Young athletes : passion for sport

Young athletes: passion for sport Núria Puig Barata Institut Nacional d'Educació Física de Catalunya (INEFC) The Centre d’Estudis Olímpics (CEO-UAB) publishes works aimed to facilitate their scientific discussion. The inclusion of this text in this series does no limit future publication by its author who reserves the integrity of his rights. This publication may not be reproduced, neither partially nor totally, without the author’s permission. This text corresponds with the lecture presented at the Second World Conference on Sport Sciences, Barcelona, October 1991. Ref. WP031 Núria Puig Barata – Young athletes: passion for sport 2 To refer to this document you can use the following reference: Puig Barata, Núria (1995): Young athletes: passion for sport [online article]. Barcelona: Centre d’Estudis Olímpics UAB. [Consulted: dd/mm/yy] <http://olympicstudies.uab.es/pdf/wp031_eng.pdf> [Date of publication: 1995] Núria Puig Barata – Young athletes: passion for sport 3 INTRODUCTION The following text corresponds with the lecture that I presented as "invited lecture" at the Second World Conference on Sport Sciences held in Barcelona on October, 1991. It has to me a very especial meaning, since it is one of the first steps of a line of research that I am directing at INEF-Catalonia, Barcelona, whose name is Emotions in Sport: social and cultural reasons. Its objective is the analysis of social and cultural components of the emotions expressed about sport. The area of the research is one of the most innovative in modern sports sociology and connects with the increasing interest on the sociologic analysis of daily life. Since 1991 we have made great progresses either from the theoric and from the methodic points of view. At this point I think it is important to mention what we have been doing during this period: PUIG, N., (1990): "La composante passionnellle de la pratique sportive des jeunes". A ARNAUD, P. (1990) Le moderne en question. Innovation et changements sociaux, Lyon, Association Francophone pour la Recherche sur les Activités Physiques et Sportives (AFRAPS), Centre Jacques Cartier. SANCHEZ MARTIN, R.; SNACHEZ MARTIN, J., (1992): Emotion and Sportive Spectacle: An Approach to the Social Construction of Emotion, Barcelona, INEF-Catalonia, Post-graduate research report. (Published in Spanish) MARTIN, M., (1993): Top-level Sportswomen in Catalonia, Barcelona, Generalitat de Catalunya, Direcció General de l'esport, research report. (Published in Catalan) MORELL, S., (1993): Sport Passions and Love Passions. A Proposal of an Object of Study. Communication presented at the World Congress of Sciences of the Physical Activity and Sport, Granada, Facultad de Ciencias de la Actividad Física y el Deporte, Universidad de Granada, November. (Published in Spanish) MORELL, S.; PUIG, N. (1994): Passions in Top-level Sport, Communication presented at the XIII World Congress of Sociology, Bielefeld, R.F.A. MORELL, S., (1994): The Emotional Itineraries of Top-level Athletes. Research report, Barcelona, Institut Nacional d'Educació Física de Catalunya. (Published in Catalan) MARTIN, M., (1994): Top-level Athletes in Catalonia. Communication presented at the III Congress of the AEISAD (Asociación Española de Investigación Social Aplicada al Deporte): The Challenges of Social Sciences Applied to Sport, Instituto Universitario del Deporte de Valladolid, Valladolid, October. (Published in Spanish) Núria Puig Barata – Young athletes: passion for sport 4 MORELL, S., (1994): The Study of Emotion in Sport: A Proposal to the Sociologic Analysis. Communication presented at the III Congress of the AEISAD: The Challenges of Social Sciences Applied to Sport, Instituto Universitario del Deporte de Valladolid, Valladolid, October. (Published in Spanish) KIRCHNER, E., (1994): The Emotions in Adventure Sports: An Analysis of the Contents of the Speech of the Practotioners through Computers. Communication presented at the III Congress of the AEISAD: The Challenges of Social Sciences Applied to Sport, Instituto Universitario del Deporte de Valladolid, Valladolid, October. We will be glad to welcome anybody who might be interested in this area of research or anybody who requires information on what we do. We thank finally CEOE and especially its Director Miquel de Moragas and the possibility of including this lecture in the Collection Working Paper, whose spreading role has been proved so far. Núria Puig Barata – Young athletes: passion for sport 5 PRESENTATION In order to make a profond study of the factors that influence the participation in sport one must begin with the study of the opportunities and obstacles as a whole that have determined the personal itineraries and finish with the emotions that sport provokes on everybody. Finally, the decision of taking part in sport, of participating in minor or major intensity, of giving up a sports career at the top are explained according to the emotion that sport provokes on a person. Anybody who works within the sports area or anybody who practises sport has sometimes found him or herself in situations that cannot be understood without considering this emotional dimension brought up while practising sport. These situations sometimes help sportive efficiency but sometimes is right the opposite: without previous announcement the athlete is involved in an emotional feeling that stops him or her from attaining the performance. Patrice RAGNI, French trainer, affirms that "he often finds himself face to face with irracionality in front of certain antiperformances" (1989:61) of his athletes. Facing them, once physical, technical, tactic and medic preparation have been positively considered, he is obliged to accept that "what really works when it comes to obtain success is the athlete's own subjectivity and this subjetivity is very difficult to describe. In effect, once this emotive ingredient has been accepted, it is necessary to make a deeper study of its nature (MAGUIRE, 1991). When we talk about the emotion kept back in sport, what do we really mean? Which kind of mental processes take place in the athlete's mind so as to provoke emotions to a higher level? Is it a different emotion depending on everybody or is it also charactarized by cultural factors? Very little has been published on this subject and it shows that this emotion is contradictory and strongly determined by inner impulses, dificult to be made objective. It is not a simple question of motivations (BROUSSE, 1989:15). The challenge with him or herself, obtaining the performance, the anxiety and distress that appear before the competition provoke the complex process inside the person which can cause emotion, pleasure. At the same time, all this has got important social and cultural determinants. (ELIAS AND DUNNING, 1986; MAGUIRE, 1991). The objective of this conference is to provide several elements of reflection about the nature of the emotion in young athletes from a sociologic point of view. The empirical basis is the result of a research about "The sports itinerary of the young population in Barcelona city" carried out during the last four years at the Institut Nacional d'Educació Física de Catalunya (in Barcelona). We have used a teoric perspective based on phenomena. We wanted to find out precisely the experiences of boys ans girls in practising sport and the account that they make of their own sports itinerary. For this reason, the investigation technique that we have used is the survey in depth. 28 surveys have been made on 14 boys and 14 girls divided into 2 groups. One constituted by top-level athletes (olympic selections or national selections) ant the other constituted by people more or less in contact with sport but without any top-level orientation. Every survey has taken approximately 2 hours. The analysis of the contents has combined the quantitative and the qualitative approaches following the procedures of Pierre Pellegrino and his team at "Centre de Recherche en Architecture et Architecturologie" (CRAAL) of the University of Geneve (PELLEGRINO et al., 1986) Núria Puig Barata – Young athletes: passion for sport 6 CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EMOTION IN SPORT: STATE OF THE MATTER First, it is necessary to make a revision on the existing literature on emotions in sport. This has enabled to focus on the especific objective of the emotion in youthful sport. Then, some characteristics of the emotion in sports are mentioned. Mario ABIS (1988) anticipates a even bigger expansion of sport due to its capacity to adapt to the cultural forms of the modern world and its socialization power. While the traditional ways of intercourse (neighbourhood, city festivals...) are everytime less present in social life, sport is introduced as an activity that favours encounter. In that sense, Jan TOLLENER (1986) mentions both scenaries that attract young people the most: the sports scenary and the pop music scenary. Both favour communication beyond the word and using the body, gestures. In fact, athe expressive capacity of contemporary sport has not been studied in depth yet. Vincenzo PADIGLIONE (1988) mentions the need of studying the specific sense of this phenomenon ("il senso especifico di questo grandioso fenomeno contemporaneo"). He finds in sport a ritual dimension that helps "the mixture of contradictory elements, sacred and profane, that convert the opositions into identifications" (Ibid; 11). Also MAGUIRE (1991;32) thinks it is necessary to make a deeper study of the sacred and profane dimensions of sport. This ritual dimension carries a dramatic context that converts sport into a "linguistic metaphor", a way of communicating stronger than words, because it uses gestures, screams, mouvements... On his part, Jean Paul CALLEDE (1987:105) considers sport an especific universe where physic exploit -either individual or collectivehas got a sense particularly important. ROJEK (1985:181) mentions the skills required to obtain satisfaction at a leisure activity. The exploit -due to its poweris a source of identity, seduction and sociability. The emotion in sport has also got mimetic characteristics. The mimetic activities are those in which emotions and excitement, which are not accepted in other spheres of social life, can be expressed. It deals with any leisure activity (music, theatre, sport...) that favours the awakening of pleasant excitement forms; forms, however, that are socially tolerated and regulated. "The mimetic excitement causes neither social nor personal danger and can have a cathartic effect" (ELIAS & DUNNING; 1986:80; SAEKI; 1990:7). Thus, the sociology of pleasure, closely linked with the sociology of leisure, shows that intercourse during a leisure activity is a socially tolerated behaviour (ROJEK, 1985:177). Any pleasant form must include discipline and control, otherwise is rejected, hidden (Ibid:177); it fails in fulfilling its mimetic function. These activities cannot be untied from social life as a whole. They are related to the forms of control and selfcontrol found in other areas. Its centrality is precisely due to the function that they exert within this context. They allow the expression of emotions without being a danger to the social order. A very interesting example is the one related to love. Love, socially accepted, is regulated through a certain example to follow (one person forever, the institution of marriage, heterosexual couples...). Any transgression to the established rule -though they are well knownare not accepted if they might represent an upsetting of the established order. Love passions, homosexual love... have not an easy social legitimation. Núria Puig Barata – Young athletes: passion for sport 7 In contrast with these facts, that characterize "real life", love -and especially that of the less legitimate kindplays a decisive role amongst leisure products (literature, cinema, thatre) (ELIAS & DUNNING, 1986:72). It is necessary to find a mimetic substitute for love, more than for any other human activity. On the other hand, mimetic activities are exciting, pleasant, otherwise they would not accomplish the function that is attributed to them. Their "merit" is that they stimulate people's creativity, the power to re-define the conditions where they are developed, invented and re-invented (ROJEK, 1985:178). According to ELIAS, the essential components of leisure activities are sociability, mobility and imagination (MAGUIRE: 1991,30). Without such "capacities" they would not have such a high degree of adhesion. Amongst them, sport has a privileged position. Sport has kept the emotive capacity of the medieval traditional games after being subdued to a civilizing process of regulation and social legitimation. It has obtained a central position as mimetic activity in those societies where it has been developed. However, the aspects mentioned so far are not enough to explain the totality of the emotions in sport and their effects on the people who practice it. They are pleasant, they provoke a "pleasurable excitement" but they are also "evident" and "positive". They are evident because they are the first results from a well guided empirical research. They are positive because they do not show any contradictory nor negative dimension. However, we know that pleasure in all its dimensions -physic, psychologic, sociologic... -is far more complicated. ELIAS & DUNNING (1986:82) observe that the emergency of tensions is an essential ingredient of any kind of leisure acitvities. When they talk about a football match they say that "if the tone of the game becomes too low, the value of tension as leisure declines" (Ibid:89). And they get even further when they affirm that any leisure activity must have a climax, a culminating moment, that provides all its magnificence. However, tension shall never surpass what is socially tolerated, otherwise a serious breakdown is provoked on1ce we change a mimetic event into a non-mimetic one; that is the serious problem that we face nowadays about hooliganism, which is spreading all over Europe (1). Tension and climax are especially generated within sports practice associated to top level; winning, obtaining a record, being the best... are incentives that help its emergency. This is well appreciated on the statistic tables obtained from the surveys. Then, we can talk about the nature of the youthful emotions in sport. EMOTION IN SPORT AND TOP LEVEL SPORT IN YOUNG SPORT ITINERARIES Sport associated to the top level, either as a real or imaginary practice, is always a positive experience. It does not happen the same with other practices in which perceptions are changeable; and, in particular, thore refered 1 (1) See, in that sense, the important contribuiton on this subject by ERIC DUNNING and his team at the Sir Norman Chester Centre for Football Research at the University of Leicester, Great Britain. Núria Puig Barata – Young athletes: passion for sport 8 to maintenance, which, when they undergo a statistic analysis, they have a negative statistic result according to the youngest ages. Table 1 shows the statistic meaning of the various conceptions of sport depending on the ages in the group of the top level athletes. While age increases, sport as a maintenance activity loses importance and another conceptions related to top level increase. This "maintenance" has got a positive meaning between 10 and 12 years (+103.60) and a negative one between 19 and 25 (-100.37). But the "mental experience" and the "criticism" are positively significative between 19 and 25 years (+54.25 and +64.78 respectively); they coincide with the moment of greater devotion to top level sport. It is not rare, however, that the other indicator with statistic meaning is that of critical experience in sport. It is well known that the most critic athletes are those that require the most help to be able to attain certain objetives; that is, those that have chosen top level. Other previous studies also confirm this theory (GARCIA FERRANDO, 1979; GARCIA FERRANDO & ORTI, 1978). Table 1: The conception of sport according to the age in the top level group. Age Exigence Top Level Competiton Maintenance Relation Corporal Critical Physical Myth 0-9 +12.28 -22.62 -1.94 +46.01 +1.13 -5.05 -4.85 -0.01 +5.76 10-12 +17.77 -11.04 +1.22 +103.60 +0.34 -3.91 -5.84 -20.31 +3.54 13-14 +8.49 -1.06 +7.82 +26.68 +6.46 -0.36 -20.22 -30.27 +1.00 15-18 -1.48 +10.85 +10.48 -2.57 +10.51 -0.18 -21.01 -11.06 -2.70 19-25 -22.72 +4.04 -15.03 -100.37 -18.49 +9.36 +54.25 +64.78 -1.84 +25 -0.01 +2.55 +0.18 -6.11 -0.63 -1.99 +8.96 -0.14 -1.22 Other similar conclusions can be drawn fron the group of young athletes during free time. Results are even more interesting since the experience is not related only to real behaviour but also to its function within people's imagination. MAGUIRE (1991:29) insists on the symbolic dimension of sport practice. In that sense, the main result shown on table 2 is the positive statistic meaning of the indicators associated to top level. Table 2: Conception of sport according to age within the group of non-professionals. Age Exigence Top Level Competiton Maintenance Relation Corporal Critical Physical Myth 0-9 +0.00 -8.45 +1.20 +9.33 +0.22 -2.24 -4.71 -7.14 +43.4 10-12 +0.03 -0.01 +7.44 -0.34 -1.31 -1.56 -2.31 -0.74 +0.02 13-14 +0.00 -0.31 +0.43 -2.91 +0.14 -0.47 -0.07 +1.05 -2.34 15-18 +0.07 +20.41 -0.06 -1.37 -1.56 +4.41 -1.12 -0.09 -2.60 19-25 -0.01 -2.39 -9.38 +0.15 +1.31 +1.02 +19.96 +3.40 -6.44 +25 -1.47 -1.41 -2.65 -0.43 +1.83 -0.92 +0.75 +4.15 -0.92 Núria Puig Barata – Young athletes: passion for sport 9 Between 15 and 18 sport understood as top level is significant (+20.41). This is the moment during which competition can be experienced, aspect encouraged with concrete hopes with regard to victory, performances... Between 0 and 9 the mythical conception dominates (+43.43) which means top level from the point of view of children dreams. The dominance of critical discourse between 18 and 25 years (+19.96) has got a different meaning from the other group. According to the obtained qualitative witnesses it seems that alternative practises are also included. It is not so much a criticism to sport as to the instituion. It is well known that the so called practises, in spite of being practised apart from the instituion, they keep having -if not intensifyingits adventure, risky and expressive nature. They keep, in short, the emotive capacity of top level sport. The maintenance activities, on the other side, are only significant between 0 and 9 years old (+9.33). Table 3 shows the importance of sport in relation to top level, the conception of sport in relation to the problems of abandonment. The most important result consists in perceiving how abandoning is associated to maintenance and not to other selected indicators. It is well known to which extent top level sport is a hard and demanding practice. Even more if we consider that it is practised at admitted unstable ages. It is not rare, then, that abandonments are found due to the excessive burden that can represent. However, it is surprising to see that during the speeches of the interviewed people, abandonment related to top level (practised or imagined) it is not statistically significative, it does not worry anybody. That is, abandonment is clearly less related to the conception of top level than it is to maintenance; the level of importance of the abandonment due to various reasons is +15.96. Neither it has a positive meaning with the "experienced" conception where it is clearly expressed that abandonment does not exist (+5.97). Table v.3. Abandonment according to the conception of sport Maintenance Top-level Experience personal abandonment (-) 3.78 (+) 0.20 (+) 0.55 no abandonment (-) 8.11 (-) 1.08 (+) 5.97 other reasons (+) 15.96 (+) 0.09 (-) 6.22 These data confirm that the nature of the emotions in sport is not simple, at least in relation to the young population. From the statistic analysis it can be seen that top-level contains the most attractive elements (winning, top performance, showing off...) even if its practice represents suffering. In fact, the pleasure of the activity arrives after a great effort. The interest towards such dimension of sport is also shown through the little importance given to abandonment. The psychoanalitic thought emphasizes the contradictory and paradoxal dimension of the emotion in sport. Marie Hélène BROUSSE (1989) starts from a discipline which consists in "demonstrating how, paradoxically, the subject of the unconcious (...) is not correlated with a satisfaction that would be natural (...). The relationship between the subject of the unconcious and the diverse forms that the goods of the world or the dominating