Athletic Creativity – DO ORGANIZED SPORTS LIMIT YOUR CHILD’S DEVELOPMENT?
What’s lost in youth sports is the true enjoyment of participating. Yes, it sounds cliche, but it very much holds true in this case. Sports should be played to enjoy oneself, to socialize, to learn how your body moves, and progress that learning in order to increase & improve an individual’s athletic skills.
Action sport athletes have a culture that focuses on the pure enjoyment of participating, they play & live in the moment. Sports such skate & snowboarding appreciate and celebrate the small individual elements & achievements of what it takes to participate. The very fact that their sports are based on performing tricks provides them an element of freedom that many team sports don’t ever achieve.
Sports such as surfing, skate & snowboarding are essentially not based on winning & losing a game or individual contest. Participation in these sports are purely focused on practice and the joy and reward received through self-improvement. Athletes in these sports are naturally creative due to the fact that there’s no set way any one trick must be performed. Everyone is different, everyone moves differently, our movement skills are our identity, another set of fingerprints that distinguishes us from others.
Action sport athletes are not forced to conform to any particular structure of coaching and competitions. This freestyle nature of participation truly allows a young athlete the opportunity to own and mold their experience.
Sports, through athletic movement & skill development should be thought of as an art form. Through sports, the ability to self-discover how your body and mind work both separately and together provides all of us an incredible educational experience that never ends. Unfortunately, a majority of team sports rarely provide this experience, therefore our kids never truly enjoy or reap the educational benefits of self-discovery and an appreciation of the creative process of athletic development, in comparison to action sport athletes.
Are young action sport athletes better athletes than traditional youth team sport athletes?
Physically in most cases, I can argue that participants in action sports are athletically more multidimensional and creative. For the most part they develop better core strength and balance, and they better understand and are aware of how their entire body needs to work together.
Creatively there is no question that a young action sport athlete has a tremendous advantage over a young team sport athlete. Unfortunately, unlike action sports, team sports don’t emphasize improvisation, where freestyle execution of skills are frowned upon and often not allowed by coaches. Action sport athletes have the freedom to learn and develop on their own, through their own style and creativity. Team sport athletes are robotic, waiting to be told what to do, stymied through a right and wrong way to execute skills.
Does organized youth sports have benefits for kids? Absolutely, it keeps them somewhat active, but it mostly serves to identify who is more talented much too soon in their developmental process, through often untrained amateur methods, organizations, and overzealous adults.
We as adults do more to limit creative development in our young athletes. Action sports have limited adult involvement, and those athletes have flourishing creative experiences and development. Over 40 million kids play organized sports in this country, while millions of adults coach &/or administer youth sports. Hmm… do you see the problem!!??
This is part one of an ongoing series of blogs where I’ll be exploring, “Creativity in Sports”, the importance it plays in your child’s overall development, how to incorporate it into the organized sports experience, and what you can do at home to supplement the process.
Let me know your thoughts
