Featured Student - Vishwanath

Vishwanath had joined the DCS course in the year 2009 to fulfill his urge to become a Sports counselor. He decided to become a sports counselor as he felt the need for someone who can understand a sports-person without looking only at the competition side.

He had a deep desire to help people from a very long time and he also had reached out to many people and given them the right directions. He had a group of friends who were positive thinkers and they occasionally held talks about positive thinking and life skills called 'Shift', Vishwanath would readily attended these talks and seminars to gain more insight on these subjects. A lot of introspection also helped him in building up these skills, reading books relating to positive thinking and personality development also interested him.

When he came to Bangalore he engaged himself into meditation and also became a member of KPSSI, which conducted many lectures relating to these topics. He had also started reading books on Para-psychology. He believed that having knowledge about the past life was important for people and in some cases had also helped them. Many people had settled down and understood their present life better after their exposure to the past life.

Though Vishwanath was interested in the field of counseling he could not find time to practice the same due to his busy work schedule. In the year 2009 he found an advertisement in the newspaper about the counseling course at Banjara Academy and decided to take up the course for counseling. As a part of the course he had to do various voluntary works which he found was very satisfying and fulfilling.

He also mentioned that sports was a varied field than the others and the importance of having a sports counselor is a must. He always felt that a sports-person had to face many challenges, this was not restricted only to the field but outside it too. As a sports counsellor he had to convince many parents that the child had chosen the correct field and the child will have to face them even if he looses in a particular game, this could become a challenge to the child as he will have to answer to their questions. This Vishwanath, thought will even hinder his self confidence. Another set of challenge that the child may face is from the coach, or from the sports committee. He will have to learn how to handle the pressures given by the coach, politics and the regional biases made my the various sports committees.

Vishwanath also mentioned that a sports-person may not be able to share his disappointments with a coach or his parents, hence there is a requirement of a counselor in sports. Only a counselor will have enough knowledge as to find out why the person is falling short of success, it will be helpful to him as he will be in a position to share his inner most feelings with the counselor.

The advantages of joining Banjara Academy were numerous. Some of them he mentioned were he learnt being non-judgmental, acceptance people as they were, listening without interruption, sharing, empathy and the most important was not giving advice.

Giving a few of his experiences when he was doing voluntary services in M.S.Ramaiah Hospital, he mentioned about a sports coach who had a troubled life. He had a lot of pressure in life and had lost his kidney. Vishwanath spoke to him which gave him an outlet to pour out his thoughts.

Another experience form which he learned how the thoughts can cause physical illness was when he met two boys who were very young but had lost both the kidneys due to pressures which they were not able to handle.

In sports it is very important to cope with the pressure and anxiety. For example when an important match is about to begin, it is very normal for the players to become very anxious and they will also feel the pressure. At this point it becomes very important for the player to know how he should relax so that he can concentrate on the game and put in his 100%. For this the psychological aspects such as goal setting, relaxation, self talk, coping with pressure, controlling anxiety etc will help.

Finally Viswanth said that he is also doing another course which will help him in this field of sports counseling and he also mentioned that sports is such a beautiful activity that has many advantages, but it was very unfortunate that the sportsmen have to face many issues to fulfill their dreams and only a sports counsellor can help them, as they can easily know the root causes for a sportsman's issues.

Viswanath is also a columnist for the Kannada paper 'Hosa Digantha'.
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