Wednesday 11 December 2019 10:06, UK
A 34-day, 900km trek across Spain may not sound enticing to some, however for Dan Ryan, the Camino de Santiago experience was a "life-affirming and life-changing" one that has helped him to let go of an incredibly difficult period of his professional and personal life.
The challenge of walking the Camino de Santiago is something the coach and athlete had been wanting to do for a long time and was on his bucket list.
After an intense 10 days coaching Northern Ireland at this summer's Netball World Cup, and securing a new head coach role at Leeds Rhinos Netball, the time was right to finally take off and scale the challenge.
On August 5, armed with just his 13kg backpack, Ryan started at the Saint Jean Pied de Port in France and set about making his way through the north of Spain to Santiago de Compostela. It was a journey that would turn out to help him in so many ways.
"Walking the Camino was something I'd wanted to do for many years and a lot of people that have walked 'The Way' say that they feel like the Camino is calling them well before they start their pilgrimage," Ryan said exclusively to Sky Sports.
"I know that sounds strange, but I certainly felt drawn to it and the pull was getting pretty strong earlier this year. I knew it was the right time in my life and was it something that I really needed and wanted to do for myself"
Prior to re-joining Manchester Thunder as their assistant coach last season and winning the Superleague title, his time with Adelaide Thunderbirds in Suncorp Super Netball was all-consuming.
The challenges that the team had in terms of on-court results and off-court struggles, were felt acutely by their head coach.
Lofty expectations and consistently not finding a way over the line in matches eats away at players and at coaches. So much so, that Ryan was only able to finally process his time there while walking the Camino de Santiago.
"I had a really difficult three-year period during my time in Australia with my role in Suncorp and I don't think that I realised how much that experience affected me until I fully stepped away from it," Ryan said.
"Some of the baggage lingered still lingered 12 months on and it was impacting me personally which was not okay, so a major part of the journey for me on the walk was to make sense of it in my own way, accept it for what it was and let it go."
"The Camino helped me realise a lot of things about that experience, about myself and other people and about life in general. It was a great way to take time out to simply reflect and be with my own thoughts."
"Another highlight was the stunning landscapes and scenery and meeting so many incredible people from all over the world who were walking for all different reasons," he added during a break from playing for the Knights at The BiG Showdown at the University of Bath.
"Everyone has a story to tell and you build these really authentic connections and bonds with people who start off as strangers and become like family.
"The conversations you have with them as so thoughtful and fascinating and you are learning so much about yourself and others all the time.
"There's nothing else in the world like it. I still speak with my Camino family every couple of days."
It allows you to step back from the life and the world that you’re living in and get really good perspective. The beauty of the Camino is that they always say, your Camino really starts after it finishes.
With the Camino de Santiago experience still fresh in his mind, Ryan has returned to England in order to move full steam ahead with a new opportunity at Leeds Rhinos Netball.
The side will enter the Vitality Netball Superleague at the start of the 2021 season and following time in Australia for Christmas, he'll be moving up to live in Yorkshire.
"I wanted to make sure that I really invested in the area that the team represents and I want people to know who we are," he said.
"We want to create a very clear team identity, we want to make sure that homegrown talent represents the team and anyone who comes from outside of the area or any international players, really embrace the Yorkshire community and representing the Leeds Rhinos sporting brand and franchise."
Traditionally Yorkshire has always been filled with talented netballers and with the absence of a Superleague franchise for a period of time, many of those players have had to look elsewhere to continue their careers.
With Ryan as head coach, Anna Carter as their director of netball and with the support of the Leeds Rhinos sporting franchise as a whole, the foundations are there to help to entice individuals back home.
The immediate priority for Ryan is to get acquainted with the Pathway athletes and structures within the area before beginning to put together the strategic and operational elements of his high-performance programme and a recruitment strategy at the turn of the year.
Following his Camino de Santiago experience, it's clear that the head coach will be approaching all of these critical aspects with a fresh and invigorated mindset.
"I've seen massive changes in myself, very different changes in the way that I approach certain things and how I process and think about things. There's been a clear shift.
"It's been the best thing I've ever done, a life-changing and affirming experience and something that I would recommend to anyone who is open to something like this or who just really enjoys ridiculously long walks."
Sky Sports is your home of netball and live action returns with the Vitality Nations Cup in January 2020. The four-nation competition starts on January 19 with England taking on the world champions New Zealand.
