I got the idea that we should start a world-class badminton centre for professional athletes before and after school hours. We decided to go ahead and to support this, we started a high-performance strength and conditioning centre, hired two Indonesian coaches, two local coaches and two physios to start the academy.
Within six months, we were able to attract arguably the greatest female athlete of India, PV Sindhu, to come and do her strength and conditioning at Suchitra. We took on Sindhu 46 days before the 2017 World Championship in which she lost an epic battle with Nozomi Okuhara in the finals. The game lasted for 110 minutes and as Mr. Prakash Padukone rightly put it, “I would personally consider this as the best ever performance by an Indian sportsperson of either gender in the history of India sport.” Sindhu and her father, Arjuna awardee Mr. PV Ramana, were convinced that her physical fitness is the reason for her on-court endurance and decided to continue training at Suchitra. We have been training her for three years now. We help her in her on-court corrections, strategy, video analysis and recovery. Our trainer also routinely travels with her for various tournaments abroad. She travels 60 km each way every day to come to Suchitra. We take pride in shaping India’s only Badminton World Champion and world record holder for winning the most number of World Championship medals.
We are India’s first sports school for badminton and a Khelo India centre with over 120 athletes and proud to help out many athletes in the top 1-20 in India. We have 15 coaches, 5 strength and conditioning specialists and 3 physiotherapists. Our athletes benefit from our sand training, step training, uphill training, ice bath, dry needling and cup therapy facilities. We train athletes from 20 states across India and we have players routinely coming from USA, Germany, UK, Thailand and Belgium.
I have been a sports lover all my life. I played Snooker at the national level and Badminton at the university level. In those days, the pressure on academics was so much that I did not get to pursue the sports I loved so much. Today, it gives me great pleasure to see our athletes perform at the highest level and the satisfaction that I get is immense.
During this difficult time, we have taken the help of some of our trainers to design a sports curriculum for children during the pandemic. The curriculum covers all the aspects of our prescribed outcomes and it is a full-body workout using body weight and readily available materials at home.
The positive impact of sport stretches is far beyond the physical. Exercise and sporting activity can have significant knock-on effects on other areas of a child’s academic performance. Sports help in staying healthy, being disciplined, building team-work skills, and developing leadership skills and also, staves off depression. In today’s world, the pressure of academics, lack of physical activity and the time children spend on devices is seeding the greatest pandemic that we would be seeing in our lifetime. It is estimated that by 2030, depression would be a leading cause of death in the world. One way to address it is by making sure children are involved in some sort of at least three times a week.
In my view, schools who have good infrastructure should open up their facilities to children either recreationally or professionally. After all, day schools use their facilities for 200 days a year and only for six hours! If all of us do so, India’s problem of a lack of sports facilities can be tackled overnight. The government and the boards should mandate this. The Government of India started accrediting schools with a Fit India 3 and 5-star ratings. One of the criteria to be selected as a Fit India 5-star school is to open the school’s facility to the local community. This is a welcome move. Children’s health is our nation’s wealth.
About the author
Praveen Raju is the founder of Suchitra Academy. He holds India #7 position in the Under 21 snooker championship and represented Osmania University in Badminton.