Mumbai: Paddy Upton described a scenario he played “over a hundred times” in his head as he flew from South Africa to Singapore. In it, he would meet Gukesh Dommaraju shortly after the Indian Grandmaster won the World Chess Championship title. They would embrace, and Upton would tell him, “You deserve this.”
“It was uncanny that the movie I played in my head played out exactly in real life as I’d imagined,” Upton tells HT over the phone, reflecting on his first-ever meeting with Gukesh, who beat China’s Ding Liren to become world champion last week.
Upton, a renowned mental coach from South Africa, has had a long history of helping Indians on their journey to success. He worked with the Indian men’s cricket team that won the 2011 ICC World Cup, as well as the men’s hockey team that won bronze at the Paris Olympics in September.
He now has a fresh success story to share – that of being part of 18-year-old Gukesh’s team.
Excerpts:
How have the last six months been for you working with Gukesh?
Gukesh was an absolute pleasure to work with. He had remarkable self-awareness and ability to reflect on his thinking and he would arrive with great questions. He was so receptive to different ideas and new thinking, but he still had the maturity to discern what was relevant for him and what wasn’t.
Gukesh comes across as a mature and measured person. Do you feel that sometimes he needs to perhaps act his age, be a teen once in a while?
Yes. But certainly not from a professional perspective. I think he’s only 18 in number. On occasion, on his down days when he needed to get away from chess, he would spend time with his friends, doing slightly more teenager-like things. And that was always important — to be with his friends. It’s as important to prepare for a game as it is to get away from the game and get the mind away. It’s like you recharge the batteries of your mind. But he doesn’t get involved in distracting teenage stuff like drinking and things like that. The choices you make can cause distractions. I mean, seeing someone like Prithvi Shaw is a good example of how your personal life can distract you from your professional life.
With this big win and the public glare that comes with it, life will probably not be the same for Gukesh after this. How does he keep the balance, how does he stay grounded?
Quite a lot of our conversations were about preparing for what happens next. The whole thing with mental coaching and strategy is to not have any surprises. We spoke in detail around, if he does win, what might that look like. What are the things that you can expect to happen, what are the ways of managing success in a healthy way. What are those mistakes that people make in badly managing themselves around success that leads some athletes to become one-hit-wonders.
Are chess players a little more in-tune with their feelings?
I’ve only worked with one chess player. We all spend most of our time thinking, but Gukesh has a remarkable ability to know what he’s thinking about. In a game, sometimes an athlete will make a mistake, and when I ask them later what they were thinking, they won’t really know. But Gukesh has an amazing ability to be aware and mindful of his thoughts. I would imagine many chess players are the same.
Is there a difference in the psyche of Indian and foreign athletes?
There are some idiosyncrasies, but you’re generalizing here. In a real competitive world, Indians tend to be very mild-natured, so not naturally aggressive and confrontational. That mindset translates to losing the first game, which the Indian cricket team is well known to do. In general, Indians are incredibly good at fighting back compared to taking advantage upfront from the get-go. That is because of the more traditional upbringing and deferring to parents’ authority. Sometimes that can translate into giving too much respect to an opponent they perceive to be an authority. For a long time, Indian cricket perceived Australia to be an authority. Coaches in India tend to be the all-knowing authority, which is a disempowering leadership approach. It turns athletes into diligent followers of instruction as opposed to autonomous thinkers for themselves and taking responsibility and accountability.
There used to be a belief that Indians tend to be shy and take time to open up…
In my experience, I’ve found Indians to be more open. It’s an individual trait, but they are certainly more likely to open up than Australians or South Africans. When I met Virender Sehwag, from day one, he just started talking. True to Sehwag’s style, he doesn’t hold back, but it was remarkable how much he opened up to me. I actually commented, saying it was impressive how quickly he opened up. He was equally open in saying, ‘It’s fine, I’ll open up, but if anything gets out or this information reaches anyone, you’ll be on the next plane out of here. I can promise you that.’ Athletes are so conditioned to hide their vulnerabilities, insecurities, or negative thoughts from everyone. There needs to be a process of deconditioning when I work with them, to help them feel comfortable talking about things that are perfectly normal.
Has the psyche changed now, especially with the exposure available and with social media around?
A resounding yes. But again, in general, yes. The younger Indians are much more internationalized or global in their thinking. They’ve been exposed now through the internet to so much more compared to 20 years ago, pre-internet. I’ve definitely experienced more outspoken, global thinking, free thinking, younger players.
Rahul Dravid was known to do a lot of research on mental training. Would you say he was ahead of his time in that aspect?
I first met him in 1996 when India toured South Africa. I was working with the South African team as a fitness trainer, I was the first fitness trainer in world cricket. I remember getting a phone call in my hotel from a very young Indian cricketer. He said, ‘I believe you’re a fitness trainer. I didn’t sort of realize that this was a thing in cricket and can I buy you a coffee?’ I went downstairs and met Rahul Dravid and he came there with his notebook and a pen, and he had written some questions down. I actually ended up spending time with him in the gym, outside of the South African work, helping him informally as his fitness trainer. That was my first ever interaction with him. Now, having worked with him a lot through IPLs and Indian cricket, I’ve seen his approach has not changed, even beyond his cricket playing years. Every time he goes to a new country if he sees someone doing something interesting or different in the performance space, he will contact the person, ask questions and read books about it.
