ZEPP FM | Sport psychology for athletes, coaches & future sport psychologists - ZEPP FM 019 - Squash and death threats from the Taliban with Maria Toorpakai

ZEPP FM 019 - Squash and death threats from the Taliban with Maria Toorpakai

03/06/19 • 79 min

ZEPP FM | Sport psychology for athletes, coaches & future sport psychologists

Maria Toorpakai is a Pakistani squash player who had the dream to become an athlete as a young girl. Unfortunately, the culture, the society and the Taliban don’t allow girls to be actively involved in sports in Pakistan – and especially not in remote tribal areas like Maria’s home, South Waziristan. However, Maria never gave up fighting for what was important to her, and luckily she had a father who was a strong advocate for equal rights of men and women, and supported Maria in her dream to become an athlete.

At the age of 4 years, Maria burned all her girls clothes and lived disguised as a boy, which made it possible for her to be the athlete she always wanted to be. After discovering squash and the joy she experienced on a squash court her true identity was revealed and she received death threats from different groups, including the Taliban. Although it wasn’t safe for her to leave the family’s house she kept training inside her bedroom. She sent thousands of emails to people around the world, asking for help. Finally, Jonathon Power, former world #1 in squash, offered her to come to Toronto/Canada. Today, Maria Toorpakai lives and trains in Toronto, still competing for the Pakistan.

In this episode, Maria talks about her story and her experiences as a girl in an extreme patriarchal society, about being oppressed, about receiving death threats and about never giving up. She talks about the mindset she developed on her journey in life in squash and sport, about equality, human rights and her book A different kind of daughter. We also talked about the Maria Toorpakai foundation is dedicated to building peaceful communities and gender equity by investing in education, sports and healthcare programs for young girls and boys in remote regions of the world, particularly the Tribal Areas of Pakistan.

Previous Episode

ZEPP FM 018 - Keeping it simple in sport psychology with Lisa Ruebsteck

After studying psychology, Lisa focused specifically on the field of sport psychology, because she enjoys helping other athletes learn new things and improve their performances. Today she is living and working in The Hague in the Netherlands, owning ToughMinds together with two other sport psychologists, a company that delivers sport psychology services to athletes, team, coaches, companies as well as other target groups in the Netherlands.

Once you meet Lisa you feel the positive vibes that surround her and I really enjoyed talking with her. She doesn’t only talk about the great moments as a sport psychologist, but also shares several situations where she felt that she might have made a mistake, and that taught her some valuable lessons. In addition, Lisa and I talked about what skills future sport psychologists should learn in order to be really able to work with athletes, coaches and other clients, and not only focusing on the basic sport psychology skills everyone can learn in text- and work books.

Thank you, Lisa, for all the great insights into your methods, your ideas, your way of working with people and what lessons you already learned along your way as a sport psychologist.