I had always thought of joining a sports team at UGM, but I didn’t know which one. Fortunately, my friend Faisal from Pakistan, introduced me to Hockey UGM.
After submitting my first draft report of my thesis, and waiting for the supervisors’ feedback, I was bored and had nothing to do in the dorm. Working on the thesis paper, reading literatures used to be mentally stressful and tedious. I thought of taking a walk to wisdom park during evenings, but didn’t feel motivated to go alone.
One day, while I was heading to a restaurant for dinner, I met Faisal. While returning back from the restaurant, he gave me a ride. On the way back, he mentioned about the hockey team of our university. The current team was in need of girls’ players for indoor tournament. I decided to join and try my best to know about the rules.
The first day as I reached to Pancasila Stadium for the hockey practice, I was a bit nervous. I didn’t know what to wear as a uniform. I ended up wearing yoga pant and a t-shirt. As I reach there, I was puzzled, as there were many people, but didn’t see my friend. I called him, and he said he would arrive late as he had to go back home from somewhere and come after praying.
I felt like I was facing it alone but later I met new people, all Indonesian and mostly younger than me. While I was introducing myself to the new people, a cool girl named said that the game will begin after coach arrives.
So, as the coach arrived, there was a warm up session. During the warm up, we would make a circle and follow the lead who would be in the middle. To count the number of times we had to warm up exercises, each individual has to count from 1 until 8 in Bahasa… While it was mine turn, I was struggling, but somehow made from Satu until Delapan. After the exercise, we took 5 rounds in the pitch, then carry the heavy board to make a boundary for the pitch. After There were 2 people from the Netherlands as well, and Faisal arrived too.
Nurdin, our coach, was quite polite and he explained about the general ways to hold the hockey stick, bend our body, stop the ball and dribbling. We shouldn’t touch the ball by our feet. He pursued that I come for practice twice a week on Monday and Thursday, then he introduced to alumni of the team-Atun, who used to come during every match, two managers-Roy (also a goalkeeper) and Ilham, the pro-player and manager of girls’ team- Shafira. Shafira was very helpful and coached me to do the dribbling and pass the ball. She explained about her experience in hockey since junior high school, and impressively, that led to get her scholarship too for her undergraduate.
I was enjoying to play, shafira was also trying her best to correct me. The more I was playing, and bending my body, I realized that my back and belly was hurting. The practice was about to end with a demo game. The coach didn’t call me, and instead asked me to practice the dribbling further.
After the match, Nurdin had a short speech, which was in Bahasa language, but I got the gist about the ‘sense of belonging while playing for UGM’, then we depart our way, but before that we joined our hands together and shout “Hockey Gadjah Mada”, and appreciating each other’s game and greet well. I promised to come to the practiced regularly and contribute something for the team.
So, every Monday and Thursday, I attended practices regularly. I tried to learn about the rules, although it was very difficult for me to understand. I still was trying my best every day, and also joined gym for the fitness. They coach would always provide me feedback, and suggested me to watch youtube, or upcoming national tournament. During each practice, I used to feel more dedicated to play and get the rules right during the demo matches. Despite feeling tired at times, I cherished the experience, knowing I might not get to play this game in my home country and would miss the team.
After almost a month of practice, our team participated in the Kejurkab Hockey Indoor Sleman 2023 tournament. It was organized by Federasi Hockey Indonesia, Sleman District. We won all matches, including the final with a score of 5-0 against UGM Alumni. We got highlighted at the local newspaper of Indonesia and that was an honour for our team. Although I didn’t score myself, but I felt proud to be part of the winning team. The experience of playing hockey at UGM and feeling a sense of belonging was truly worthwhile. It’s a feeling I believe I wouldn’t leave behind if I were ever in another part of the world with a team.
