Life Lessons to learn from sports - Part 1: Community
I have always been actively involved in sports of all kinds. I have been blessed to be able to play Basketball, rugby, American football and softball, strongman contests, and weightlifting competitively. I love competition, I can't stand losing, I never play sports just for "recreation" or to "burn calories" or for "fun"... There are many other ways to get such feelings. But for sports, its about winning! I want to write about the life lessons I have experienced from these years of competition and how they have helped me in other areas of life as well. I will share these in several blog entries.
The first lesson that I learnt as I reflect on my past athletic experiences, is about community. I realize that all people need community. Of course some people are more introverted and some are more outgoing (yes I know the opposite of introverted is extroverted) but all of us need some kind of community. Human beings do really poorly in isolation, I guess that's why solitary confinement is such a harsh penalty for really bad law breakers. (and for students its called detention... No talking, no playing, no doing work. "stand here and look at the wall young man!"...I've been there... had a punctuality problem in my school days that was frowned upon by school authorities... d..d...d...uh)
We grow in so many skills only when we are in a community, in the ability to understand what others are thinking, in the ability to read body language, in the ability to communicate our thoughts and feelings, in the ability to show care, love and concern for others, the ability to form a cohesive team to reach a goal that would be impossible alone.
I find that team sports are successful in teaching this community aspect. Not that individual sports (and I mean sports not games like bowling, billiards and golf) are no good, but its impossible to learn about community when after the starter's whistle its about you and you alone.
From rugby and American football I lean responsibility and care for my teammates. In real contact sports like these, I find that I must do my duty, even in "semi-contact" sports like soccer and basketball, if I do not do what I'm supposed to, the team loses. In a full contact sport, my team-mate gets hurt! I miss a block, my friend gets hit, I throw a pass that is inaccurate, my team mate has to put himself in a vunerable position to catch it. The kind of focus I have on a job when I know somebody is counting on me is something that works off the field as well.
From Basketball I lean about communication. Even more so than the other sports, basketball is the most free flowing, the court is small, the people are fast, the ball can be thrown from one end to the other in a blink. The whole team must be on the "Same page". The slightest lapse ususally means 2 points for the opposition (if they are any good!). Probably the "style" of communication is not the same as in life (i.e. in a game we are shouting to make sure that we are heard over the noise of the game, but off the court of course we cant be shouting to be heard) but the importance of making sure that you know the positions of the other players, and that you make your own position known has great resemblance to real life. Often arguments start off from misunderstandings or the inability for one party to communicate his/her position effectively to the other party. Or in other cases, one party keeping information hidden and "assuming" that the other party will know what he/she is thinking.
2005 Strongman Contest
From strongman contests I learn about encouragement. While this is evident in other sports as well, its probably the most "suprising" in strongman. In strongman contests most of the guys are big tough guys, the events are individual events and all of us are trying to beat the other guys. But almost every competitor goes out of his way to encourage the other guys when they are doing the events. The atmosphere is really excellent and the encouragement from other competitors makes it a very positive environment at the same time a very competitive one. I believe that this is because each of us knows how painful (yes... Painful) and difficult each event is and we have a certain sense of compassion for the fellow competitors who are going through the pain as we watch. In life I think we err far to much on the side of too little compassion for others cos its only natural to be self centered, we can't help it. Understanding what others are going through is a great way to learn to be compassionate.
Whether is communication, compassion, or responsibility toward others, I know I cannot learn such lessons in isolation, it takes me, interacting with a community and choosing to learn positive lessons out of sports, and then applying those lessons to life outside of sports, to truly reap the benefits from all the wonderful times I have had playing sports. I hope that many of us who play sports either competitively or for fun, can grow in character each time we step on the court or field of play.
posted by Coach Jonathan Wong @ 3/19/2006 08:46:00 PM
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