To promote happiness, health and well-being among professional and budding Badminton players, Pulella Gopichand Badminton Academy has entered into collaboration with IIT Kharagpur. The engineering institute has signed an MoU with PGBA to carry out joint training and research in the area of the happiness and well-being of players.
The thrust areas of the collaboration will include training modules by IIT Kharagpur that will focus on happiness for enhancing quality of performance and building resilience. “Our objective is to provide more mind related training. The wider goal is to produce happy players,” said IIT Kharagpur director Prof. P P Chakrabarti. Players and coaches of PGBA will benefit from these modules. The course will be conducted through discussions, lectures, sharing of experiences and sharing of failure.
The collaboration is spearheaded by S S Rekhi, US-based entrepreneur and alumnus of IIT Kharagpur, who is a sponsor of the Gopichand Badminton Academy and seed funded the Rekhi Centre for Science of Happiness at IIT Kharagpur. He said, “Sports can improve resilience, concentration, tolerance and emotional quotient through training and discipline, thus delivering happy generations to lead the world.”
The training programme is likely to start from June 2019. A profile and data base of each athlete at the academy will be built for the purpose. “Mental strength and physical strength go hand in hand,” Gopichand said. “Motivation has to be converted into physical work and mental strength. Both are an integral part of performance.”
Olympic silver medallist PV Sindhu, who trains at the Gopichand Academy, said that a programme like this will help players. “There are a few moments in a match that are extremely crucial. Your mind should be trained to change the thought in a few seconds,” Sindhu said.
