Self-Talks 10: The Involvement of Filipinos in Sports during the Pandemic

Sports is not simply about being physically-fit. A sportsperson is trained well to give his best performance if he underwent physical, technical, tactical, and psychological and mental training. From that being said, we can say that it is not only the physical attributes that we are going to need but as well as those technical and psychological attributes as well. If one is lacking from that three attributes, a failure could follow. There were studies that showed that those people who received mental training outperform those who did not, thus, sports are indeed more than physical skills. Moreover, physical, emotional, cognitive, social, and moral/spiritual are the internal forces while society and culture are the external forces that impact an individual and thus, his ability to be involved in sports.

Indeed, sports are important for us human-beings, as it enhances all the aspects of a person’s life. Sports help us become physically active, improves our self-esteem, provides us space for socialization, and strengthen our belief of trying and then succeeding.

The benefits of sports to an individual is a benefit to a society as well. Of course, a society with healthy people is a healthy society. The interactions are performed with lesser limitations. Moreover, sports unite a society, it gives us an opportunity to develop camaraderie with each other which is very useful if we wish to call for an improvement in our society.

However, the world today is being challenged by the pandemic. Our country, Philippines, is one off the countries that were greatly affected by this situation. Thousands of death, recession in economy, environmental concerns such as pollution worsen, unemployment, and unhealthy people were produced by this battle against COVID-19.

What is the role of sports regarding this issue?

Most of the countries in this world put their borders and their people’s homes into isolation as the pandemic reached them. Philippines was one of them, however, what made our country different from them is that we are still in that situation even today. Different types of quarantine has been implemented in the country such as Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ), Modified Enhanced Community Quarantine (MECQ), General Community Quarantine (GCQ), and Modified General Community Quarantine (MGCQ). Such implementation limited sports to exist. From the smallest venue of a sporting event to the biggest ones were closed down, some of them were even made to become an isolation facility for COVID-19 cases. From there, we could say that sports lost its existence to most of the Filipinos as the pandemic hit us. It impacted us negatively, without sports, Filipinos became more vulnerable to their weaknesses.

The absence of sports in our life could weaken our body and its immune system. Sports are known to its contributions to our physical bodies. It could also make our mental and emotional health become unhealthy. As our physical body is acted upon our mental abilities, they are directly related to each other, if one becomes weak, the other one will follow as well.

For almost a year and three months of experiencing, most human activities were stopped and sports is one of it. It is for us and for us safety, however, sports and its health benefits are essential for human body, especially with the fact that it has a long-term effects to us human.

What can we do it? Well, we do not have the power to lift all the restrictions to us and it is indeed for us as well. All we could do is become creative if we really want to be engaged in sports, again.

Here are some possible ways on how can we become involved in sports in new normal:

League in Bubble. This is applicable on those who are in professional sports. There are leagues in the country that allows team sports as they are put in an isolation. Even though this is a very good approach, not everyone could experience it.

Join Individual Sports. Usually, in areas especially those that are in GCQ and MGCQ, individual sports with least contacts are allowed. You could play sports such as badminton, table tennis, and lawn tennis as an alternative to team sports such as basketball and volleyball.

Exercises as Sports. Simple home workouts are considered as exercises. Usually, this kind of exercises do not give feelings we usually feel when we join a sporting event. We could still use exercises as sports by setting a mindset of competing your old self. Setting body goals and achieving it could give you the same level of satisfaction when joining in sporting events.

Cycling. Indeed, it is one of the most trendy sports in our country today. This is a good sport but safety must still be considered as this is an outdoor sport. Moreover, as it is depending in the areas, there are some places that does not allow this activity as a sport but as an essential activity and as a mode of transportation only. Health protocols must still be followed especially when interacting with other cyclists.

E-Sports. E-sports such as Mobile Legends and LOL: Wildrift do not require much physical movements but this could still help you develop yourself and your sportsmanship. However, one must be careful to avoid addiction in this type of sports. This is recommended when partnered with home exercises to balance physical and mental activities.

Dancing. One of the most played sports since the early age but usually separated with the concept of sports. Dancing is a good sports, especially today that it has become trendy through the social media platform called Tiktok, posting a dance cover further enhances virtual interactions which is a good thing as we were isolated. There is nothing wrong on being on trend, dancing is a beneficial activity for us.

The pandemic indeed limited us to do things that we love. Moreover, as the world of sports is almost on isolation as well, we could open up new opportunities to adapt with change.

We, Filipinos, are resilient.

This pandemic has brought a lot of challenge to us but we still manage to adapt with change and survive from the challenges. We must also consider the thought that no matter how resilient we are, we must still call on the government to plan and strategize on how they could provide our needs in all aspects as it is their responsibility to maintain Filipino society going even amidst this pandemic. We must instill in the heads of our leaders that healthy Filipinos will also mean a healthy country and economy.