Yesterday we went to the New Zealand Institute of Sport (NZIS) and started our day in a typical knes major way: a morning workout. NZIS has 4 different locations throughout New Zealand and trains students in sports and marketing. The workout we completed was a 30 second circuit that included burpees, pushups, rowing, biking, sprints, tire flips, weights, box jumps, and sit ups followed by a run at the end. It definitely reminded me of our high school field hockey workouts. This workout was what NZIS’s high performance athletes do, except they do the circuit 10 times but 1 was enough for us. 

A small group of us stopped for lunch at a little Asian restaurant. Auckland has a large Asian population so everywhere you go you see Chinese, Japanese, and Korean restaurants. I got the BBQ pork on rice, and it was very good. I successfully ate the whole meal with chop sticks even though the waitress bought us forks because she could tell that we were American and knew that we would probably need them. It was a nice break from the dining hall food and no dining hall food is not any better over here. 

Side note: I did try marmite and 10/10 would NOT recommend. It is the same thing as Vegemite, but Vegemite is found in Australia and Marmite is found in New Zealand. I figured I’d have to try it while I’m here so I put a little on the corner of my toast one time for breakfast and one bite was still too much. It was the most offensive thing I have ever tasted. I can’t even describe it, but it took so much effort to not immediately spit it out and go throw up. Just do yourself a favor and never try it.

We then went to Millennial Institute High Performance Training Center. Many national teams train here, and we saw the Blues rugby team working out. The Blues are a rugby team in the Super XV league which is one step under the national team: the All Blacks. The facility also had a new pool that has underwater cameras and GPS on the ceiling to track athletes performance and send data to the lab upstairs. Last semester I took a course called the Cybernetic Human, and we learned all about the the ‘quantified self.’ The quantified self refers to how technology is integrated into daily life in order to obtain data about a person and their lifestyle. It was cool to see this idea implemented at such a high level of sport training.

Next we had a Q&A session with Kelly McCallum, a soccer turned rugby player, who eventually ended up playing for Canada’s national team and coaching in many countries including Japan and New Zealand. We had a very interesting conversation about the perceptions of women in rugby and gender inequalities in sports. She mentioned when she was playing rugby for Canada the women players each had to pay $1,000 to attend their own world cup in Canada while the men were each paid $1,000 to attend. The financial burden falls on each individual team member in women’s rugby, and they each do their own fundraising. The sad part is that it doesn’t seem like that will change anytime soon. 

For the first time since arriving, our morning did not start with a lecture. Instead we went to visit the New Zealand Institute of Sport. NZIS had campuses across New Zealand where students are trained in the sports field (either marketing or training). After hearing about their programs, classes, and campus rivalry games we did a work out. The work out was a 30 second interval circuit that many high performance athletes do. At each station you and your partner take a 30 second turn completing the exercises before moving on to the next station. Our exercises included tire flipping, rowing, biking, jump rope and sit ups. Just when I thought we were done we went on a brief run. Granted I didn’t run the whole way because, if we’re being realistic, I don’t run, let alone after I just died doing the circuit. Overall, it was a really cool experience to see a facility where New Zealanders can train their young high performance athletes. It was also interesting to consider a career with a facility like NZIS. While I normally think that I would prefer to work for a particular team, working for a training organization could also be something I’m interested in.

We continued on our high performance training theme of the day in the afternoon, traveling to the High Performance Sport New Zealand facility in Auckland called the Millennial Institute. This facility houses national teams before international competition along with high level athletes competing at a more local level like the Super XV rugby teams. In fact, when we were there, the Auckland Super XV rugby team was training in the main gym. The facility is interesting because the memberships from the public fund the elite athlete use. So during specified hours the gymnasiums and equipment is open for public use whereas other times are reserved for elite athletes. In contingence with government funding, this system has been successful in providing facilities for the New Zealand athletes. So successful that the brand new swimming facility has GPS and underwater cameras to be used for tracking and training. I thought it was especially cool that all of these elite athletes could not only train in the same space as each other but also as the general public. In this facility I also had a moment where it was clear that I loved the work being done and I wanted to be involved.

We did get to have a Q-and-A with Kelly McCallum which was very enlightening. She told us about her background as a college student picking up rugby and eventually coming to play for Canada’s national women’s team. Since then she has coached in several countries including Japan and New Zealand. We also (finally) got a comprehensive explanation of rugby which was reassuring. It seems like we’ve been learning all of these things about rugby as a system and its place in society but never about the game itself. It’s definitely helpful to know a bit about the game itself. Some thought provoking topics came up in our discussion today including a lot about gender inequalities across sports and nations. Someone asked “Well, what can we do?” and it was hard to come up with a feasible answer. At this point everyone says it’s about changing the perceptions of women’s sports but how to go about that is never decided. Also how can we know that that’s enough?

After dinner we went up to Mount Eden again to watch the sunset. The walk was a bit easier this time but it was far windier. Unfortunately it was still fairly cloudy by the time sunset rolled around making the view a little less impressive. It was still beautiful and well worth the climb.

Stay tuned,

1-7-2016