Last night's post is the last time I think I'll get 'deep' for a while. As much as I've enjoyed writing the last few posts, I feel that the style of them isn't really what most people want of an evening. With that in mind I set out on a quest of lightheartedness and jocularity and I hope you'll come along for the ride - that sounded like something from Disneyland; this isn't Disneyland.
It seems apt that I'm sitting down to write this post. I should say that I sit down to write all of my posts, just in case you had any images of me on my feet - sorry if that ruins your dreams. Anyway I'm very much in a sitting down position as I prepare, in my own inimitable way, to explain how to take inspiration from the Olympics. We've been told every day this week about the 'legacy' that the 2012 Games will have in Britain and how it's going to encourage people to get up and take part in sport. How does that legacy apply to the regular Joe though and how do we derive the necessary inspiration from Bolt and Co?
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| Mo Bolt and Usain Farah being badass - names that I don't think will stick. |
It helps if you like sport in the first place I suppose. Without an underlying interest in sport you're very unlikely to take part in it yourself. The good thing about the Olympics (and the coverage by the BBC) is that you almost had no other choice but to watch it. I've come across many people in the last couple of weeks that have never taken an interest in sport in their lives but now have a working knowledge of 10+ sports, most of which they had never heard of prior to the Games. This is a good place to start because now many thousands of people that didn't really like sport before have an interest - e.g. everyone now has their favourite handball player (don't you?).
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| Nely Carla Alberto: a true beast of women's handball and my favourite player. |
The next step is to emulate what you watched on TV. This is where things get a bit tricky and I start to get more comfortable in my desk chair. Apologies again if you thought I wrote this blog from a throne or a beanbag - you're thinking that now if you weren't already at least! How does one go about taking inspiration from someone such as Usain Bolt or Jessica Ennis? They are elite athletes that have dedicated their lives to their sport. I, on the other hand, spend most of my days sitting or lying down and used to be quite quick across a football field - I don't see the similarities.
What I'm trying to say is that I find it very hard to associate with the people that excelled at the Olympics because I just don't see myself excelling in sport now. For example, I (like many others across the nation) decided to dust my bike down after watching Bradley Wiggins win the time trial. I went out for about an hour, cycling the local roads and then a track that is near my house, before returning with the wind in my hair and mud on my back. The next day I was in agony, barely able to sit down never mind think about going out on my bike again. The morals of the story are two-fold: firstly I probably need a new seat for my bike and secondly I was inspired by the Olympics but I ended up not enjoying it as much as I thought I would.
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| Bradley Wiggins in the chair that I don't blog from! Although that is how I'm sitting... |
And there lies the answer then. To be inspired by what you watched over that fortnight of great sporting action is to do something that you are crap at and that makes you ache afterwards - I jest of course. The inspiration that I've taken from the Olympics is that I should put more effort into something I know I'm half-decent at (and that I really enjoy) and then I'll have my own little medal ceremony when I do well in it. It turns out that my sporting days are more or less behind me and that it will be purely recreational from now on when I do 'get involved'. Instead the inspiration that I've taken from watching all of those people exert themselves, drain themselves and ultimately put themself through hell is (drumroll please) to sit down more - I'm good at that at least.
Fine I'm pushing this lightheartedness to the point of clowning around but I'm getting to my point. I should elaborate on what I've just said. I'm not going to take up 'sitting down' as a sport or apply to my university to have a club created in its honour. When I say that I've been inspired to sit down I really mean that what I'll be doing when I do all of that sitting down. I'm half-decent at what I do at university and if the Olympics has taught me one thing (I'll buzz-word once more: inspired) then that is that hard-work reaps success. I'm going to be more constructive when I'm sitting down and work harder for university - thanks Usain!
How do you take inspiration from the Olympics then? Well maybe you've got a sport that you might want to work harder at but it doesn't have to be restricted to that as I've displayed above. It might even be the case that you have a comfortable saddle on your bike and therefore good for you - at least you'll be able to sit down after you go for a cycle.
Thanks for reading,
Martin
