📢 We can work it out
Staying fit during COVID, an in-depth piece on the Kumbh Mela & the Arteta Conundrum
Welcome to The Jerky Loudspeaker - an independent sports and culture newsletter, I’m super excited to have you here! Before you dive in, let me quickly break down how the newsletter is structured. Think of it like a mini newspaper, with three sections:
Deep Dive - Each piece/series in this section will be an in-depth analysis of the thoughts and emotions that arise from my interactions and experiences with the arts
Consumption Corner - A weekly review of what I’m watching, reading and listening to.
Balls, Bats & Baskets - As always, sports on the back page. In this section I’ll geek out about the happenings in this world of balls, bats and baskets.
Passion Projects -Â Once a month, I feature Q&As with creatives from different professional and personal backgrounds.
Deep Dive
My five stages of fitness during the pandemic
1. Acceptance (March)
The closure of gyms hit me hard. It wasn’t just the workout I enjoyed, it was the entire routine - prepping your bag, the walk to the gym, the satisfaction of the post workout smoothie and sandwich at the cafe. I didn’t realize how much I depended on it for my mental sanity until it was taken away.
Forget a workout, I’d never done as much as a push-up at home. Work from home was a concept I could get behind, but workout from home just felt wrong. I resisted for a week, but the absence of physical movement made me ridiculously anxious. I’d been consistent with my workouts for close to a year and just the thought of losing all that progress pushed me off the couch.
After accepting the situation, I now had to figure how to tackle it.
To give you an understanding of how closely linked my fitness was to the gym, I didn’t even possess a training mat at the time. It’s crazy to think of now, but I just used to share the mats provided at the gym with the other patrons. Wipe it with a tissue and you’re good to go. So I borrowed a mat from a friend and was told about the Nike Training Centre app from another. The journey began,
2. Flow (April - June)
I started slow. A 15 minute workout I’d picked on the app followed by 50 pushups. You know how drinking a glass of water when you wake up in the middle of the night feels incredible? That’s how I felt working up a sweat in the first week of WoFh.
Soon, I settled into a highly intricate daily workout routine:
Pick a podcast.
Pick a workout.
Do the workout.
I felt like a kid in a toy store exploring workouts on the NTC app. Until then, working out for me meant just lifting weights and running on the treadmill. Bodyweight workouts felt like a whole new world. I began doing HIIT drills, I tried yoga and I started doing workouts focused purely on mobility. I’d be crumpled against the wall after a workout, but my mood would be soaring.
I became obsessed with unlocking achievements and trophies on the app and fastidious about my workout streak. It’s how I kept myself sane.
3. Boredom and Steps (July-August)
For two months, I worked out every single day on NTC. But sometime around July, I grew bored of it. The workouts felt repetitive and the burn wasn’t as satisfying. There were some guided workouts available on the app with an instructor but I avoided them. I’d become so used to listening to a podcast while working out and I wasn’t willing to compromise on that.
I decided to take up running. I ran 5 miles the first day, experienced something close to a Runner’s High and decided I would do this every day. The next day an old knee injury flared up on my run and left me limping for a week. No more running for me.
My parents obsessively tracked their steps on their walks and I followed suit. 10,000 steps a day was the bar - anything lower than that wasn’t considered worthy at home. My routine changed - I’d do a Nike workout and then set out for long walks in the evening. Soon, I grew so sickened by NTC and walking became my only exercise. Meeting my daily steps target became a new obsession - if I got back from a walk and saw I hadn’t done my 10,000, I’d pace around in the living room for a couple of minutes and only then go for a shower. It sounds absurd, but it kept me occupied
3. Weighted investment (September - October)
I decided to buy weights when I noticed the absence of shape and presence of extra kilos. Not having lifted a dumbbell in close to six months, the first couple of weeks of weight training weren’t easy. I was lifting half of what I used to but experiencing double the pain.
It wasn’t fun.
I realized lifting weights is easier when you have a mirror in front of you and half a dozen people around you doing the same thing. I don’t know how to describe it, but the collective release of endorphins increases motivation levels.
4. Pure bliss (November - March)
I entered a gym after what felt like an eternity and nearly cried of happiness. So long home workouts, you won’t be missed! The old routine came back as though it had never left - the gym bag, the walk, all of it.
I re-discovered an aspect I hadn’t realized I’d been missing - the ecosystem. People prefer to stay in their zones, but there is a subtleness to the socializing. The head nods to the regulars when you enter, the guy you talk to between sets, the person you always wave at without ever knowing his/her name, the sports discussions near the TV where a match is being played.
Wearing a mask while working out wasn’t ideal, but it was a compromise I was willing to make. By January, I’d stopped wearing a mask. The cases in the country were at an all-time low and my building hadn’t reported any cases in a while.
My dumbbells were cast away to a corner of my room and began to gather dust. I considered selling them
5. New movements ( March - present)
The second wave came and the gym doors were again locked up. I felt unhinged. NTC workouts in my room beckoned. I wanted to cry.
I decided to start running again. I started with a 1 mile daily target to see if my knee would hold up. It did and I gradually increased my target to 2 miles. It wasn’t fun, but it got me sweating.
I live on the 25th floor and decided to start using the stairs instead of the lift. The first time I did it, I felt close to passing out. But, the satisfaction was unparalleled. It became a regular component of my workout.
But, then lockdown struck and the stairs became inaccessible. Still unwilling to return to NTC, I looked up online fitness courses and signed up for a month long calisthenics program.
It wasn’t a pre-recorded class and it took some time to get used to. But, I’m hooked onto it now. I don’t miss the gym as much now. My balcony has become my fitness studio. From not having even a yoga mat a year ago, now I’m now fully equipped with a foam roller, mini bands and weights. I’ve accepted WoFH now and am slowly learning to embrace it.
Just like the last lockdown, it’s the only thing keeping me sane.
Consumption Corner
What I’m reading: An article in The Caravan that goes in-depth into the politics behind the super-spreader event Kumbh Mela in Uttarakhand. It’s a damning piece without ever being outwardly so.
What I’m watching: This promises to be special.
What I’m listening to: Shades of Grey by Nikhil D’ Souza. Had this on repeat for the last couple of weeks.
Balls, Bats & Baskets
The Arteta Conundrum
Every once in a while you come across a tweet that feels like it was written just for you. It isn’t relatable as much as it feels like being told a harsh truth about yourself. It sticks with you and sends you down a rabbit hole of introspection.
The tweet below did that for me.
My inward thinking brought me back to the man that had catalyzed this entire situation - Unai Emery.
The enthusiasm Arteta’s appointment sparked in the fanbase was propelled by the simple fact that he wasn’t Emery. Solksjaer too, experienced something similar when he succeeded Mourinho. Arteta said all the right things in the media, projected all the right values and it just felt like he got ‘it’. The following act to Wenger’s nervous stoicism and Emery’s pained jitteriness, Arteta’s suave and well-coiffed persona as he prowled the touchline felt like an injection of modernity in a club that was moving backwards.
It was the perfect first impression. But for better or worse, it was long lasting.
It’s important to understand the circumstances preceding Arteta’s appointment. The club was going through an identity crisis and the fanbase was disillusioned and divided. Tottenham and Liverpool - clubs considered on-par with Arsenal - had surged past them in recent years, while the Gunners had only strengthened their hold on the Banter FC label. There was a romance about Arteta - the ex-captain groomed under Guardiola to lead the club back to where it belonged. He projected stability and the majority of Arsenal fans, myself included, hopped onto the Arteta train with a desperation.
It was James McNicholas who brought up the point on the Arsecast that Arteta had no option but to project the image of a pedigree manager who knew exactly what he was doing. His persona had to belie his experience for him to move the club forward.
The FA Cup win last year fed the narrative and more tellingly, emboldened the Board to promote him from first-team coach to general manager. The validation from the fans and Board ingrained the outward confidence he was projecting. But somewhere along the way this season, that transformed into a self-righteousness.
Arteta’s pride and how it seeps into his squad management is a well debated topic amongst Arsenal fans. The inconsistency in his choices is infuriating. While players like Nicolas Pepe and Cedric are just one bad performance away from being dropped, Willian and Ceballos are given plenty of minutes to be coaxed back into form. Ainsley Maitland-Niles’ performances towards the tail end of last season and the start of this season saw him win a call-up for the England squad. But for no apparent reason, he was frozen out of the team and loaned out in January. Gabriel Martinelli was rushed back from his injury into the first team fold with such a desperation that within a couple of weeks he was back on the treatment table. When he was fully fit again, Arteta hardly gave him a look-in.
The repeated use of Xhaka at left back is perplexing; especially given the fact that Cedric was signed for his versatility in defence and his recent form had seen him win a Portugal call-up. The Saliba situation is equally vexing.
It’s easy to forget that Emile Smith-Rowe played his first game of the season on Boxing day against Chelsea. Despite the lack of bite and cohesion in midfield, Arteta ignored the growing calls for ESR’s inclusion. Finally, it was an injury crisis that forced him to put the Englishman a his starting XI. Martinelli too, got a start and Arsenal won their first game league game in more than a month. It was the first time in the season the team found balance and it was completely by chance. The game was a turning point for Arsenal’s season.
And by turning point, I mean not finishing 15th and by season, I mean shit show.
The Villarreal semi-final was the nadir. Not just of Arteta’s reign, but of the last five years. The malaise set in during the tail-end of the Wenger reign as the first signs of decline crept into the club. Emery was the transition into full blown mediocrity and it’s under Arteta that we’ve solidified our position as a mid-table club. It’s a fact even the most optimistic Arsenal fan can’t dispute. We’ve never been further from the elite. And given the current trajectories of clubs like City, Chelsea and United, it’s a gap that’s only going to increase.
Arteta isn’t responsible for the sharpness of the fall, but he hasn’t done enough to stem it. The first 6 months of his reign felt like a new dawn and the 12 months that followed it have gone in having this dawn violently disintegrate before us. There’s a strange comfort in knowing we’ve hit rock bottom. It surely can’t get worse than this.
We’re primed for a rebuild. Should Arteta be the one to helm it? I don’t know. There’s an idyllic part of me that can’t quite let go of all the belief I’ve poured into him. But if we was sacked, I’d get over it soon enough.
I’d love to hear what you thought of this week’s edition! To share your thoughts, comments or if just want to chat, hit me up at shubhank4@gmail.com!
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In the last edition:
Passion Projects: Edwin Hernandez’s surreal journey from El Salvador to Video Producer for Atlanta United.
Read it here !