The Importance of Exercise - My Experience
If you’d ever take a walk down the memory lane, and visit my old house, you’d find traces of a rambunctious child everywhere. From the loose floorboards and scratches on the floor, to the dents in the wall and stickers on the ceiling. Ever since I was little, I’d always have so much energy. Whether it was on a Sunday morning or a late Monday night, you could always hear me clambering up and down the stairs, leaping from tables to chairs. As any parent would do, my mom signed me up for sports.
First, there was soccer but that turned out to be too boring. I had no interest in kicking a ball around: that is, if the ball even came around. Next was gymnastics, but my poor coordination made it difficult for me to balance. Then came swimming, tennis, ice skating – all of which I didn’t continue. Finally, my mom enrolled me in a fencing class. It always looked interesting to see people dressed in white poking at each other with metal swords. I decided to give it a shot.
Fencing wasn’t easy for me. I started at around 4th grade and found myself having poor concentration. My coach often got fed up with me for not paying attention and not improving, but I didn’t bat an eye at his incompetence and continued with the sport. It wasn’t until Covid rolled around that I realized how much exercise had meant to me. Without rigorous exercise, I began to feel the wrath of boredom. I went on long walks and biked around my neighborhood to keep myself occupied. However, I missed my teammates, and yearned to go back.
I had managed to maintain my physical shape during the pandemic, so as the lockdown ended, I decided to go back to fencing. The club I had gone to before had closed down, so my mom sent me to a local club. It was a fresh start. My mind was older, my concentration stronger, and my willingness to learn was teeming with eagerness. But to my disappointment, the club offered little to satisfy the rambunctious child within me. As the spring rolled around, I joined my school's track team. I soon found that I wasn’t as fast as I had envisioned me to be, so I pursued long distance running. It was tough at first, but slowly I was able to keep up. When people asked me why I like to run distance, I’d simply said that running for long distances helped me have more perseverance and gave me a sense of satisfaction. It hurt, but in the end, it was all worth it. That year, I was able to push myself physically to new levels.
As eighth grade rolled around, I decided to go big on fencing. I joined a fencing club that had many star athletes. Soon, I discovered that this wasn’t just a place to learn fencing: it was a place that turned you into olympic-level athletes. The training was much more intense, and I found myself spending almost 10 hours a week at fencing.
It drained me, mentally and physically. Blisters would constantly form due to the repetitive actions, and my knees often couldn't withstand the force acted on them. But most of all, it was there where I grew the most mentally. My coach pushed me to limits I had never imagined. But I learned to withstand the pain and train my mind to memorize every little detail that she said. It was hard, but my determination motivated me to keep going. I imagined myself in the future; maybe I’d become national champion someday.
Half a year later, my dreams came crashing down. I wasn’t scoring well at tournaments, and I could barely find the time to go to them. Every tournament brought me crippling anxiety and pressure, and my love for the sport started fading away.
I remember preparing to go to a tournament, and checkin if I had everything in my bag. Unfortunately, I had left my fencing mask at practice the night prior. My dad was furious, and I was suddenly hit with a sense of reality. Maybe this sport wasn’t for me.
I cried because I felt like I was disappointing my parents. I cried because I felt as if I had put so much into the sport, and had gotten nothing in return. But mostly I cried because I felt as if winning was the only way to make me seem successful.
A couple months later, I stopped going to the fencing club as my schedule couldn’t accommodate a 10 hour training week. I saw the changes of not exercising immediately take place. My mood became worse, I had little energy, and lost most of my stamina.
It was hard to feel a sense of accomplishment or feel proud of myself when I wasn’t training rigorously.
“But it was then when I realized that sports aren’t all about placing first place, or getting a rating, or training the most hours. It’s about staying healthy and having the spirit and motivation to be the best version of yourself.”
I began running again, and this time, instead of chasing after a time or a distance, I set a reasonable goal and just hoped to complete it.
While I didn’t become a national champion, fencing taught me the importance of exercise, and how movement helped boost my mental health. Taking a run routinely or exercising a couple times a week is found to boost your energy and mood (Sharma, 2006). You don’t have to become a national champion, nor do you have to train for hours a day, but just walking for 10 minutes can help you feel much stronger, mentally and physically.
We’re all in different places for sports, but wherever you are, I hope that you will continue with an active lifestyle. And if you don’t play a sport, I hope you can incorporate exercise into your life, and find the benefits that it’ll bring you. Maybe fencing wasn’t for me, but I believe that exercise is for everyone.
Stay safe, stay happy, and stay active!
References:
Exercise for Mental Health - PMC. (2006). NCBI. Retrieved April 27, 2024, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1470658/
Helen Yu - Author
Avantika Palayekar - Editor
