This t2 chat with sports scientist and high-performance coach Shayamal Vallabhjee, in the run-up to the release of his just-launched Breathe Believe Balance (Pan Macmillan India; Rs 350), was delayed due to some unavoidable circumstances. When we finally connected, Shayamal inquired whether all was ok. “It was something trivial but unavoidable,” we told him. “With so much happening around us, trivial is good now,” said Shayamal. Born in South Africa but an “Indian through and through”, the Mumbai-based Shayamal, who has worked with all the major leagues like IPL, ISL, Pro Kabaddi, I-League and a bunch of renowned athletes, spoke with both precision and depth on spirituality, the art of surrendering and why one should never retire.
Breathe Believe Balance must have taken you quite a bit of time. It’s so detailed…
It’s super detailed, yeah. My work sits at the confluence of the body and the mind, science, spirituality and psychology. I waited for five years for somebody who gave me the luxury of what I wanted to write. The book has got stories and anecdotes going back in my life almost 20-25 years. Seventeen years ago I was in the temple as monk. The writing process took me 14 months, every single day. I have been journaling for 20 years… quite intense.
How has journaling helped you?
It’s helped me phenomenally. In Chapter One I have written that one of the real processes to raising your vibration energy is through the process of gratitude journaling. It is an avenue to get your emotions off your chest and on to a piece of paper. It removes the need to have someone to speak to. For me what is most therapeutic is going back and reflecting on where you were and how you have grown as a person. Sometimes, you may not have healed from the pain, but just looking at your choice of words and how you have described that pain is in itself very healing.
A lot of the book speaks on having grown up in the apartheid, in a really discriminated environment. I was a phenomenally angry child. The person who is discriminated against has to work 10 times harder and even that doesn’t guarantee anything. Twenty years later when I reflect about it, I am able to talk about that pain slightly differently. It took me 20 years to view that differently. I am able to say that those double standards helped ingrain in me a work ethic that has helped me for the rest of my life.
I left home five times. I had no money and was borrowing and eating. It ingrained in me a deep survival technique and taught me the appreciation of work. The one thing I laugh about is my relationship with my mum and dad. They always tried to protect me from doing anything that exposed me to discrimination. Sports was venturing out of their comfort zone. That discouragement was born out of love, but I as a young boy didn’t see it that way. I was a continuous rebel. Today, every single night I speak to my parents about an hour and we laugh at what that relationship was like. Spending time in the ashram, spirituality… gave me the clarity to see this.
Given your varied experiences, do you often feel that it is a miracle where you are in your life right now?
Hundred per cent, it is a miracle. I am a deeply spiritual person. I used to live in the Hare Krishna temple. I am fully surrendered. Everything is a mercy from a higher energy in some shape and form. I grew up in a village where there were no more than 5,000 people. I have travelled to 127 different countries. I worked with Oprah (Winfrey), Rafael Nadal, Mahesh Bhupathi, Sania Mirza, the Indian cricket team and the South African cricket team… there is no sportsman in my family….
Surrendering is not easy. How has it enriched your life?
It’s made me exceptionally tranquil. Surrender is a day-to-day process. It’s easy to surrender when things are going well. When things are not going well, you question god’s intention. I lost my company and it was an extremely painful journey. In the last one month, my best friend passed away in a bike accident, two days after that my spiritual master landed up with Covid-19 and then he passed away 10 days later. A day after he landed in hospital, my father had a liver infection and he spent 41 days in the ICU. Through the process of journaling, chanting , spirituality, I find strength. You are surrendering by saying that I understand and acknowledge that my mind, brain and eye can only see and process a tiny amount of information and I have the inability to connect the dots and understand right now. So, I choose not to question with anger. With time, knowledge and experience, may be you’ll be able to connect the dots in a more beautiful way.
Were you always spiritual?
My first real guru was my grandad. He was a pious man. I grew up in a spiritual family. We are servants of Lord Krishna. The reason I moved into the temple was when I wasn’t being able to manage the pain of discrimination, I felt that the relationship with my parents had shut that door to going back home to sort that pain out.
And, it’s changed your life forever…
In a manner that you cannot understand. I am deeply connected to the ISKCON. I can walk into any city in the world and if there is a temple there, I have a place to stay and a plate of food. That loneliness never exists.
You decided to be a sports scientist when there was no real understanding about your profession…
There was zero understanding. There were 20 people in my class (University of Durban-Westville now called University of KwaZulu-Natal). I am talking 1996-97. Even I didn’t understand it, but I was not ready to leave a career in sports. I knew very well that the manner in which the people of colour are being treated is wrong and that the only way to change a system was to stay in the system. The only way I could stay in the system was study something that would have kept me there. Sports science was really that.
The performance parameters are changing by the day. How do you keep the athletes motivated?
My predominant job with an athlete is to manage anxiety and pressure. When the mind is still, you have more options available in a high-pressure situation. The very first Tour de France was, I think, cycled over some 50-60 days and it was some 2,400km. Today, they have added 1,000-200km to the race distance and they have removed 20 days. And, people are still finishing it faster. That’s how sports is evolving.
A child turns professional at 18 and women in certain sports turn professional at 16. The mind of a child is so fragile and impressionable and sadly, there isn’t too much time or energy invested in helping them understand themselves. That is why they break so easily. The athletes who make it to the top have parents travelling with them and supporting them. Sania Mirza is a classic example. Her father still travels with her. You look at Roger Federer, Serena and Venus Williams, Andre Agassi.
And the shelf life is that much…
That is for many reasons. The games are moving faster. It is hard for a 28-year-old to compete with an 18-year-old.
So, do you think we have seen the G.O.A.T.s?
Do I think we’ll have someone at the top of the game as long as there have been (in the past)? The answer is no. A Federer has dominated the game over a decade. A Rafa Nadal has won 12 French Opens. The churn at the bottom is so much faster right now, records will keep crumbling because of the frequency in which the game is played.
Don’t you think the magic is missing?
The magic is missing because we are inundated with so much. Sports right now is not viewed as science, but entertainment. Every sporting league is interested in making someone a star who is the head of the circus. Sadly, no one talks about the youngsters…. In this world of mental health problems, how can anyone assume that professional athletes don’t have mental health problems? This is by-product of a system that is toxic.
You work with a lot of corporates. What is your take on young people planning early retirements?
It is a double-edged sword. Some will get it right. Most won’t. Growth and experience is a process of self-discovery, knowledge and experience. There’s only so much you can do to fast-track that growth curve. Balance in life is not a linear process. I feel those who need a retirement age don’t have balance in their work-life. There is a phenomenal body of research which shows that when you retire, your body and mind degenerate more than ever. Nobody retires in a Blue Zone, where people live the longest and the happiest. Having said that, you can very well set a date where you can say that by this date, I’ll be financially stable enough to dictate the number of hours I want to work.
And, you are a marathon runner. How has running shaped your life?
That’s my sport right now and I love it. I would average at about two-three full marathons a year. On a bad month, I would run about 70-80km and on a good month, 100-120km. I started running in 1999. It’s meditation, clarity and way to stay fit. I have been the same waist-size for 20 years.
