With booties, gloves and shorts: the boys who train by zoom in full quarantine

Nahuel Gallotta

07/11/2020 - 17:00

• Clarín.com
• Society

In the City of Buenos Aires there are parents who say that their children wait all week to go out, Saturday or Sunday, an hour to walk to the neighborhood square. Others say they prefer to be locked up. That they are afraid, and that with the computer, the cell phone and the playstation they are fine. In the Conurbano they do not even have that option. Everyone is quarantined by the coronavirus. 

But the boys not only had to get used to studying by zoom. The teachers of the neighborhood clubs that received them in the afternoons, with all kinds of sports options, now await them in the same application. Meetings via zoom are not limited to practicing the sport itself, or to physical exercises that were previously done on the court.

Many times the teachers organize virtual snacks, birthday celebrations of the month, games to compete with their parents or "meetings" with boys and girls from clubs in other countries, to share the practice. Clarín witnessed three trainings in times of pandemic: boxing, soccer and basketball.

Permission to chop the basketball

Antonella (11) is one of the few girls on the Institución Sarmiento basketball team who lives in an apartment. Since chopping the ball during nap time could generate complaints about annoying noises, she went downstairs and knocked on her neighbor's door. The lady told him that there was no problem, as long as it was only during the two hours a week of training. Before that permission, Antonella trained and zoomed in on the parking lot of the Santos Lugares building.

"Each family of the club has its own particularity, and the situation of each girl is special," says Federico Galante (32), a teacher of Antonella and the rest of the girls (between 5 and 12 years old) from the Sarmiento Institution. And it continues, about the training by zoom in the framework of COVID 19: “The little ones have a little trouble finishing hooking up. For those 8 and up, who are already in love with the sport, it is a commitment. They want to continue learning; I turn on the camera and they are already on the other side, biting the ball. They all need to go back to the club. For them, the parents and us, the teachers, going to the club is a lifestyle. Our second house ” .

Quarantine is also trained, but by zoom. Federico Galante is a basketball teacher.

It is six in the afternoon on a Wednesday and Federico is in front of his notebook. He rests it on the floor. The girls appear in small squares. Most are chopping the ball, with the two water bottles that function as cones and a chair that acts as a defense. They are about 20. “Good afternoon, Ori; Hi Ema, Victoria, Valentina. How are we lighting? Do you see me complete? ”, Says Galante from this side of the screen. In the virtual meeting / training there are girls, and their respective teacher, from the Yale club, in Montevideo, Uruguay. It is an exchange, one of the many options that teachers seek to entertain their players.

At the end of March, a week after the mandatory quarantine decree, the teachers of all the activity began sending videos to the boys. Then, the live of Instagram arrived. Only later did they go to virtual classes. “When the girls zoomed in, it was like feeling 'there my friends are; in the distance, but they are, '”recalls Federico. “Sometimes we just have a snack, to chat with everyone. But they miss the space and being in a group. It is a group, social sport. They need to run, to enter a court ” .

Make gloves in front of the "compu"

In his department of La Paternal, Pablo Giménez (40) gives directions in front of the phone: “The right elbow covers the liver; under the chin, look up and forward. The other hand up, at the level of the eyebrow. We are moving forward… ”.

Girls and boys between 7 and 17 years old, the vast majority of the neighborhood, do the exercise. The zoom is within the framework of the boxing gym "Semillero del mundo" classes , located under one of the stands of the Argentinos Juniors stadium , and which is part of the national project "Argentine Sports Schools", which depends on the Secretariat of Sports of the Nation and is directed by Marcelo Domínguez.

“For the parents of the very young, class is also essential; a kind of therapy ”, reflects Giménez. “It is one hour less of being on top of a child who does not know what else to do during the day. Because the older ones lock themselves in the room and entertain themselves. But in general terms, for boys, training by zoom is going back a little to the usual world . It is good for them to meet schedules again, set goals, get psyched up on something. And they discharge energies, which is essential. Even sleep should be influenced by not playing sports. Many of these kids, hopefully, can go out for an hour on the weekend. ”

Quarantine is also trained, but by zoom. Pablo Giménez teaches boxing from his La Paternal department.

To the technical exercises are added talks on the fundamentals and videos on fights that serve to improve very specific questions. Although it is not easy to keep the attention of children and adolescents during weeks of quarantine. "They have mood spikes . Uncertainty plays against them; more than anything to the competitors.

Some drop out, but return to four or five classes. As a coach, zooming is not what I like the most. But you have to find the utility. Tomorrow I plan to increase it: to the training sessions in the gym I want to add the virtual complement, to continue correcting small details ”, concludes Giménez.

Little games in the living room

Many of the 27 boys who participate in the zoom put on booties and the club's shirt , as if it were a Saturday game. Several are with the parents.

And there are some other baby. Of the minors, none is over 13 years old.

Fabián Kornoski (29) is one of the teachers who coordinates the meeting. He greets the boys, as they connect: the first are Facu, Bauti, Sofi, Agus, Benja.

"We are all there: we only need to shout a goal. Very well the parents accompanying. Because the club is us. We train it with the family, ”he says by way of presentation. The club is the Villa Real Sports and Social Club. Then Kornoski shows two club pennants. These are the prizes for today's game: marking the differences between photos that will be shown throughout the meeting. Other weeks they do physical and ball exercises. Or clothes, like playing with a ball of socks and recording.

Quarantine is also trained, but by zoom. Fabián Kornoski is one of the teachers who conducts the football training sessions for the Club Social and Deportivo Villa Real.

"The difference with the school zoom is that ours are much more recreational," compares the teacher, who is also a fourth-grade teacher. “Parents cannot participate in school. And here the other day a dad went to do an exercise with his son. We also chat. A boy appeared with one less tooth and we asked him if the mouse passed Pérez. There are boys who tell us that they miss the games and others miss their teammates. We used to see each other three times a week. They felt the change. But they adapt to the situation. "

The boys play Baby Soccer between the ages of 6 and 13. The last year is the most anticipated. No one wants to miss it. In the last game there is a kind of farewell: rockets are fired, the boys are welcomed with pieces of paper and they are given the shirt they defended throughout the year. The 2007 category is missing Baby's last year . So, there are already proposals for next year to have eight categories, instead of seven.

The teachers enabled the virtual wall of an application for the boys to upload the videos that the parents record doing the exercises. There, every once in a while, someone says "I miss making goals on Saturdays" , and shares a video of a goal in an old game.

For this reason, now that the meeting is over, Fabián proposes: “I am missing shouting at Villa's goals; on the count of three, we are going to say goodbye, shouting a goal loudly ”. And the boys scream. As if they were on the court.

SC