DEDICATION
4.5 Girls’ individual sport
This section depicts the stories of two learners who are playing girls’ individual sports.
The first learner is a gymnast who was scouted by a gymnastic’s coach. She found gymnastics to be a positive influence on her self-worth as she is not academically driven. She persevered and through sheer determination and guts, excelled to become a South African gymnast.
The second learner is a high jumper who had to make tremendous sacrifices in terms of travelling distances to be trained and coached. She finds that in her quest to become a national athlete she is a loner, having to isolate herself from everyone because of the nature of the sport she does.
111 4.5.1 Jemma – gymnastics
“My body can do whatever I want it to do. My body is made for sport. Sport is easy for me.”
Jemma is a petite 16-year-old black girl who has great ambitions for her gymnastics career. She was the Senior South African National Champion in 2008 and was placed second in the Africa Games in Egypt in 2009 where she received 6 medals for all the different apparatus. She now has her eyes set on the Commonwealth Games61 in New Delhi in 2010 and the Olympics in London in 2012.
Jemma describes herself as one of those talented gymnasts who is very much in synch with her body:
My body can do whatever I want it to do. My body is made for sport and sport is easy for me and school work is a bit hard. I listen to what my heart says, so if I want to do something really good and I cannot do it, probably then I have to calm myself down. I then remember the technique and I just do it. But I have to be determined to do it. There is that little braveness in my heart that keeps on telling me that I can do this and I put everything into it and it works. Je1
Jemma is of a very small stature and this may be a result of childhood illness:
61Jemma has made it through to the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in 2010 and won a gold medal in the vaulting section. She is still on track with the goals she has set for herself for the Olympics in London in 2012.
112 When I was young I was very sick, I was born too early and I had asthma and since then my granny took care of all four of us because my mom worked. Je2
Jemma grew up in Umlazi Township and at the age of five moved to the Central Business District of Durban. She comes from a low socio-economic background with both her mother and grandmother working as domestic helpers. She is very grateful for the support she gets from coaches, and her grandmother who is 68 years old, has been the most important person in her life.
I get support from my coaches. Julie is my coach, so every time I go to Johannesburg for training camps or competition Gail and Julie pay for transport and where I stay, so I get a little bit of help from them. I also get sponsored for food, lotion and clothes. If I have a problem and need some help I would ask my granny and she will tell me what to do. Je3
Jemma has found it difficult to balance her life between gymnastics and academics, and her family has urged her to continue with her gymnastics. She is at present out of school taking a gap year:
My granny said I could not do gymnastics and school work at the same time. I had to choose what I am good at mostly. So it was gymnastics and I stopped school at Grade 10. There was one point I wanted to stop gymnastics but my granny said that I must just carry on for a few more years to see if maybe I could go to the Olympics one day. I finished school last year and this year I am just doing gymnastics full time. It is called a gap year, and only from next year I will start studying. Je4
She has no father and lives with her grandmother and two sisters. There are 11 of them living with her grandmother. Jemma is a friendly and quiet person who enjoys visiting friends, going to the library and shopping in town with her sisters. Besides her family, Jemma gets a lot of support from her teachers and friends:
My own friends treat me very well. They are very supportive and they say I must not stop. The principal and teachers are very encouraging, and I try to do my best at school. Je5
Jemma enjoys being part of the KZN gymnastics team. As a national gymnast she is exposed to a whole new world, as she travels both nationally and internationally for competitions which she enjoys:
113 I get to travel to a lot of places and meet new people and make new friends. This year I travelled to Egypt for the All African games and won six medals for the different apparatus. Je6
Even though gymnastics is an individual sport with gymnasts having their own coaches, the KZN gymnastics team is very supportive of each other. However, the coaches tend to focus on their gymnasts because of the competitive nature of the sport. Jemma finds it easy to communicate with the team because she is a Zulu speaker:
The team comprises of coloured and blacks and a few white gymnasts. Because we are in the same team we get to know each other and support each other during competitions. Some of the coaches are willing to help but they help their own gymnast first because they want their gymnast to win. I am okay with that, because my coach is trying to help me and if she does not know how to teach a new movement then we go to Johannesburg and get help from one of the other coaches. Je7
Jemma was noticed at her school during a gymnastics PE lesson by an external coach.
She was recruited into the coach’s gymnastics club:
When I was nine years old and at Collingwood Primary, Gail used to take us for gym classes. She saw that I was talented and she brought me to train with the other kids. I trained very hard and I was placed in Julie’s class where I started from level one and progressed to level ten. I made the junior section and I am now in the senior section. Je8
Comment by Professor Srinivasen S. Pillay on Jemma’s self-portrait:
Jemma’s story is notable for the emphasis on the way in which her mind and body have become one. Her powerful self-representation in the moving images of herself suggests that imagery plays a powerful role in her success. While she too illustrates strong determination, she emphasises that one of her major challenges is accepting what she is good at. Rather than forcing herself to be distracted, she appears to get her self-esteem by focusing on what she is good at. She seems to have a powerful superego – to the point that she is even quite harsh toward herself. The toilet-paper (JeG1) incident illustrates her relentlessness. Also, her interest in switching roles to being a teacher indicates that she speaks to herself from the inside and outside as well. Her ability to see things from another person’s perspective must contribute powerfully to her excellence. She also attributes positive meaning to punishment – she sees it as a stepping stone to success rather than traumatic. Her ability to do this may rely in part on her strong relationship with her grandmother who gave her the strength to build herself up by tapping into her own aggression. She appears to have sublimated her own aggression into peak performance.
114 4.5.2 Tojan – athletics
“I have no life, just high jump all the time.”
Tojan is a South African high jumper who comes across as a quiet, shy person who on the outside may seem as if she does not know what she wants, but she is quite a determined young girl who is very focused on her goals for high jump. Tojan attends the private school Feluda College in Zululand. She is on a 50% scholarship at the school and is in Grade 10. She has already mapped out with her coach a road to the Olympics.
She describes herself as friendly person who likes to spend time with her friends:
I am really loud. I do not take things too seriously most of the time and I am friendly. I like to make people laugh. I do not like to see people sad. I like to go to the beach or movies with my friends. I do not care where I am as long as I am with my friends. To1
Tojan is a coloured, 15-year-old girl who comes from a single-parent home. She lives with her mother and three older sisters. Tojan’s mother has a diploma and is an information technology specialist. She played hockey for Swaziland in her young days and is very supportive of Tojan and her sporting life. Her oldest sister, who is a biokineticist, is a fitness freak and is always conducting fitness tests on her to see the type of improvement she is making. Tojan’s family moved from Durban to Zululand when she was in Grade 1.
She describes Zululand as follows:
It is so much smaller compared to Durban. It is small but not too many shops, like shopping centres but there are a lot of houses going up now. So I have grown up in a small town kind of and it is nice because you know everybody and everybody supports you. To2
She is an outstanding high jumper, but this being an individual sport she finds herself in a very lonely place. Because of the nature of the sport Tojan has no role model or someone to look up to. She does not depend on anyone:
It is a very individual sport. It is just you. It has nothing to do with being part of some team. It is you. That is what makes it harder. If you rely on others, they are
115 not going to be there when you are jumping, it is not going to make you jump higher than what you are. I do not look up to anyone because I am not trying to follow in anyone’s footsteps. To3
Tojan travels to Durban every weekend with her mother for training. Her life as well as her mother’s life is consumed with high jump training. Her mother is the most supportive person in her life:
I have no life, just high jump all the time, just train. My mom gives up a lot to take me62 up and down from Durban to training sessions, so she has no life. She does not have to do it but she does it. To4
4.5.5 Synopsis: Girls’ individual sport
The learners here had general personality and characteristics - what sets them apart is the individualism of their sport. They have to train on their own and at most times feel very isolated and alone.