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A generation of could-have-beens.
That’s what I joke with my clients. I’ve heard versions of only if mom and dad had pushed me harder. Only if I knew what I know today. Only if I had been fed more protein. Only if the coaching options that exist today had existed then.
Squash, weekend league cricket, beach football, basketball.
Sport is a proxy for social bonding and validation. Much like tribesmen who are terrific at hunting get feted by a tribe. And a tribe that hunts together and share the spoils tend to stick together and thrive. Pop-anthropology much?
The compulsion to move for food or shelter does not exist for a chunk of us. Sport is a perversion of the human need and desire to move without purpose and often in groups.
I think most of my generation’s longing for being a better athlete is just a version of I really wish I was really skilled at moving in a way that my peers respected and might even have society watching my capacity in awe.
I’ve had people unironically tell me how they like sport because it’s ‘gamefied’. But don’t like the gym because it’s ‘exercise’. It felt like the most Indian of excuses. Carry a couple of bags for 44 yards, it’s an exercise! Yuck! Carry a bat across 44 yards. You get 2 runs. Yay! Look there’s the childhood joy and validation I crave so much!
I am guilty of building tools and sanitising movement to make it accessible too. But some of the best sessions I’ve run had people moving with a certain grace and cohesion which made me forget how much was lifted and enjoy how we moved, trolled, joked and laughed together.
Walking places. Moving stuff without assistance. Adults just hanging or playing in parks. Just aimless movement, not technically rigid, not bound by rules or order. With an eye on fun and not on steps, reps, runs or weight.
Just moving with a certain greed. Every chance you get to move, you take it.