How basketball stirred up my EI skills

Episode 1: Don’t be afraid to lose the ball

Although I actually started my basketball training in June 2020, I prefer to consider the real start to have been in August 2020.

That was when I began working with a new coach. I knew nothing about basketball at the time, and when I started the idea was that cool tall men play it, and you need to shoot the ball through a hoop. That was all I knew. The new coach explained a lot more to me, but first things first: I had to get used to the physical intensity the previous coaches offered and wanted more. I wanted to get tired enough after each workout that I could literally feel the exhilarating rush of endorphins moving through my muscles.

I got what I wanted. And as a bonus, I discovered that basketball is not only a cool kind of sport (which it is, no doubt!) but a playground for stretching the way one’s mind works. As magic does happen, every workout fed my thoughts, and I often enjoyed reflecting on what I had practiced after I was done with basketball and before getting down to my remote work as an IT project manager.

My small project was sliding down to the deadline, and I couldn’t do anything about it. At the end of the sprint, it turned out that we were inevitably failing to demo anything. All the planned features appeared to be complex enough and critical to the further success of our time-sensitive MVP project. Pieces of work were all started but nothing had been completed. I felt like the captain of the boat that had become caught in a storm: I had to let it go but be steady and keep the rudder under control.

In the middle of that project crisis the words of my coach, “Don’t be afraid to lose the ball,” sounded fairly philosophical. My mind immediately drew the analogy with work and life. And I think at that point I started to correlate what was happening with me on the court with my emotions at work. What’s more, it was a new kind of fun for me.

Episode 2: Hidden body capabilities

Once you learn the fundamentals, those same fundamentals turn around and laugh at you. Some simple training movements appeared so weird to me that my body resisted practicing them on the fly. Sometimes I felt like something was blocking me, and I wanted to overcome those blocks very much. Almost every morning I went out early to a nearby court to practice weird jumps and leg work when nobody could watch me and I could feel uninhibited.

When I practiced something new and did it right I felt delighted. It was a kind of discovery to me to get to know that I could do something that seemed impossible on the first try. My coach used to stare at me with no clue what that surprised shine in my eyes was about. Of course, those ball drills were all routine for him.

The struggle was with simple layups and crossovers. Layups were about legs and crossovers were about hands, as funny as it sounds. Each time was a stop for my brain to recall which leg comes first, which second, and which should go up. This memorizing naturally took time as I needed to think about my leg movements when I was doing layups on either the right or left side. Then I tried running without thinking and my legs did me wrong. My coach asked which leg was first and I couldn’t tell because I was not focused on that. Those questions were annoying. After a while, once I learned the trick to get my muscles to memorize what I was doing and at this point, my layups started getting better and better.

Crossovers were easier in that I didn’t have to remember which was the leading hand because I could start with either.

What about the emotions here? It is about distinguishing and recognizing details and putting them into practice, which in time becomes fully automatic and unconsciously controlled. It is about changing habits through effort. I believe we can manage our emotions in a similar way.

Episode 3: Unlocking the universe

As my basketball practice was becoming not just a kind of physical exercise I got interested in everything around it and realized that it’s a whole culture. There are leagues, communities, clubs, stars, achievements, world-known acknowledgments, championships, wins, and losses. There are athletes, with beautiful mindsets and with a sincere and passionate love for basketball.

It felt exciting to touch this world. Early this year I started practicing on an amateur team and playing 3x3 and full-court basketball. I felt like I was in heaven! What I used to watch online only, what I couldn’t even grasp before, now was becoming a part of my life. All my individual practices appeared to be just a prelude to those live games on a team. It felt amazing — and still is — to recognize the movements that you had only SEEN before, be able to practice them, and overall, getting to know what it’s all about!

Later in March 2021, they allowed fans to attend games of our Kharkiv pro team, Sokoly, after a long lockdown. I was so happy to watch pro games live!

I was hungry, and even more so now, to improve my novice skills, become effective on a team, play hard, become a tougher player.

Episode 4: A streak of frustrations

It was the hard part. The irony is that although I was training harder and harder, my contribution in our amateur games stayed at the level of — zero. It felt like somebody up there was testing me. I did start making progress in my individual workouts, but when it came to the team practice I scored nothing. My throws, if they happened, were all misses. I didn’t know how to handle the ball when I was getting it in the game; however, my ball handling was way better when I was practicing on my own.

I started hating my performance but still loved basketball and loved how my body felt after each practice even though my outcome was a streak of frustrations. How could I crack this pattern and get through it?

I decided that I needed to take it easier. It was nonsense to blame myself after every team practice or game, so I tried to concentrate on the areas where I had improved. Well, I also looked for somebody to motivate me, turn on my courage, and believe in what I was doing. In fact, it was a shame. It was all about myself, no matter what somebody told or didn’t tell me.

Episode 5: Keep going!

Sometimes the pattern breaks apart just with time. Because it becomes obsolete, you are fed up with thinking about it, and you just want to do what you are doing. Whatever. And this was what happened to me. After a while, my passes got better, and I even started scoring a few points in a game. Of course, I loved the feeling. It was even hilarious when you try to be all focused on practicing and then when playing, the result comes automatically — with no thinking ahead or worrying.

Who knows, it could probably be my natural susceptibility, but all the way through my basketball experience, life was an emotional rollercoaster. I should admit, it still is, probably with less vulnerable ups and downs. I’m learning to accept losses gracefully and celebrate wins.

Quoting MJ,

“If you do the work you get rewarded. There are no shortcuts in life.”

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