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Sports and Art Skills for Children

The first five years of life are critical in the development of a child’s personality, mentality and physicality. Children have no choice in deciding what those five years bring them. Children are forced to take what they get simply because they are 100% helpless to change it. However, children have no problem telling you in no uncertain terms what it is they want in those years even if they have no idea why they want it. So, it is left up to the caretakers, parents, to decide what will be and what will not be for those children. It is really difficult to know what the right thing to do is because the children are not born with a set of directions, which would be a good thing since every child is different, very different. I would think the number one element in being a good guardian to a child is simply by having the will to want to do the best thing for the child. So many parents I see out there seem to act like having children is a burden to them in some way. So, to parents everywhere who do and want what is best for their child, the child will be fine, because in the end, that is the message they get.

I say all of this because in hindsight I see that I was born into a very fortunate situation for a child. We didn’t have a lot of money, and this proves that money has little to do with raising children, other than you need enough of it to feed, clothe and shelter them. My mother was stay at home the first five years, largely due to the fact that my brother was so dangerously ill during that time, and was there for us constantly. My father was studying to be a professor of psychology specializing in child and educational psychology, and a high school teacher and football coach. We had the absolute best supporting friends anyone could ever ask for in a family we shared time with, twin daughters not much older than we were who babysat us and played with us for hours on end. The first five years of my life were truely wonderful.

This discussion leads me to talk about sports. Why? Because my father was a football coach, and a very athletic person. My brother and I were born with a football in our hands. We were taken to the locker room, out on the field, my father was a life guard in the summer at a hotel swimming pool and that is where we learned to swim and I remember watching him doing flips off of the diving board. We were wearing pads by the age of 4! Running around, throwing and kicking the ball, back then you simply had to use the regular sized balls, they didn’t make kiddy sized stuff back then. As little from those years as I remember, we were always about sports and being active. So now, it is in my DNA, and I miss that involvement today.

In my involvement in the arts there has always been this subliminal battle going on between the spending and the emphasis on sports, education and the arts as if they were in opposition of each other. Within society there is a misconception about these elements that has always puzzled me. Nowhere more than in high school was this a factor. The people in sports seemed to look at people in band or choir as weird, the folks in the arts looked at sports people as haughty and dumb and the people in the sciences looked at both as out of touch with what is really important. Somewhere at the back of all of that were the practical people of business and the industrial and agricultural arts would sort of go their own way regardless. But, our society in America, it just happens to be where I am from, this division of values has always been distructive in my view and certainly has done nothing to advance the cause for an enlightened civilization.

My childhood had almost nothing to do with the arts, besides the fact that my mom played the organ at our church and my dad could play the piano as well. We were all about sports. So, that is what we did. In doing so, my brother and I were able to develop a natural ability to do anything, because we were very coordinated by the age of 5. Learning a sport was never a problem for me. Upon entering school I was very surprised to see kids who couldn’t throw and catch a ball, or run straight and hit a wiffle ball. From that point on it became apparent to me that all children did not have the abilities my brother and I had, many did, but most of the kids would struggle with sports. I probably should have done much more in sports, but because it came so easily to me I never really had to work on it to be good at them. Besides, winning was not all that important to me either, I just loved playing.

 When I consider the beginning of my involvement in music and my experience in anything on stage I find that my athleticism and coordination has served me well. The core strength I developed to endure a basketball game playing outside in freezing cold weather for hours or to play 36 holes of golf a day in 95 degree weather in the summer all galvanized me for the toughness you need to endure the rigors of rehearsal and long hours in the practice room.

 In trying to learn the piano, just like shooting baskets, I would sit and study, try and coordinate the notes on the page to my fingers, understand what all of the markings meant and looked for the patterns in polyphonic works, all before I took any theory at all. Admittedly, my musicality was pretty strong, because I played and sang with the same fervor that I would use on the basketball court and with the energy needed to throw a football 50 yards in the air. Music was always a sport for me, being on stage a physical exercise, and using my whole body in the whirl of coordination would bring me into a state where I could do no wrong. It is almost as if I can’t do it if I am not in that state. That state is the topic of this article, although it has taken me a while to get there.

Developing Creative Automation in Children

 In my opinion it is impossible to become a great artist unless you can get your mind and body into a state of creative automation. In my experience, until my body and mind are coordinated it is a struggle to perform any task. This is why sports is so vital for the arts. Sports are important for the artistic mind because it forces the mind to react from it’s sub-conscience not from it’s consciousness.

 Baseball is a great example for this. You have to stand still, wait for the ball to be thrown to you and then you have to take a bat and hit the ball. This takes a lot of concentration and timing. In the field, you have no idea if the ball will come to you or not, you must be ready but not tense, then when the ball gets hit to you, you have to move quickly judge time and distance, run with your eyes on the ball and go catch it in your glove, then throw it to the place where it needs to go, another amazing skill. This motor coordination and mental openess to react, act, respond and execute are vital for the execution of artistic skills, because it by-passes the speed of normal existence, it thrusts us into a state of heightened awareness.

 This heightened awareness, peak state, nirvana is the realm of the great artist. I often call it “the flow´´ and admittedly I am frustrated that the world in general moves so slowly, to me anything outside of heightened awareness is painfully slow.

Children Develop a Natural Ease of Movement and Flow

 For sports the arts are all important as well. Because children are clumsy when they don’t craft their skills. Movement, style, technique and creativity are all skills an athelete must learn in order to be a great one. Being strong and fast isn’t enough. Being tall and having the physical ability to jump high will not make you a great athelete. It is the mastery of the art which will make an athelete great, not just the building of muscles or endurance. The great atheletes are all asthetic people. They demonstrate an ease in what they do, they possess a grace in their movements and an efficiency in their efforts. Yes, there are a few crushers out there, but that gets old real fast doesn’t it and doesn’t endure. In fact, those that truely love the sport embrace the art of it and value those who master it. 

 Since I left my home of Kentucky, where I had the facilities of the university, the city and playmates abounding around me, I have struggled with finding enough opportunity to fill my native crave for sports. Being a singer you always worry about getting sick or injured and that curbs your activities as well. Rehearsing and performing in the evenings and on weekends, takes away 90% of the times when european society does recreational sports. So, my sports life has been dormant way too long.

What is the solution to all of this? The solution is that I, and you, must find a way to become active in sports, because it sharpens our ability to be artists. Strength of body, freeing and quickening of the mind and oxygenation of the body are all important and vital elements in being a quality human and an artist of compelling value. Not only that, the social aspect of participating in sports is an added benefit as well. You make friends and share in a competitive dance with your opponent. Teamwork, individual strength and specific targets all aid in the building of a solid fundamental skill set.

I am grateful for the rich traditions I have been able to be a part of; the arts, sports, academia, spirituality and science. These are all things that I hold in equal proportion of value and love each of them dearly.

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