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?

Gym Culture

We all have a desire to be skinny and have a ripped body, but how much does this impact on our lives? And what effect do digital effects have on our mindset?

It is vital that athletes spend a large portion of their time ensuring that their body is in prime condition for their sport, but at what stage does the gym culture take over? Professional sporting organisations very often have gyms at their training facilities, and the athletes use these for an hour or so a day. The sporting organisations employ strength and conditioning coaches to help the athletes to ensure that their body is primed for their sport. But it is the semi-professional and amateur athletes that have the most trouble with body image. They participate in their sport, and on the side they head to the gym to get ‘big’. They get caught up in the gym culture of society, and focus on getting stronger. But when these athletes go to the gym, they rarely go for the purpose of developing their sport, they go for looks.

If athletes can’t have confidence in themselves and their image, what message does that portray to those that look up to them? As I mentioned last week about Idols, people hang off everything that their idols do and say. Whilst this can be positive, it can also be very negative. Children these days need to be taught that body image is not important. They should just be out running around with their friends rather than worrying about how they look. When they see athletes being photo shopped in magazines, and worrying about their body image, these children are of course going to become conscious about their own bodies. This should not be happening. Children should be taught that nutrition is vital, and any other resistance training and cardio training should be done to ensure better performance in sport rather than aesthetics.

Idols and Big Dreams

We all have idols in sport, but why is this the case and what influence do they have on us?

We must admire their onfield personas, as that is the main reason that they are playing the sport at a high level. What characteristics do they display for us to like them better than other players? It has to be different for each individual, and the team that you barrack for must have an influence also. For example, many Fremantle Dockers fans love Hayden Ballantyne, but those that support other teams hate him. The same can be said for St Kilda’s Stephen Milne. Those that don’t love him hate him! I happen to hate most of the Collingwood players, and I think most of the reason why is because they play for the pies!

But how much of an influence does a player’s off field antics have on us? A true AFL supporter should be able to able to separate onfield and off field characteristics. Brendan Fevola and Ben Cousins have both repeatedly done stupid thing off the AFL field, yet that shouldn’t detract from the fact that they were both amazing footballers with incredible talent! And one could only imagine what they would have been able to do if it wasn’t for the alcohol and drugs being involved. However, when someone is your idol, it is hard not to let their entire life become something that you want to replicate, being paid to play sport would be an amazing opportunity! You can also feel extremely disappointed in the player for being so stupid away from the sport!

On a personal level, do you relate to that player? Or do they have something that you want to learn or to become? My absolute hero is Nick Riewoldt from St Kilda, and I am not certain of why I began to idolise him, but looking back I would say that it is his ability to be an onfield and off field leader that makes him stand out. Yes, he is talented, but so are all AFL footballers, but he has this incredible talent to be able to lift himself and his team in big games. I don’t relate to him because of positions, as we play completely different roles, and I don’t think that realistically I would ever have to opportunity to do what he has done, but there are parts of his game that I admire, and that I want to be able to carry over into my game.

But hey, one can only dream!    ;D

Sport as a Spectacle

Last Friday night I attended the AFL NAB cup match at Manuka Oval which saw the Bombers and the Giants clash. It was the first time that Manuka had been lit up for an AFL match, and got plenty of people excited, including myself! This got me thinking about sport as a spectacle. Gone are the days of running around on a beaten up paddock, footy fields are now surrounded by massive structures to ensure that a maximum number of people can watch the matches.

Rather than buying a general admin ticket into the game, I bought tickets to a function that allowed me to gain entry, get a reserved seat in the Bradman Stand, which is the best seating, and a 4 hour food and drinks package and talks from politicians, AFL Canberra employees, and football superstars, such as Tom Harley, Jason Saddington, Craig Bolton and Kevin Sheedy. And the price I paid for all of these things? A measly $80. These entertainment packages are quickly becoming the most reasonably priced forms of viewing the footy, with ticket prices, in-ground food and drinks and the cost of parking, public transport, etc becoming more and more costly. These package deals enhance the experience of the supporters that buy tickets, and make the games seem even better. It safe to say that I incredibly enjoyed the night, not only because of the match itself, but because of all the ‘extra’s’. (My night was made even better by meeting some of the players after including Jobe Watson! :D)

However, do things like these package deals being offered take away from the actual game itself? Many people argue that these packages, combined with pre-game entertainment, half time entertainment and things happening around the ground detract from the actual game itself. I do not believe that this is the case! These things only enhance the game, and can even help to better it, by bringing others to the game that might not have come if it was purely the game. The game as a spectacle is a good thing for the growth of the game!