What experience and time away from my sport has taught me

I can give you a different story every time you ask me, what is experience.

Naturally, as a squash player, I now refer to experience in sports.

And now, even though I was a late bloomer (starting squash at 16) I still have some years under my belt, and I filled those 10 years with a lot of squash and sqiuash travels. I am not the young buck anymore. I am no longer the underdog. I am no longers the talent (never was actually). I am no longer the junior. I now have juniors chasing me, which is a weird feeling. Luckily none of them beat me yet ;) hehe

The last year, being forced to take time away from practicing the sport I love, I have been working a lot mentally, with breaking everything down. I take inspiration from the greats such as Matthew, Ashour and Willstrop amongst others who have been longer periods away from the sport injured, but has come back greater, stronger and better than before. What does that mean? What did they do while they were gone?

I do not know for sure, I can only guess. But this is my experience.

- Time away will give you fresh motivation
- It makes you look at your sport from a different angle. You will look at the bigger picture. You will look up, instead of down on your small goal you are working on at the moment.
- Its easier to realize why you started the sport in the first place.

I think its good for any athlete to take a prolonged "holiday" like this, but no one will, in this 10 000 hr rule society, where only the ones that work the hardest, sweat the most and bleed the game will succeed. Still, time and time again, I see athletes coming back stronger after injury and time off. The problem is that I think it kind of HAVE to be forced. If not you will not come out of the "zone" that traps you inside the game.

Now, the point was....

Experience if you would ask me today, would be the realization on how to maximize potential in a time where I did not. I spent the better of 5 years hacking away at my weaknesses. The first 5 years, I enjoyed the game and I tried to play as much as possible to catch up with the rest of squash Norway where they played years longer than me. The latter part of my career I tried to fix a broken technique, with less success. I tried to move more efficiently around the court, by moving slower, since I tend to over rush my movement and therefore overrun the ball.

None of this worked out. I understood I needed to take a step back to take 2 steps forward, but it was too difficult. I realized now that if I rather would hav buildt up under my strength, I would have reached longer than I did in my professional career. I am a physical player. I am strong, fast and have a nice deaf touch on the ball, well used for drops and lobs. For a long time, I would rather spend my time, trying to hit the ball harder and harder on the backhand side, especially the volley. I tried to match the top boys  in training by moving slower. No need to mention. That failed.

What got me my norwegian titles was my strengths, not my weaknesses. What produced my best performances in the European Championships was my fitness and focus. Everytime I was obsessed with minor details of what I could not do... I failed.

With mentally fighting to push a 300kg Rock uphill, it took its toll and it burned me out. motivation = gone, fun=gone ...blah*

It only took me 13 years to realize that I could rather roll that stone around the hill. Rather use my strengths instead of my weknesses. Just the mere realization of this made me happier and more relaxed.

On top of this, there are tactics and gameplans I have been working on with my coach that has simmered and slow cooked like a nice beef stroganoff in my head. I feel I have a better understanding of it all and the game as a whole. I am now just looking to get healthy again so I can put it all to life. The big question is if my body and personal life will allow it. That was what pulled me out of squash to begin with. You never know what curveballs life will throw at you.

BUT

I had my first hit in a long time at Squashcity (Where Nicol sneaked a few inches off the tin since last time) where I did not feel sick after. I did not have any setbacks these few weeks, so it is looking up :)

Take away message: Its not all about focusing on your weaknesses and lesser sides of yourself. It is important to be aware of them. But treat yourself to look at your positives ones in a while. See why you are great. What makes you better than the rest. What got you where you are. Draw the confidence from it, highlight it and enjoy it :)

Happiness?

The worst thing about this whole EBV/CFS/ME/PVF/PEM abbreviation hell I've been going through the last 18 months is not the physical aspect.

You would imagine an athlete in one of the most challenging sports in the world, whos strength is being able to play 3 matches per day and be fit enough to win the final on Sunday, would feel horrified by struggling to walk stairs. And yes, it sucks to be sick for 2 months only after walking 3 flights of stairs. But, ok. Thats reality. The new reality. Adapt.

It took 8 months before my metabolism dropped. By then I had lost 5 kgs of muscle. After this, the burger belly started showing. So did the 5 kgs I lost, only this time it was fat. The infamous "Daddy belt" which I swore I would never see.

Around this time (not because I was getting fat) I faced my greatest challenge....... my head. It was not because I missed playing, being out of the game and just wanting to do something I couldn't. I missed out on several national and international championships, and that did not feel good, but I physically couldn't, so I accepted it.

I think the problem was that I have been used to sporting all day every day sice I was 4 years old. I had a maximum of 6 months break when I was younger due to overtraining once and groin injury the second time. I had always had a constant rush of endorphine and dopamine from training. I was never the stressed one, never the worried one, never anxious. ever!

Then your body goes cold turkey. No more activity. whatsoever. Just lie as still as you can, for however long it takes. Maybe 3 weeks, maybe 3 months, maybe 3 years. No one knows. Looking on Youtube and medical websites you see there is no cure, it is chronic and its the death of any sports career. My cortisol started running crazy, my HPA-axis crashed. Welcome stress, anxiety, depression and big loads of feeling sorry for myself. Super sensitive to any opposition, snapping and overreacting to the smallest things, aggression, insomnia, all that fun stuff. And in the middle of it I know that these feelings have no foundation. I have nothing to REALLY worry about. I can walk, work, function. I have family friends, food and a roof. Nothing to really feel down about. So I feel sorry for myself for feeling sorry for myself.

So after a year of trying to desperately return to activity, I gave myself a few good months of doing nothing. I have in this period suffered from severe spleen pain, but this subsided last week. I noticed the stress hormones calmed down as well. I took this as a good sign and went on court for the first time in ages and hit a few balls. It could not have been more than 20 minutes, and not a foot was lifted off the ground. Only my arms flailing randomly with a racket which normally describes my technique quite accurately.

It was like a shot of drugs. A perfect dosage of ecstacy that went straight to the brain and unblocked that clot blocking my flow. I felt actually happy. A strange sensation I had not felt in over a year.. I am an addict. Squash is too big of a part of my life. If 20 min of whacking a rubber ball gives me a fix for the week, how big of a junkie was I before. I have addiction in my genetics, and some family members get their fix elsewhere. But this is my drug. Fuck you Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I will return. In one form or another

Why David Palmer is full off S**t

In 2011 the World Open Squash was held in Rotterdam. After the first few days of qualifying I was one of the players not making it into the main draw, losing to Davide Bianchetti. A few days later, as the squash nerd I am, I arranged a hit at the same club as the championship was being held with a friend who also participated but did not qualify.

Before starting a friendly game to relieve any frustration pressure from losing the match a few days before, I went to the toilet to relieve myself of a different kind of pressure.

Midst of my pressure session (squash pun intended), someone fiercely jabbed the handle of the toilet door, scaring me into cutting my project in half.

He said he needed to go really bad.

I said he could use the other toilet upstairs.

He said he was playing a really important match and he did not have time to run upstairs as he just finished his knock up and only had a 90 second poo break.

Now I can not perform under pressure like that, so I left my project half done.

Now how am I going to react to a situation like this. Start an argument with a heavy methane odour in the air. Complain about invasion of my privacy and cosytitme. Am I going to tell him off through the toilet door?

I opened the door and saw a familiar face, and before I could figure out who he was, he rushed past me. This giant of a squash player probably something in the lines of:"I really had to go, mate", I let it be, because seeing who it was, I am sure it really WAS an important match.

"Gotta go, really gotta go"

David Palmer just chased me out of a private toilet to take advantage of a warm seat and a lack of toilet paper. How he solved that problem, I dont know as I am pretty sure he played his match with both socks on.

Luckily theres a kind of happy end to this story of dirty socks and unfinished business.

Because of my gentleman like behaviour, I am sure 2 kgs or more left Mr.Palmer in those 90 seconds, giving him the perfect Weight-to-Strength ratio to scrape the few last points in an epic 5 game thriller against Thierry Lincou. This set him up to play in The Luxor theatre on the glasscourt in the quarterfinals against Karim Darwish.

David lost the quarterfinals. After the match he announced his retirement from professional squash. I was lucky enough to experience it from the front row A small tear left my eye after his speech, because I knew even though he did not thanked me in his speech, I knew I had something to do with bringing him onto the big stage for his grand finale. no shit

You're welcome Dave