Kabaddi, frequently asked questions, answered by Mandar Shetti

Mandar M. Shetti, is an NIS coach, and he works for Rail Wheel Factory, Yelahanka, Bengaluru.

Rules And Regulations:
A team can have maximum of 12 (7+5) players.
Play ground measurements;
For  Men and Junior Boys = 13x10 mts
For  Women and Junior Girls = 12x8 mts
Sub-Junior Boys and Girls = 11x8 mts

Age criteria:
Senior Men and Women: Open.
Junior Boys and Girls: 20yrs and below on last date of event.
Sub- Junior Boys and Girls: 16yrs and below on last date of the event.

Weight Criteria:
Senior Men and Women: Less than 85kgs for Men and 75kgs for Women.
Junior Boys and Girls: Less than 70kgs for Boys and 65kgs for Girls.
Sub-Junior Boys and Girls: Less than 55kgs for  both  Boys and Girls

Duration Of Matches:
Men and Junior Boys: 40 minutes divided into two halves of 20 minutes with 5 minutes of break  between each half.
Women , Junior Girls, Sub-Junior Boys and Girls : 30 minutes divided into  two halves of 15 minutes with 5 minutes of break  between each half.

Attitude, intention, lifestyle  of  a player:
Player must be very honest and kind.
He must respect the game, coaches and well wishers.
He should have a perfect goal about the game.
He must be a hardworking person and his thinking should always be concentrated on the game.
No matter what ever their standards be, the player must always maintain a learner attitude.
All the players in the team must maintain uniformity while playing a game in any tournament.
A player must have time sense and discipline to learn and play the game.

Handling of situation in a game:
A coach and player must always be calm and composed while playing the game. As each team gets two timeouts per half,  coach can take the first timeout when most required and can hold his second timeout until the last couple of minutes and then depending on the situation he can take the timeout and impose some ideas into the players and calm them down.

Mainly a coach must always be calm and should be kind towards the players . Based on the players performance on the court on the present day , he can make the players more enthusiastic to play and if a player is not performing well ,  coach must give a opportunity to the substitute player to prove himself on the court . Rather than shouting on the players who has not performed well, a coach can motivate the player to play well and should tell him to overcome the mistakes he made during the match. Player must always follow what the coach and captain says.

Captain must always be calm and should control the players enthusiasm while playing the game. Based on the game situation a captain must control pace of the game by doing some empty raids if necessary. If the team has a timeout left a captain must call for a timeout and discuss the strategy with their coach.

Requisites To Become A Kabaddi Player:
Requisites for Men and Women :

Fitness training:
Fitness is one of the most important qualification in player’s life.
He must have excellent endurance, agility, strength, coordination and flexibility in a combined way .
He must undergo the fitness training for at least 6 days in week and should take a day off on the middle of the course to relax his strained body muscles for recovery.

Exercises necessary for players:
According to Sports science a player must do 5 things
1. Warmup : Walk + jog for 5-10 minutes
2. Stretching : Full body light stretching in the order from top to bottom for 10-15 minutes.
3. Specific Exercise : Perform all the specific exercises for strength , endurance , agility, flexibility and coordination each on each specific day for 30-45 minutes.
4. Stretching - Full body stretching in the order from top to bottom for 20-30 minutes.
5. Cool Down – Relax your mind and body after performing the stretching 10-15 minutes.

Exercises:
Agility: This is one of the most important weapon for a offenders as well as defenders in Kabaddi.
Using his speed  raider  can  attack the  defence  and  shuffle them  easily . Also a defender can use his speed and throw the raider out of the court when a raider uses a running hand touches on the defenders .

There are mainly 3 exercises for improving agility :-
1) Ladder drills
2) Cone drills
3) Stairs drills

Endurance exercises:
Endurance: It is one of the important feature that a kabaddi player must have in his body .
If a raider has good endurance in him , he can raid continuously without any difficulty .

To develop endurance there are some necessary steps to follow :-
1) Slow continuous cross country running for 45mins to 60mins
2) High Intensity Interval Training and Core Strengthening

Co-ordination drills:
Co-ordination drills: To become a successful defender as well as a offender a player must have a good co-ordination in his body . Also in a there must co-ordination between all the players in a team .

We can develop the co-ordination by practicing with our team mates in different systems of play (i.e system of player when we have 5 defenders , 3 defenders , ….so on )

Strength improving exercises:
Strength: Strength is a lethal quality of a offender to surpass the defenders and reach his court picking more points .

Strength is most required for defenders in order to block a heavy raider or powerful raider and throw him out of the court .

To develop their body strength a player must perform several reps of push-ups , pull ups , bench press , and other core , back and strength polymeric exercises with additional weights.

How yoga helps kabaddi players:
Performing yoga , a player can improve his calmness , thinking capacity ,  concentration and his body’s flexibility which is a key thing in the game.

Some of the yoga exercises that a player can perform is
1) Surya namaskara
2) Omkara Chanting
3) Alom Vilom

Stretching:
Stretching is one of the most important thing a kabaddi player must do before and after playing the game.

Stretching before and after playing the game plays a vital role in relaxing the strained muscles and joints and this leads in prevention of hamstrings , twisting of joints , muscle tears and many other injuries which happen quite frequently while playing .

Diet plan for a kabaddi player:

Include more of:
Whole grain cereals – oats , soya flour , corn , wheat.
Tomato , onion , Garlic.
Green tea , citrus juice, liver, egg white.
Dark green leaf, yellow, red and orange vegetables and fruits.
Dairy products, figs and nuts.
Avoid alcoholic drinks

What is the best age to start a professional kabaddi career?
The best age to start a professional kabaddi career is at age of 14. A player at this age can work hard for an year to develop his skills and strengthen his body .

After learning the skills and strengthening his body a player at age of 15 can start playing school level kabaddi and then continue it by playing for pre university nationals and then university nationals and so on.

If he wants to represent his state then he can seek permission from Amateur kabaddi federation of India (AKFI) and then if permitted and selected, he can represent his state in sub junior, junior and senior nationals.

From this certificates a player can seek a job in many of the institutions through sports quota. Best age for seeking his job through sports quota is from age 20 – 25yrs.