Ranked #1 in men’s tennis in Asia in the under-14 category; the first player from India to be included in the World Junior Team; co-founder of the Shaishya Tennis Academy, Gujarat, India; these are some of the laurels that Devinder Singh Bhusari has feathered in his cap. In addition to being a very successful tennis player, this young prodigy also received an MBA degree from one of the premier B-schools in India. What keeps him inspired and grounded amidst success and his current work is meditation.

Devinder-Singh-Bhusari.jpg

Devinder Singh Bhusari

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 <h4 style="text-align: justify">
 Ace tennis player and coach
 DEVINDER SINGH BHUSARI continues to
 share his insights on the right perspective to sport. Here he talks about
 how to manage stress and pressure on and off court, and brings a whole new
 dimension to the art of competing and the role of parents in encouraging
 their children to accomplish their dreams.
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 Q: What does health and fitness mean to you?
 
 
 DSB: One of the best parts of my journey in Shaishya is that I also deal
 with the coaching of adults. By adults I mean anyone who is over 18 and
 who is learning or playing tennis just for the social or fitness part of
 it. I see so many people take to sport for fitness and wellness – to keep
 the body fit. When I say ‘fitness’ or ‘wellness’, there is of course the
 physical part; you exercise your whole body to ensure that you are able to
 use it very well throughout the day. The other part of wellness, which
 people often miss out, is the mental or the emotional part. I see so many
 players who come to us in the morning to play a competitive set and if
 they lose they are in a bad mood throughout the day. And actually they
 play tennis to start off the day in a good mood. So these are misplaced
 priorities, you know, misdirected ambitions.
 
 
 If you watch tennis matches, sometimes you will see players with a frown
 on their face and clenched muscles. You can see the tension written all
 over their faces. I keep telling my students, “Why can’t you sing a song
 between points?” or “Why can’t the racquet become a guitar for a moment?”
 Why can’t you maintain a sense of humor in the middle of a match?
 
 
 
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 Q: That’s such a beautiful perspective, especially towards sport. Can
 you elaborate?
 
 
 DSB: When we talk off-court, the kids who come to me for counseling share
 that they feel a lot of pressure. Normally the fear is of losing. So one
 of the ways they know they are handling the pressure, fear or nervousness
 well on court, is if they can maintain humor, if they can smile. The same
 applies to life also. In life, too, we have our share of challenges. Can
 we smile through them, accepting them cheerfully? So I tell my students,
 “In the middle of matches, can you smile? Or for a few seconds why don’t
 you sing a song under your breath? Because if you can maintain that
 perspective in the middle of the match, we know that you are handling
 pressure well. You are just being yourself, smiling your way through it.”
 That’s what life is all about, isn’t it? Accepting things cheerfully with
 a smile, even when they are tough. And if these kids are going to learn it
 here at such a young age, they will be very well prepared for life – which
 is the beauty of any sport. It prepares you for life.
 
 
 Q: Well, stress is synonymous with sport today all over the globe, and
 this is such a lovely perspective – to keep it light and humorous. Is
 there any other tip that you can share to cope with the stress and
 pressure of competition and stay cool while playing tennis or any other
 sport?
 
 
 DSB: To answer this question I would like to go back a little … My father
 used to give me a lot of books and say, “Treat these books as your
 coaches.” So I used to read a lot, and two or three books have stayed with
 me. One especially stood out, and that is
 The Inner Game of Tennis. It dives deep into your personality,
 what is happening inside of you, the awareness that you should have while
 playing a match. I picked it up from an old bookstore on one of my
 birthdays and it shaped me; and I call it ‘The Bible of Teaching and
 Learning Tennis’.
 
 
 Q: Wow! Who is the author?
 
 
 DSB: It is by W. Timothy Gallwey. The author himself was a tennis player
 and the book was a bestseller. He then went on to found the Inner Game
 Institute (www.theinnergame. com), and subsequently to write other books
 called The Inner Game of Work, The Inner Game of Music with Barry
 Green, and The Inner Game of Golf. It all actually started for
 him with tennis. Another great book is
 The Mental Game – Winning at Pressure Tennis by James E. Loehr,
 who is a pioneer in sports psychology. Some of the things that I have
 shared today with you regarding the right perspective are from this book,
 and I share them in my counseling sessions. I have developed lesson plans
 for a curriculum, for group and individual counseling, from these books
 and also from my own experience, and when any child comes to me with a
 particular problem I have material ready to talk about.
 
 
 Now coming back to your question of handling stress, what I have found to
 be true is that we need some amount of stress or nervousness or pressure,
 which is positive and which is required to get things done. For example,
 if there are no deadlines no work can happen. If there were no exams, many
 kids would not study. And if there were no matches, a lot of kids may not
 think of improving themselves. So this little bit of pressure is required
 to get things going. Some amount of it shows that they care. But many kids
 are happy if they win and sad if they lose. I think that is the wrong
 equation. Not equating winning with happiness needs to be constantly
 reinforced, because parents and others will be happy if they win. If they
 lose they think something is wrong. How do we ensure that the kids are
 still happy even when they lose?
 
 
 Most stress comes because once they enter the court their whole focus is
 on winning the match, proving, “I am better than the opponent.” But there
 have been so many cases where I have won a tennis match and have not felt
 good about it because I didn’t play well. So I keep telling the kids, “If
 you’ve won a match, it only tells you that on that day you played better
 than the other person. It does not mean you are better than the other
 person. There may be other days when your opponent plays better, so you
 have to face that too.” So all this comes down to the fact that you are
 not approaching the sport with the right perspective.
 
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 At the end of it I ask them to remember that it’s just a game, and you
 play it for fun, fitness and a lot of other benefits, like better
 concentration and other physical abilities. Once they remember that it
 remains the base, and all the negative consequences and complexities they
 develop because of the sport will go away. Then they will start enjoying
 the sport a lot. I mean you can be a champion yet not enjoy the sport. You
 might as well be a happy person, maybe not playing at a high level, but
 that’s completely okay. And if you can play at a high level, always
 keeping a smile on your face, there’s nothing like it. That’s the best!
 
 
 Q: What is the role of ambition in achievement and excellence?
 
 
 DSB: In Human Resource Management we have a theory of external motivation
 vis-àvis internal motivation. When we are children, any example that
 motivates us to do better, to excel, is good, for example, seeing someone
 holding a trophy. But it’s very clear for me when I play a match, that if
 I enter with positive emotions like the desire to excel, to play my best,
 I will also not feel a lot of pressure because I am positively motivated.
 I am negatively motivated when all I want to prove is that I am better
 than the other person. So if ambition is about being number 1 – winning
 this tournament, winning this trophy – if it’s about ranking, it is going
 to put a lot of pressure on the child, which in turn can lead to a lot of
 negative emotions like anger, frustration, nervousness and everything that
 goes with it. This is also what the sports psychologists say.
 
 
 Luckily, in my case, with the books The Inner Game of Tennis and
 The Mental Game, and with meditation, the perspective changed
 from outward to inward. When I look inward – and the ancient Indian
 literature is replete with this saying – I realize that my opponent is not
 someone outside me. Even on the tennis court, my opponent is not actually
 someone who is playing against me. If my opponent is inside me, he has to
 be myself: How can I better myself? How can I defeat the negative
 tendencies that I have within me? How do I overcome the fear and
 nervousness that are there within me? Because I know that if I overcome
 these well, I will be able to respond better to the things my outside
 opponent is challenging me with.
 
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 And that is where I believe aspiration comes in, because it is to become
 something inside and not something outside. Outside, the world will take
 care of itself, but if I am becoming a better human being, if I am trying
 to change myself every day, if I am trying to become a positive person and
 find ways to overcome my own negative tendencies, ensuring that I become
 more and more positive, more and more loving and happy on the court, that
 is a sportsman’s spirit. I think those kids who are happy inside and have
 the strength inside are the only ones who are able to show good
 sportsman’s spirit in the most challenging situations.
 
 
 Q: I’m sure that we’re going to come full circle with this question. We
 have been speaking throughout about the right perspective that children
 can have towards sport. Can you share with us your ideas about the
 parents’ perspective while encouraging their children in any
 field?
 
 
 DSB: Since I am also a parent of a three-year-old boy, I keep looking to
 this time and again. I would actually like all parents to encourage their
 children to develop in more than one field, honestly speaking. Academics
 is great, but what else? And I am not speaking just as a sportsperson
 right now. The initial push always comes from the parents because at a
 very young age the child may not have the wisdom to decide. So whether it
 is sports or music or dance or robotics or any of these, the initial push
 always comes from the parents because the child looks up to their parents.
 I think it’s very natural for a child to follow in their parents’
 footsteps and also to make them happy.
 
 
 Having said this, there might be various stages that come in life. For
 example, as a parent you might be the one initiating this, but that
 doesn’t mean you will be the coach throughout. A lot of pressure comes
 when the child tries to meet parents’ expectations. Our job as parents is
 just to give them the initial push, to provide them an environment which
 is supportive, to support them financially, to support them
 wholeheartedly, even if that means investing a little time in it, and to
 be there for the child.
 
 
 You may have a vision or a dream for your child and hopefully your child
 will share that dream, but if they don’t, that should also be okay.
 Because at least that means the child is someone with their own
 perspective, who knows their strengths and what they want out of life. If
 you give them those kinds of values and raise them in the right way, the
 child will take proper direction and will do things that are great for
 them.
 
 
 Q: This dimension that you’ve brought to sport is really wonderful,
 Devinder. Is there anything else you want to add?
 
 
 DSB: We were talking about managing various duties, and this is one part
 of my life where meditation is helping me a lot. In fact, I have been
 struggling with this question for the last two years. A solution came by
 itself: doing all these duties of a Heartfulness trainer, tennis coach,
 counselor and a parent, fits in beautifully with meditation. Just being
 involved with the pursuit of the highest possible goal is taking care of a
 lot of other things.
 
 
 Q: Thank you so much, and I wish you all the very best in your sport
 and in your work as a mentor and trainer.
 
 DSB: Thank you, Meghana.
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 <a href="//www.heartfulnessmagazine.com/mental-side-game-part-1/"
 >Read previous article</a
 >
 
 
 <hr />
 <h4 style="text-align: center">Interviewed by MEGHANA ANAND</h4>
 
 <hr />

The mental side of the game - part 2

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 <h4 style="text-align: justify">
 DEVINDER SINGH BHUSARI made it big on
 the international tennis circuit. In 1999 he was ranked Asian no. 1 in the
 under 14 category, and he has the distinction of being the first ever
 Indian tennis player to be invited by the International Tennis Federation
 (ITF) to be a part of the World Junior Team to the USA in the same year.
 But then, as a young adult, he chose to take his career in tennis in a
 different direction. Today, as part of a team of experts, Devinder
 successfully coaches young talent in the Shaishya Tennis Academy in
 Gujarat, India, and offers counseling to students and their parents. This
 strengthens them in the sport and grooms them to face the challenges of
 life at large.
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 Q: What attracted you to tennis, Devinder? What led you to pursue it as
 a full-time vocation?
 
 
 DSB: My journey as a tennis player, even the career that I am pursuing
 now, started because of my father. He wanted me to be a sportsperson. He
 had wanted to be a cricketer himself, so in a way he wanted to live his
 dream through me. And he wanted me to be a cricketer, and like a lot of
 other Indian kids my journey also started with cricket at the age of
 three-and-a-half. He motivated me, and later on I went into athletics and
 then to tennis. I started playing tennis well, and I played competitive
 tennis at the international level. I think in those years growing up,
 tennis and academics were the only two things that I did.
 
 
 Later on during my postgraduate days, as I was trying to figure out what I
 was really good at or what I would like to do, my heart guided me to
 realize that I really got a kick out of training and mentoring others. So
 after I did my major in human resources, I combined the two things that I
 really wanted to do: training and mentoring young kids and adults and
 tennis. That’s why today I am in this profession of tennis coaching and
 tennis counseling.
 
 
 Q: Did you ever feel pressured, or was there any clash between what you
 wanted to do and what your father wanted you to do?
 
 
 DSB: I was motivated and inspired, actually. He used to put pictures and
 newspaper articles in front of me, or we would watch cricket matches
 together on television, and I would see the laurels that sportspersons got
 for their country and for their friends and families. My father used to
 say, “People usually come into this world and do something just to lead a
 normal life, get married, have children and so on. Your life should be
 different. You should become something.” So that message stuck in my mind
 – that he wanted me to be different, he wanted me to be a sportsperson. I
 liked sports so there was never a clash between what I wanted to do and
 what my father wanted me to do, until I was 21 or 22. I guess since birth
 I was just very obedient to my parents!
 
 
 But at the age of 21 or 22 I had the question: What do I want to do? And
 as I already explained, at the age of 22 I stopped playing competitive
 tennis and started exploring what I really wanted in life. After that
 things changed, I changed – not radically, but I found a balance between
 what my father wanted for me in life and what I want, and kind of combined
 the two. I’m leading a happy life right now!
 
 
 During my MBA, I secured a placement with Indian Oil Corporation. My
 parents were super happy but I was dissatisfied; I wanted to do more. My
 father, especially, wasn’t in favor of me quitting the job. It took six
 months to convince him to let me get into the field of tennis coaching.
 
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 Q: Oh, beautiful. So how did you go about finding that balance?
 
 
 DSB: It was very important to know what my strengths were. What is it that
 I really wanted to do in life? I had started practicing meditation at the
 age of 19, while I was doing my Bachelor of Commerce. Meditation helped me
 to be in touch with myself. Of course it helped me on the tennis court,
 but it also helped me off the tennis court, because I came to know who I
 really am, what are my strengths, and what is it that I really like doing.
 
 
 At that point in time I knew a lot of people who were really struggling
 with the question of what to do in life, whereas in my case, the more I
 came to know about myself, the more options actually started opening up.
 So I never felt lost, or had the question, “What am I going to do next?”
 In fact I knew that I could do this, or this, or this. It was all about
 choosing the best option. So that was the beauty of meditation.
 
 
 Q: What is tennis counseling? How do you do it in Shaishya?
 
 
 DSB: When I started, I joined my own coach, Shrimal Bhatt, and began
 coaching with him. At the same time I founded a small firm called Samasam,
 which means ‘balance’ in Sanskrit. Within that I incorporated the idea of
 tennis counseling. Of course now I do counselling and coaching at Shaishya
 Tennis Academy.
 
 
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 <h5 style="text-align: center">
 What I tell my students is that at the end of the day 
 it’s just a sport, it’s just a game. 
 So when I counsel the kids on the mental aspect, 
 there’s a whole set of values that I bring in.
 </h5>
 
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 In tennis, the difference between players at the highest level is a mental
 one. It is not so much physical, it is not so much technical or tactical
 as mental. Experience had taught me that very few people actually train
 kids mentally. And to train kids mentally, you don’t need to necessarily
 do it on a tennis court; it can be done off the tennis court, it can be
 done in an office or a classroom. So I started tennis counseling. In fact,
 if I look back, most of the students who have come back to me for tennis
 coaching are the ones who actually took counseling from me. I counsel the
 kids, the players, and I counsel the parents also on a variety of topics
 like the mental aspect, planning their tennis and tournament schedules,
 and even queries regarding their academics. So it’s more like being a
 tennis doctor.
 
 
 Q: Are there any specific tools or steps that you use, or a curriculum
 that you follow, while counseling your students and their parents,
 especially on the mental front?
 
 
 DSB: That’s a great question. Mostly people look at a game like tennis as
 a physical sport. But it came to me with experience that, at the end of
 the day, it is largely a mental sport. I know so many kids who play well
 during practice, but in a match they just fizzle out; they don’t perform
 well. So how to train these kids on these mental aspects?
 
 
 What I tell my students is that at the end of the day it’s just a sport,
 it’s just a game. So when I counsel the kids on the mental aspect, there’s
 a whole set of values that I bring in. The better character and
 perspective the child has towards life and towards sport, the better
 they’ll do in tournaments and be able to handle the pressure. The pressure
 in tennis, and even in life, comes from misdirected perspectives or
 misdirected ambitions. Tennis is not about winning or losing; a tennis
 match should be able to bring out the best in the child. I think that is
 also what challenges in life are all about. So in counseling sessions, all
 the time we keep reflecting back to what life is all about, and how tennis
 is just a miniature real-life situation without the real-life
 consequences. I am speaking about tennis, but it applies to all sports.
 
 
 Q: Can you share some practical examples of drastic changes in students
 through this type of counseling?
 
 
 DSB: There was an instance where one boy would get very angry on the
 court, and in certain cases he did not have the adequate work ethic or
 willpower to do the exercises. So we started meditation sessions with him
 during the last four months, and there is actually a clear improvement.
 The graph in terms of his efforts and work ethic is only moving upwards.
 He has become so particular about the way he does things, we can see him
 motivated, and he plays at the international level. He is a 16-year-old
 boy playing at the level of international juniors.
 
 
 I have also been fortunate to work with a couple of other players, one of
 whom is a national champion. This boy was in 10th grade, and in one of the
 unit tests leading up to the final board exams he failed, and his parents
 were pretty concerned regarding his future and what to do. So first I
 spoke to the parents without the child, and then we brought the child in
 and worked out a timetable. We worked out the priorities, keeping the
 right perspective and trying to find a balance between his academics and
 tennis. The boy finally did well in his board exams, and then he actually
 went on to win a national title and a couple of back-to-back international
 titles last year.
 
 
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 Q: That’s fantastic. So do you use meditation as a tool regularly in
 your counseling program in the academy?
 
 
 DSB: No, not for every child because most of the children who come to me
 are less than 15 years of age. Lately there is a relaxation technique that
 we have been using on the court sometimes for the kids after the sessions,
 to help them relax, to help them focus. A lot of kids really like it, and
 some of them apply the technique on their own.
 
 
 In fact the reason I took to meditation was that in the middle of a match
 I would get so many thoughts. Some of them were irrelevant, unnecessarily
 putting me under pressure. I think the best way to tackle pressure in a
 tennis match, or in life, is to get your thinking clear, and that is what
 meditation essentially does. Once you are able to regulate your mind in a
 positive direction, most of the things get sorted by themselves.
 
 
 Q: What changes did you observe on and off the court once you started
 meditating?
 
 
 DSB: A lot of things! Some of the small things were: better control over
 my emotions, clearer focused thinking, precision, and better efficiency in
 whatever needs to be done. So that’s at the lower level. But at a higher
 level, you need to have a right perspective towards everything. So I keep
 talking to the parents and to the children about what is the right
 perspective towards tennis. And the right perspective is to take it is as
 a game. There are challenges involved, and the challenges should make us
 better as a person, as a human being.
 
 
 So meditation has given me the right perspective on life, as to what life
 is all about. And once you have the right perspective, it puts all the
 other facets or all the other parts of life in proper place. You are able
 to prioritize very well. I do have a lot of duties, and meditation helps
 me to stay centered, focused, and I am happy and enjoying life.
 
 <h5 style="text-align: justify">To be continued.</h5>
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 <hr />
 <h4 style="text-align: center">Interviewed by MEGHANA ANAND</h4>
 
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