Excerpt from Free Play: A Decade of Writings on Youth Sports.
I walked to a half-court gym near my house during the hot summer days in middle school and played basketball for as long as there was anyone to play against. I played for three to four hours when the competition was good without even realizing it, my only sense of time coming from my grumbling stomach as lunch time came and went.
I played against a wide spectrum of different players during these games; playing older and bigger players forced me to learn new shots, similar to those the San Antonio Spurs Tony Parker used around the basket. Playing smaller players forced me to work on my quickness to protect the ball. When I was the best player, I challenged younger children and played with a disadvantage, playing one against two or shooting only outside the key.
Nobody forced me to play. I did not have an appointment with a trainer, nor a scheduled team practice. I made up the rules, often with other children, whether they were official or unofficial. These days were not considered practice because I did not engage in typical practice activities. I played. Occasionally, I stood around and watched a game if I lost and others were waiting. Standing around did not dampen my enjoyment; it stoked my desire not to lose again.
I learned more during those games than in my actual practices despite my play may not being considered a practice activity. We generally repeated things we had learned already at practices, whether uncontested layups or five-vs-zero offense. Our practices lacked the variety and challenges of the summer pickup games. The same things that made the pickup games unlike practice were the very things that created the best conditions for learning, based on the thesis of Steven Kotler’s The Rise of Superman.
Kotler argued the best environment for learning is a flow experience. “A flow experience is one that requires complete involvement in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the utmost” (Kotler, 2013). The pickup games created this timeless, self-initiated, challenging environment, whereas most practices failed in these respects. Practices focused on repeating the same things over and over, but each game, each opponent, each day during the summer presented new challenges and new opportunities for learning. My skills developed through this play, and I improved, although this was not the purpose of the play. I played because I wanted to. It was fun.
My experience in the pickup games resembled those participating in action and adventure sports, the subject of Superman. Kotler wrote, “[Skateboarder Danny] Way doesn’t skate to break records or win championships. He skates. Period.” Way, and others, skate for the sake of skateboarding; they are immersed completely. My pickup games had the same effect; there were no trophies or championships. Just play.
I walked past two skateparks filled with teenagers while vacationing in Barcelona. There was no adult. Nobody told the children what to do or how to behave. The children were practicing, but not in the way children practice skills in a sports practice. Their practice was self-initiated. They watched other children, and tried to copy or surpass them. “In action and adventure sports, creativity is always the point,” (Kotler, 2013). When creativity is the point, it is easy to lose oneself in the activity and practice for hours. The children at the skatepark were like me on the basketball court, free to experiment, challenge oneself by imitating the best moves of others, and decide the length, duration, and intensity of the activity without any external influences except the possibility of good-natured peer pressure to push oneself or to play one more game.
What is the purpose of a youth sports practice or organized sports in general? Why do children (or their parents) sign up to play? If creativity is the point of action and adventure sports, what is the point of organized leagues? Are we achieving this purpose?
Gary Marcus argued in Guitar Zero that music is “a technology, refined and developed over the last fifty thousand years, in no small part to maximize flow,” (2012). We could argue sports were similarly refined and developed. Sports originally derived from activities important for survival, but today’s sports are far removed from the survival of our species or the propagation of our genes. At their core, we play sports to stretch our limits, to experience flow. Mihályi Csíkszentmihályi (1990), the godfather of flow, wrote, “The best moments in our lives are not passive, receptive, relaxing times...The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.” Sport, like music, creates an optimal environment for one to stretch him or herself to the limits voluntarily.
If sports have been refined and developed to maximize flow experiences, it can be argued the purpose of participating in sports and the best environment for learning sports skills are the same. Therefore, we need to create more flow experiences for participants to increase physical activity, develop better motor skills, or compete at higher competitive levels.
Sports are designed by their very nature to stretch performers to their limits. Our use of weight classes, age divisions, and other modifications are strategies to create conditions for flow experiences. These modifications are designed to create more equitable competition, as the ideal disparity between current skill level and the challenge of the activity is 4% (Marcus, 2012). One reason individual sports (running, cycling, golf, tennis) tend to sustain participation longer than team sports is the same reason for the increased participation in action and adventure sports: People participate for the sake of participation, not for trophies, and they can contrast their performances to their previous performances to measure improvement rather than measuring themselves against others by winning or losing. They stretch themselves regardless of individual ability or skill without worrying about other participants or an opponent.
Kotler added, “What’s painfully ironic here is that flow is a radical and alternative path to mastery only because we have decided that play - an activity fundamental to survival, tied to the greatest neurochemical rewards the brain can produce, and flat out necessary for achieving peak performance, creative brilliance, and overall life satisfaction — is a waste of time for adults.”
Play is disappearing from the childhood experience as well. Coaches in nearly every sport question the skill level of children and teens, and the solution tends to be an increased need for structured practice. However, how did they learn? How will these children learn best? I learned my most important sports lessons in unstructured play, where I spent an entire day playing pickup basketball games and left only when it closed, with no concept of time. It is no surprise I developed a greater skill level in basketball, a sport I played in pickup games almost daily, than in soccer, a sport we rarely played outside of practice.
We need to re-think the youth sports experience if flow is the answer to skill development, as Kostler postulated, and give back the games to the children, much as the skatepark has given children freedom to explore and find their flow experiences.
The best option is to create multiple local, free facilities for children and adults of all ages to use. Network this with a series of footpaths and cycle tracks.
France and Norway have such great municipal facilities for general use.
However, this requires a culture of "community" rather than "self". Tax payments fund facilities for all.
In a low tax environment, individuals have to pay for 'extras' such as fee paying sports teams and private tuition. This favours the wealthy few rather than the whole population.
It also encourages a desire to have a "return on investment" (winning) rather than a sense of enjoyment (play).
Look at the most obese countries in the world and compare that to their medal winning performances: the exultation of the individual versus the health of the nation.
You hit it on the nail with our society, especially California, about the litigious nature of school sports now. I fear we have passed a point of no return. I think fear and territorialism has overcome our public school system, especially.
I don't know what can change it, but a radical overhaul. Unfortunately, I don't see that in the horizon. So for now, the skill needed is to navigate through this broken system for the best of the kids.