• Home
  • SOCRATES’ THINKING
    • News and comment
    • Editorial
  • About
  • US
    • Sportsocratic team
    • Contributors
  • Reviews
    • Adventures
    • Books
    • Places
  • Contributions
  • Advertise
  • Contact

Sportsocratic

Thoughts, ideas, opinions and postulations on sport and adventuring

  • Sport & society
    • Ethics & Values
    • History
    • Favourite photos
    • Cultural and social issues
    • Politics
    • Big questions
    • Sport fashion
      • Sartorialism and style
  • Wild sports
  • Silly stuff
  • Sports science
    • Research
    • Coaching
    • Innovation
    • HEALTH
  • The things that made me
  • Stories
    • General sporting stories
    • Waves of Pain
      • No Respect!
      • Death Wish at Fairy Bower
      • Fried nuts
      • The ocean is a trickster… especially Hawaii’s North Shore – Gas chambers bites the unwary!
      • Titus Kinimaka’s nightmare Christmas
      • Dix dumped – the trials of a self-confessed elite body surfer
      • The little surf that nearly ruined a promising career…
      • Rabbit killer – a master takes a caning at pipeline!
      • Death Wish at Fairy Bower
      • Easternmost memory – surfing in the wild at the end of the continent
      • Nothing ruins a good surf like a couple of blokes with automatic assault rifles…
      • Agony for Miki Dora
      • Smashed at Gas Chambers
      • Who was Europe’s first surfing woman? Introducing the wonderful Witch of Newbury.
      • A bad day at Palmy – surfies and clubbies at war!
      • When being a proven waterman is not enough!
      • The highs and lows of surfing Sunset Beach while competing at the Duke Kahanamoku Invitational
      • An American midnight surf – that goes very wrong!
  • What does it mean?
    • What is a snake?
    • What does “shag” mean?
    • What does “Freddy Jones” mean?
    • What does “hook and ladder” mean?
    • What does back walk-over mean?
  • Philosophers Sport Bar
    • Socrates and Aristotle debate football defence
    • Michel de Montaigne on coaching sports
    • Ancient philosophers discuss what makes the beautiful game beautiful! Laozi and Socrates get technical.

Extreme sports are for normal people!

May 1, 2017 By Eric Brymer 1 Comment Filed Under: Research, Sports science

BASE jumping, wingsuit flying, big wave surfing, extreme skiing and solo rope-free climbing, when we think of someone who takes part in these extreme activities, we think of a risk-taker. The type of person you might describe as a “deviant hedonist” or a “sensation-seeker”, who is looking for an “adrenaline rush”. And they are most likely to be young and male.

The problem with this stereotype of extreme sport participants, is that not only does it not always ring true, but it also means that extreme sports then become viewed in a way that makes them inaccessible to “normal people”.

This view can be extremely damaging, especially given evidence – which emerged when I was researching a book on the subject – shows that extreme sports might be more accessible and have more of a positive impact than traditional, competitive sports.

Interviews I conducted with people between the ages of 30 and 70 who participate in extreme sports suggested they can help to create profound and positive life changes – both in the short term and longer term. So instead of just the fast-paced experiences often portrayed in short videos of extreme sports participants describe a feeling of peace and tranquility during the experience that reflects something like mindfulness.

Over the long term, these experiences support sustained well-being benefits including the realization that emotions, such as fear, that are traditionally considered negative, do not have to constrain one’s potential.

These reflections can often change people’s everyday lives – they described no longer “being bored with life” and talked of having a “passion” for their sport. They also reported seeing other people and the planet in a much more positive way after taking up extreme sports.

Human potential

Participants from all sorts of extreme sports often describe extraordinary sensory experiences of the sort not usually available in everyday life. This is because during participation in an extreme sport, a person’s ability to see, hear, and feel are all enhanced.

BASE jumpers, for example, talk about an enhanced capacity to see every nook and cranny, shade and color of the rock even though they are travelling at 200 mph. Participants also describe an experience that feels like they are merging with the environment which invariably turns into a feeling of being profoundly part of nature.

This may be one reason why so many extreme sports athletes spend a great deal of energy and time working hard to educate and protect the natural environment – this glimpse into human potential acts as a learning opportunity for psychological health and well-being more generally. 

The death risk

But, of course, when taking part in these types of activities a mismanaged mistake or accident can result in death. Perhaps therefore nonparticipants find it hard to understand why anyone would willingly undertake extreme sports – unless there is something “not normal” about “those types of people”.

But this death risk is a large part of why participation in extreme sports requires considerable commitment, along with a great deal of hard work. Extreme sports are not for those interested in the quick rush, thrills or hedonism. In fact, people interested in the short-term hedonistic outcomes might be better finding another outlet. Participants in extreme sport must have an incredible understanding of the environment that they participate in and if the conditions are not right – such as the wind in the wrong direction for BASE jumping – then they will walk away.

Extreme sports participants also possess a well-tuned knowledge of their own physical and psychological capacities and limitations. This is vitally important, because extreme sports are not the place to find out if you can or can’t undertake an activity.

BASE jumpers do not start as BASE jumpers, just the same as big wave surfers slowly develop the skills. And solo rope-free climbers start with ropes on less difficult terrain. In most cases, the journey to extreme sports is often one of deliberate skill and knowledge development.

Sporting heroes

It is clear from my own research, that extreme sports have the capacity to shine a light on what it means to be human – and what human beings are capable of. But to realize this, as a society we need a cultural shift that accepts extreme sports as beneficial. Along with a change in view that recognizes extreme sports participants as examples of what is possible in human performance.

 

But before you go out and find your latest BASE jumping club, the good news is that many of these benefits can be touched on through adventure sports more generally. This includes activities such as climbing, kayaking and mountaineering. Adventure sports do not have the downside of being constrained by tightly controlled fields as in football or cricket. And they are not focused on competition, winning and losing.

These sports are open to all and, like extreme sports, could help to encourage participation in physical activity – along with a great sense of well-being, and a deeper relationship with the natural environment. And if all of this can be achieved at the same time as having fun on the water, a rock-face or up a mountain, what’s not to like?

Reproduced from an article first published at https://theconversation.com

I know. Its in extraordinarily bad taste but I couldn’t resist it.

Eric Brymer

Eric specialises in outdoor and adventure sports with a particular focus on the health benefits of being in nature and the psychology of extreme sports. He is a reader in outdoor and adventure studies and currently holds an Adjunct position at Queensland University of Technology, Australia. Eric’s research focuses on the two major interrelated issues confronting societies today: concern for the health and wellbeing of populations and the state of the natural environment. He specialises in researching the reciprocal wellbeing benefits of the human-nature relationship. Projects include investigating the psychological health benefits of nature-based experiences, understanding how the relationship between human beings and nature benefits wellbeing and learning for pro-conservation and pro-sustainability behaviours.

Support Sportsocratic

Thanks for reading this story! We appreciate your visit to Sportsocratic… and love providing alternative information, opinions and angles from the sporting world. The world of sport is so full of the same old stuff from the same old sources that it drives us nuts… and it makes our day giving voice to less orthodox views. If you appreciate our free service, give some thought to helping us out. It costs us big bucks to keep Sportsocratic going but, if our readers support us, our future is much more secure.

Help us to keep you entertained and informed… and enable Socrates to keep asking those big philosophical sporting questions.

Support Sportsocratic for as little as a $1 and we would love you to bits. It only takes a few seconds!

Support Us

Tagged With: adrenaline, base jumping, big wave surfing, extreme sports, ice climbling, mountaineering

Comments

  1. arnold smith says

    November 5, 2017 at 1:25 pm

    Great article, Thanks for writing.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related

sporting life

Their sporting life – A journalist’s story

April 7, 2021 By SOCRATES Leave a Comment

“Bill” could have been a great rugby player… but he was more interested in other things. Do people display characteristics of their personal and working lives through their performances on the sporting field? Socrates describes the sporting life of one of his favorite people, and shows how the skill and character of one of Australia’s best journalists was always on show, even as a young man, whether on the rugby field, the basketball court or even on a quiet country headland when threatened with fisticuff by a big bloke wearing a blue uniform. Get “Bill’s” story here. Click the pic!

SOCRATES’ RECENT TWEETS

Tweets by Sportsocratic

Rugby Trivia

Olympics Rugby Teams – Who are the greatest?

April 23, 2020 By SOCRATES Leave a Comment

The rugby trivia question for the century! Which national rugby union team holds the record for the most Olympic gold medals in Rugby Union (the full-team fifteen a side game)?

Ethics and fairplay

Never cheated in my life!

November 19, 2020 By SOCRATES Leave a Comment

What is cheating? Is cheating a black and white moral issue… or are there shades of gray. Socrates spent twenty years in the engine room of the beautiful game of rugby… the scrum. He loved being a rugby hooker. He reckons that being slap bang in the middle of sixteen enormous, sweating blokes desperate to secure possession of the ball for their team taught him quite a bit about the fine art of cheating… what it is… and what it isn’t…. and how it can be done. Here Socrates lifts the veil on aspects of the workings of the 1970’s and 80’s amateur rugby scrum revealing some of its secrets. In so doing he shows that cheating is not a simple moral issue. he also claims to haver never deliberately cheated. Do you believe him?

Sport and the question of ethics

November 13, 2020 By SOCRATES Leave a Comment

“Come on. Get over it. Move on. It’s just a game!”

Most sports lovers have, at some stage of their sporting lives, experienced what they perceived to be a significant sporting injustice and had their complaints answered with just such a response. But is it “just a game?” Do injustices within the sporting realm have the potential to do real damage to individuals and to society. Socrates heard a story about a local sporting team who felt that they had been dudded by the organizers of their regional competition and he wondered whether their concerns about the perceived lack of fairness in their case and the potential consequences for all involved had any merit.

When Socrates heard former rugby referee and philosopher, Dr Simon Longstaff (Executive Director of The Ethics Centre), discussing the importance of ethics with great eloquence and passion on the radio he thought that he might be a good person to ask about whether ethics applies in sport and whether there are potential consequences for society when fair play in sport is sidestepped.

Simon was kind enough to agree to a chat. Click the pic to read the good stuff.

matildas

Aivi Luik interview – Matilda unsung hero

February 6, 2020 By SOCRATES Leave a Comment

In pub discussions about the Australian women’s football team’s most remarkable player the name Aivi Luik is not often the first one to come up. Socrates thinks that this might be a mistake and that the value of this remarkable athlete might be under-recognized. Check out her record of achievment in almost every corner of the football world. USA, Canada, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, Spain, Australia. MVP awards. Championships. All star team selections. She has had a remarkable career by anyone’s standards and is still playing at her best at 34! With Luik and her fellow Matildas in camp preparing for their Olympic Games qualifying series matches against China, Thailand and Taiwan this week Socrates was grateful that she found time to answer some questions about her footballing life. Press here for the Aivi Luik interview – a must for all sports fans, especially ambitious young athletes considering overseas careers.

Outstanding achievement

Outstanding (but not well-known) sporting achievement

September 19, 2019 By SOCRATES Leave a Comment

Everyone has heard of Kelly Slater and his bucket load of world surfing titles. Michael Jordan and his multitude of NBA titles are pretty common knowledge too. Michael Schumacher’s six world driver’s championships are pretty well known as well. Here is a sporting achievement all three would be jealous of. Manly surfer Greg Mossop has a sporting achievement that these three champions could only dream of and Mossop believes that, with a bit of luck, he could have done even better!

New surfing podcast

One of Australia’s greatest ever surfers – one of surfing’s greatest story tellers – “Rabbit” Bartholomew – talks to award winning journalist Tim Baker about life, surfing and stuff. Perfect listening for lockdown entertainment.

professionalism

Priorities in times of Covid-19

April 14, 2020 By SOCRATES NEWS DESK Leave a Comment

Here is a story about a new kid in town who suddenly, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, has to worry about how she will survive. At the same time, sports celebrities implore “loyal fans” to keep supporting their clubs financially. This kid…. and millions of others (many of them new kids in town) just WANT THEIR MONEY BACK. They need it! The elite sports leaders and many average punters come from totally different worlds. When someone asks the ones without jobs about how important the survival of professional sports teams is, I doubt that they have even given it any thought. They have more important things on their minds.

wisdom

Its just a job. Grass grows. Birds fly. Waves pound the sand. I beat people up. – Muhammad Ali

sport at mardi gras

Athletes in the LGBTQI Mardi Gras

March 12, 2019 By SOCRATES 2 Comments

Twenty-one different sports teams marched in this years Sydney Mardi Gras. That’s twenty-one groups of out and proud queer athletes. The LGBTQI community need to be “fearless” and queer athletes are no exception. Check out these fearless sporting clubs living it up on their night of night!

A life with horses

A life with horses – or Lulu in wonderland

August 8, 2018 By TIMOTHY EDWARDS Leave a Comment

It’s well known that playing sport can be a life-changing experience. For one mum, adventurer and businessperson, having a sporty pastime was more than life-changing. Lulu’s friendship with her horses has touched her and her daughter’s lives in a million ways and created a whole new life in an ever-changing wonderland for them both. But don’t think for a moment that their horses are the purpose built catalysts for their ideal lives! Its way more complex than that… and more respectful. Read on! It’s worth it!

wisdom

“Pressure? Pressure is a Messerschmidt up your arse. Playing cricket is not!”

Keith Miller

One of the greatest cricket “all-rounders” of all time, Keith Miller was not only an exceptional performer in multiple elements of test cricketing (batting, bowling and fielding) but he was also gifted in numerous other aspects of his life. Witty, entertaining, handsome, a renowned war time pilot and gifted Australian Rules Footballer, Miller was famed for calling a spade a spade and acknowledging that there was much more to life than elite sports. Having flown fighter bombers in the Second World War under life threatening circumstances he was not one to take the “pressure” of high level sport too seriously!

trivia

Here is a cracker of a trivia question.

Who was the college recruiting scout talking about when he said the following to his head coach.

“I’ve just seen a fat guy… who can play like the wind!”

Yup. The same guy who told people that just because they had shoes like his, it didn’t make them like him in any other way. Charles Wade Barkley.

Etymology

Where did the word canter come from?

August 8, 2018 By SOCRATES Leave a Comment

A bit more horsey stuff for people who liked the story next door. Here is a cracker bit of etymology for all you word lovers (and horse lovers) out there. Where does the word canter come from? You’ll never guess in a million years! Click here to find out. It’s a beauty!

What does it mean?

What is Elvis leg?

Admit it. You’ve never heard of “Elvis leg,” have you? What the blazes is “Elvis leg?” As is the case with every other “What does it mean…” story we have ever posted, the answer is not directly related to the name itself. It is indirectly related to Elvis, though. Have a guess what the relationship is… then click here and check out whether your were correct. Find out for certain which sport uses this term and what it means.

What is a liberator?

Of course most you aviation buffs will think that a liberator is an American WW2 heavy bomber. Fair enough. But in a sporting context does it have a completely different meaning? Indeed it does. You are going to have to click here to find out what a liberator is and does in the world of sport.

Aphorisms, insights and wisdom

“The thing that’s depressing about tennis is that no matter how good I get I will never be as good as a wall.”

More perceptive sporting analysis from Mitch Hedberg, comic genius.

 

ebook

Phillip has returned to the south of India after eighteen years. But who is the young girl staying in his hotel? And what will he learn about his estranged brother through Inez, the Spanish backpacker?

To buy The Bangalore Test, John Campbell’s new ebook novella, just click the link.

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter

©2019 Sportsocratic