Cultural Values / ANZAC Day

Yesterday I was lucky enough to attend the ANZAC Day AFL match between Collingwood and Essendon. Being a St Kilda supporter, I didn’t want to miss out on the fun, so I donned my brothers Essendon Jersey and scarf and headed off to the MCG. The atmosphere was incredible! To have 90 000 + people all packed into a stadium and still not a sound during the last post was amazing! Not to mention the level of the game! Both teams fought all day and did not give up, something you would expect from an ANZAC solider. There are so many comparisons between football and war, and far too many quotes to even think about putting in here, but it got me thinking that even though sometimes we get sick of these old cliques, they are so relevant and so true!

The main value that transfers is camaraderie!  Each solider at war fought and fought for our country, just as these AFL players fight and fight for each other. Sure, it might not be to the same extent, but these football players go out there and put their body on the line for their teammates and they keep watch over them and give everything that they have on that field, just to make their teammates and their supporters proud!

There is also great sportsmanship shown by these athletes. Just as our ANZACS did, the football players show enormous respect for their opponents, and try to focus on winning the game, rather than beating the other team. Even the crowd seemed more subdued than a normal AFL match, yes there were fanatics cheering on their team but there was no one yelling abuse over the fence. The crowd just seemed to have a different feel to it, like they all appreciated what the ANZACS did and now what the AFL players represent.

Emotional Attachment to Sport

Last week I was lucky enough to see St Kilda up close and personal twice in Canberra. On Friday I headed down to their open training and hung around and met all the players, and then on Saturday I went to the match and then hung around again and met them all again. After both occasions I could not wipe the smile off my face! And it got me thinking, we place so much emotional attachment on sport! Being able to meet the players, and being lucky enough to do it twice, was honestly something that I had wanted to do since I was a little girl, and I was definitely behaving like the child within me!

So what does sport provide for us emotionally? It can be much more than a hobby, game after game, season after season, year after year, we follow these teams and watch them play, train, and off field. It also provides us with a connection to those around us. My whole family, aside from me, support Essendon, and we will all often watch it together as a family activity. Not only that but weekly calls to speak about upcoming games, previous games, and players injuries give us another reason to connect to the ones around us. Sport can also be a very powerful social tool! The amount of friends that you can make through playing and watching sport is amazing! I have met some incredible people through joining the Hawks, and wouldn’t have been given that chance without sport.

Emotion is also a very powerful marketing tool. Through emotion, sporting companies can get us to buy almost anything! And they can put a large price tag on it too!

It also provides a good base of drive and motivation for athletes. If you ask an athlete why they play the sport they play, it will more often than not be at least partly an emotional reason. For example, I love football and I am keen to improve my skills all the time, but the reason I play is for the friends that I have met and the love that I have for football. If you ask them why they want to achieve what they set out to do, it will also have a very emotional attachment to it. Some may give the reason “Oh I just love being out and running around”, but If it was just the running they wouldn’t pay hundreds of dollars in fees to just run.

Having this connection is so important, and can be so amazing!! I cannot imagine not supporting an AFL team as crazily as I do!

The Role of Music

For some athletes, music can play a massive part in optimal performance, but for others it can have no impact at all. I am one of those players that believe heavily in the use of it, and it can change my mood before or after a match. The first thing that music helps with for me is arousal levels before a game. As the inverted U model is heavily dependent on the individual, listening to music before a game can greatly help me to get into the optimal zone for performance. Others I know like to sit quietly before a game, and some just bounce around the walls of the change room.

I also find that music is a massive relaxation tool for me before a game. It helps me to settle my nerves and to get right into the zone before a game. Having a set playlist means that I have tailored my music to progress through the stages of my pre game routines. At the start of my playlist I have very energetic music that can get me up and going. After a while, the music gets slower and allows me to calm, slow my heart rate and to gather my thoughts about the game ahead. It then picks up the pace again and gets me fired up to go out there and do the best that I can.

Having music before a game, particularly a playlist or the same songs, means that you can get into a routine and this also acts as a calmative. The best way to introduce this in a team situation however, is through individual music players and headphones. As all players might not support the use of music, or the style of music, this is the most safe option.

Certain songs can also evoke certain memories. If you teach yourself to do something and link it to music, every time you hear that song, you will be reminded of what you have learnt. Music can also aid with forms of mental imagery, another technique becoming more and more popular for athletes. I have certain songs that whenever I hear them, regardless of where I am or what I am doing, I immediately think of football. There are even 3 certain songs that can make me nervous when I hear them just because they remind me of big games!

Other Generations Sport

I often think about the role that sport plays in our lives, and where it fits in with the rest of our busy schedules. I know it can be very different for each person, but I believe that in general we do not spend enough time playing it. If we can fit an hour into our day to surf the net or to watch television, why can’t we find time to go out and run around. I don’t blame technology, because the technological advances we have had are very important and make things so much easier, but we need to find an even balance. My parents, aunts and uncles, and grandparents always speak about how they used to be out and in the street playing cricket and football with their siblings and neighbours. I would love to be able to spend all my time out in the street kicking the footy with my brothers, but the few times we get to often do not last for long, and the dirty looks we get from people driving past are enough to put you off it.

We have also seen an increase in sport technology, but why have we don’t this? Every supplement that we take, or up to date, latest design sports equipment that we use, is it to optimise our performance so that we can get better or is it because we are lazy and don’t want to spend hours out on the paddock training for things? Sure, we may call it efficiency, but wouldn’t the research and breakthrough’s be better off in another area of life, such as health research?

Athletes are becoming faster, stronger, better, but what do we owe our generations for that? Everything has slowly been changing, from shoes to outfits, surfaces to arenas, and sporting equipment to the latest technology, all of these things make us break records from previous years, but can we really compare ourselves to athletes of the previous generation or the generation before that?