Why masters are masters
Roger Federer will skin you alive on a tennis court. Rafael Nadal can bleed you so bad that we won’t even notice thanks to clay. Lionel Messi has what it takes to nutmeg you before nutmegging your father and then your grandfather and then his forefathers all the way back to 3rd century BC. Magnus Carlsen would checkmate you in less than 10 moves — blindfolded. Yelena Isinbayeva could swing over your head while you waited for her to land. Rahul Dravid might convince you to bowl by promising he’ll hand over his bat as soon as he’s out but he simply won’t; at least not before the sun does. Usain Bolt won’t race with you because he belongs to the wind, not breeze. If you were stuck in the ocean along with Michael Phelps and a shark, Phelps gets to live and shark gets to eat. Phil Taylor shall aim at your glabella — thrice — and won’t miss even once.
What’s common to all these individuals? They are popular sporting giants who surrendered their lives to perfecting one discipline. It’s silly to imagine a scenario wherein lesser mortals like you or me standing against them. Even their fellow professionals have reservations, who the hell are we? The moot point, nevertheless, is not the competition but the sheer madness of achieving what one sets out to achieve.
In sports, it’s always the usual suspects who rise to the top. They somehow persevere despite all the odd and not-so-odd challenges greeting their ascent. The rules are simple: Pain is normal and you can’t fake greatness in sports. It’s not a conference room where you can flatter your way through. Sports, or should we say sportspersons, keep it real. When you hold up a newspaper to read, you can notice how it starts with the depraved souls and ends with the celebrated ones.
There are no definite parameters to greatness. The rules keep changing along with styles and norms. Who has the gall to predict what the future appears like? There were wooden racquets not very long ago. Once upon a time, cricketers wore nothing but white and didn’t know the benefits of dark shades. Times changed, didn’t it? What hasn’t changed though is the individual pursuit of topping oneself in sports. After all, the race is against yourself. If you clocked 10 seconds yesterday, you are aiming for 9 seconds today. Competition is a byproduct of this singular fight. Your opponents are wonderful illusions of your mind to help you accomplish your best. Once we learn this principle by heart, maybe we’ll end up as masters too… in at least one field.
