I blog on TravelWithRehan with my travel buddy, Gitika Taraporewala. Travel is a passion, and for the longest time, my travel was centered around sport, countries I visited to compete or train in. I enjoy blogging with Gitika because she is a fabulous writer and finds the perfect expression for our experiences.
Don't judge a book by its cover they say, and it is true. Or fitness by a social media image I’d add! As Instagram explodes with images of great looking people with greater looking bodies, I appreciate the value of fitness delivered the pure athletic way.
My Olympic coach once told me, "The water is your friend, you don't have to fight it. Just share the same spirit as the water, and it will help you move." This remains one of my favourite teachings for the element of a sport that has been the centre of most of my life.
Golf is one of the most popular sports in the world with approximately 400 million fans across the world. And why not? The courses are beautiful, walking makes for great cardiovascular exercise, and there's no better game where you can contemplate the parallels to life.
Yas Links:
Nestled on the western shores of Abu Dhabi’s popular entertainment destination Yas Island, Yas Links is an hour’s drive from Dubai and promises to test professionals, enthrall amateurs and excite beginners with its pot bunkers, unpredictable wind conditions and uneven fairways.
These are a few of my favourite….
“Let me tell you something. I came here to win a trophy…for sheer bloody pride at being the best, that's why we do this.” Harry Vardon, The Greatest Game Ever Played.
The Els Club:
I train at the Butch Harmon School of Golf, so the home course at The Els Club in Dubai Sports City, where the school is located is clearly one on my favourite lists as I play it most often while I’m in the UAE.
Going Fore it!
A few years ago, I hung up my racing goggles thinking I’d love the leisurely pace of regular life. But having been a professional athlete all my life, I found myself craving the discipline of training and competition instead. One evening,
An article I wrote for Mentor Magazine,a youth magazine circulated through schools and colleges in Bangalore.
Life's little lessons learnt through twenty years in sport and more ..Hope you enjoy the read !
I am up at 7 am and at the golf course by 7.30 am. I practice for about six hours. I aim to achieve in golf what I have achieved in swimming.
Olympian swimmer and Arjuna awardee Rehan Poncha talks about his diet plan and workout regime.
In a country obsessed with cricket, often other sports and sportsmen are sidelined and not given the kind of honour they deserve. Rehan Poncha, an Olympian swimmer, started his career at the age of 7 and has won several accolades at national and international levels.
When I was 9 years old, racing In Mumbai, my coach told me that I would never get over the nervousness I felt on the starting blocks, no matter how many times I raced. I didn’t believe him at the time, but looking back over twenty years of competitive swimming, I think, I have to agree with him. I was as nervous for my first race at 7 as I was for my last one at 27!
Just as a bad stroke can get ingrained in your muscle memory if your technique is not corrected, in the same way, thought patterns also get ingrained in your brain, and either help you or hold you back.
"I never got this far in my dreams", famously said pro-golfer, Bubba Watson on being asked how it felt to win the Master's Championship. Like Bubba, it is these dreams that wake me up every morning to go and train, keep me motivated on tough days to grind it out and keep me believing that someday this effort will help me wake up to living my dream and more!
This is the second in series of articles on lessons for success learnt from a lifetime in sport by Olympic Swimmer Rehan Poncha.