The importance of... play.

I've always been very methodological in my approach to training, but I've also made sure to supplement my efforts with a fair amount of play, games, instinctive movement and friendly competition.

As part of being a Capoeirista, for the last 15 years, I have approached capoeira in two different ways: the training to become more proficient and better and the game of capoeira itself. (It is called a game, not a dance or a fight, because it really is a strategical game played between two persons, sometimes also interacting with the circle of people around them)

This two-side approach has allowed me to stay sane, enjoy movement and keep my longevity in the art/movement/sport world.

Something that I have noticed lacking in gymnastics training is this 'play' aspect. In the young children's gymnastics training it is much more abundant, but later on, from obvious reasons, it starts to disappear, until it is nowhere to be found in the higher levels...

This makes a lot of ex-gymnasts to become, well... EX-gymnasts. Many of them will never touch the apparatus again, continue into the business/other world and take up normal fitness training in a health club as they primary movement pattern.

Instead of playing around with their abilities, maintaining many of them in the process, they do not see the option of actually playing with something as 'serious' as gymnastics, due to their competitive background.

Some of you out there are dedicating a lot of time to methodological training, but I suggest you do not neglect the value of playing around with some of the abilities you have acquired through that training. Eventually, you will realize: it is the actual reason you have acquired these abilities in the first place...

Here is an example of me playing around with some wooden cubes lately, during a project creation in Bangkok. You can do the same with a chair, swiss ball or just your body and the floor.

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Game is on!

Ido.

part of the reason I am getting back into parkour - its an outlet to express my training abilities. I am enjoying it even more than the first time around, and no injuries!

i schedule playtime every Wednesday and Sunday and feel revitalized after every time.

I did some Floreio play on Tuesday for like an hour. I just did close circuit flows with the moves I could do, just trying to link whatever I could together and just kind of moving around in a random fashion. It was a ton of fun but I got a lot of looks from others at the gym, as always 8) . I play on a little strip of tiled floor at the entrance to the gym, everywhere else is either the spring floor (I just cant spin on the thing and when I try I either burn holes in my feet or I ruin a pair of socks in one session lol :wink: ) or gymnastic apparatus. The space is like 20 feet long but only 5 or so feet wide, being 6ft tall, if I am a little off the center line I hit my feet when I do Corta Capim spins and rotations (at least this has helped me be more aware of my surroundings!) so I basically just go linearly left and right but I have fun with it. I am going to try to do this every training session from now on, probably not for an hour but just play a little before I do my conditioning work but after my handstand work. Hmmmm, this thread has got me thinking, now I want to try and play more with my handstands, like add in more dynamic work (spinning comes to mind). Fun stuff. . . now to look over Idos blog posts and find some new skills to work!

Nick, Parkour is great. I just got back from the Berlin Zoo, the Orang Utan's there are the real deal.

Johnny, scheduling play time... Great. (Sounds paradoxical, but I guess in a busy world, this is one solution to the problem)

Nift-man, Floreio is great. My favorite. If you have flow, you can play everywhere - with just some space (doesnt have to be too much) and your own body. That is one great set of skills to have - but its not enough - one should use them! Keep acquiring new skills, but dont forget to put the one's you have into play...

As for me, I play daily - whether its equilibre, floreio flow, freestyle acrobatics in the grass, playing around on the bars in the playground, climbing wall craze, sparring with a friend in the park, going to a good roda, (rare ingredient for me... I'm picky) taking my girlfriend's GaGa class, playing soccer or volleyball at the beach or participating in some new sport. (I go deep into some new dicipline every year on avarege, for example: various martial arts, preparing for a powerlifting competition, slacklining, gymnastics, boxing and even at one time Ballet...)

Ido.

I think play is an essential aspect of being human. Our sense of play, which we share in common with many other mammals, is critical to our development and our mental health. On the latter, play should be engaged, in some form or another, for the entire lifespan.

Indeed, play is essential to learning a physical skill well. Ido's post makes me recall the history of Judo, and Jigora Kano's instituting randori, or "free play," as a means to train throws and other techniques taken from classical jujutsu in a dynamic setting. While there may be some difficulty in the translation of randori to what we might be talking here as play, the effectiveness of the training system allowing a game of throwing was very convincing at the time. Presently, Judo is a very popular olympic sport, and BJJ incorporated the same methodology.

Fittingly enough, last night I went for the first time to an "open gym" at a local business called Gymnastics Beat. I was surprised by the number of people there using the facilities, just for fun. I took my two young children, and we experimented on the apparatusses and what not, and had a good time. Having children also helps re-invigorate one's sense of play, so long as you take the time to play with them, of course. We have been playing hide and seek lately, which I have not played for some time, and which imparts great skills.

Good post, Wolf.

Among my other sins I also participated in a competitive judo enviourment as a child. Randori is a great example of play.

As Rickson Gracie say in 'Choke' in a heavy Brazilian accent: 'You have to flow with the go'...

Improvisation in any field is the heighest form of practice. I've written about improv extensivly in my forum and Floreio Art blogposts.

Ido.

Ido Portal said:

Johnny, scheduling play time... Great. (Sounds paradoxical, but I guess in a busy world, this is one solution to the problem)

Ido.

I take my playtime very seriously.

I think the play aspect is one of the biggest attractions to this type of training. I love to train seriously but probably one of my favourite things is taking my dogs to the park and playing on the bars, saults in the grass. That's why I hate when the weather is so cold, I have to play at home now.

That's also one of the things I realise I didn't have when i trained conventionally, that aspect of just doing things for fun and because you can.

Absolutely agree, Ido. Play is essential. I spend about four hours of my day right now with children and it amazes me that even when other adult instructors have the opportunity to play, they won't take advantage of it and sit bored staring at the kids for twenty minutes. Today in that time they sat there, I played with the kids and got to cartwheel, duck walk, leap and hang from a tree branch to avoid being tagged, run in slow motion, roll around, get stuck on a slide, and had a blast. And honestly, that short time made my entire day.

In the adult fitness classes I've taught, it's sad but I actually have to train them on how to play or improvise. I require them to engage in "play" of some sort appropriate to the activity and the first couple times an adult does this it's usually comical (especially yoga class!).

I think I need to find me a cube now.

coreathlete said:

it amazes me that even when other adult instructors have the opportunity to play, they won't take advantage of it and sit bored staring at the kids for twenty minutes.

I think this is more to do with the insulin roller-coaster that a thirst for misery. Not that it isn't a tragedy.

Ido would you say that there are minimum requirements to play? I have fun from time to time practising dive rolls over fences, and sometimes warming up by trying to keep a shuttlecock off the floor with my feet (Jianzi I think), but as a newbie to movement I still enjoy the crap out of very basic things and improve more without becoming bored. Is work>play comparable to basic>dynamic strength, meaning one comes firmly almost entirely before the other? I can think of a few things to do on a chair, but few that I wouldn't achieve more joyfully with more practice on the floor first.

Thanks for your time.

Play should always be a part - to a certain degree IMHO.

If your 'basic' elements are not good enough to be incorporated into a play scenario, just choose simpler skills and abilities.

For example, you may not have a good enough HS to play with it (walking an obstacle course as coach sommer suggested for example) so instead, you may try to use a wheelbarrow walk with a friend holding your feet while crossing the same obstacle course, etc..

Ido.

Animalonfire said:

I think this is more to do with the insulin roller-coaster that a thirst for misery. Not that it isn't a tragedy.

It's a factor, sure, but I think even more it's conditioning that teaches adults to think play/being off the cuff is immature or childish. Pretty much from the moment one enters the school or work system, structure, time management, organization, efficiency, etc. all start getting drilled into the head without the balance of relaxation or play. In my classes especially, it's not so much a problem "feeling" like playing more than it is an unwillingness or fear to engage in it. Or of being graded/judged on it. I mean, I can teach mayurasana in a yoga class, and most students will gladly spend the entire hour banging their head against the wall to try and perform the pose correctly. But if I ask them to say make up a 3 pose sequence, they're suddenly like a computer trying to boot without an operating system. I use a lot of exercises to gradually get them into it, but I've had students who take half a year to develop any comfort level.

Ido Portal said:

Play should always be a part - to a certain degree IMHO.

If your 'basic' elements are not good enough to be incorporated into a play scenario, just choose simpler skills and abilities.

For example, you may not have a good enough HS to play with it (walking an obstacle course as coach sommer suggested for example) so instead, you may try to use a wheelbarrow walk with a friend holding your feet while crossing the same obstacle course, etc..

Ido.

I actually had a ju-jitsu instructor used to do these wheelbarrow runs regularly as a race with all the fighters, was always fun. Crab walks and walking on all fours facing up (not sure what its called) are also fun simple ones. You can make it a bit harder by having your training partner sit on your front or back. Staying stood on the cube whilst rolling it looked like loads of fun aswell!

I really liked the video, made me think of Jackie Chan mixed with Capoeira, using your surroundings and all that.

Longshanks, BJJ itself is a great form of play also.. Rolling with a good partner, going through some 'questions and answers' is lots of fun, when you know what you are doing...

Jackie Chan, ha? I am humbled by this comparison. I dont believe I deserve it.

Ido.

This guys really deliver in play mode!. :twisted:

I know they have been posted before but it is worth mentioning!.

HAHAHA. Funniest vid I've watched in ages! Was a bit worried for him walking down the escalators on his hands though....

coreathlete said:

Animalonfire said:

I think this is more to do with the insulin roller-coaster that a thirst for misery. Not that it isn't a tragedy.

It's a factor, sure, but I think even more it's conditioning that teaches adults to think play/being off the cuff is immature or childish. Pretty much from the moment one enters the school or work system, structure, time management, organization, efficiency, etc. all start getting drilled into the head without the balance of relaxation or play. In my classes especially, it's not so much a problem "feeling" like playing more than it is an unwillingness or fear to engage in it. Or of being graded/judged on it. I mean, I can teach mayurasana in a yoga class, and most students will gladly spend the entire hour banging their head against the wall to try and perform the pose correctly. But if I ask them to say make up a 3 pose sequence, they're suddenly like a computer trying to boot without an operating system. I use a lot of exercises to gradually get them into it, but I've had students who take half a year to develop any comfort level.

Nice observation. It made me remember how uncomfortable I felt last time I was asked to shadow spar at muay thai.

I do think that our observations are of very different people,most of the ones that I know (beginners classes) wouldn't dream of banging their heads against walls for anything. There's a clear gap between the ones that do and those that don't, then another between those that don't and those that bang the calorie restriction wall(including 10+ seconds thinking time before moving thai pads for X strike and 3+ months of failure to develop punch front on a tumble track or trampette (and still fat)). Sorry if that was a little OT.

Ido. Thanks for the answer. The chair is actually pretty humbling, but any hints I regard as cheating so I'll continue to puzzle it out.

So, it seems that “play†is like “qualityâ€. Everybody knows about it but nobody can actually define it. To me spontaneous laughter, whether aloud or just felt, is an important ingredient. Playing around with my granddaughter of three always does the trick. I show her my headstand (or whatever) and she will show me hers, mostly so we can collapse laughing and feeling good about the moment. It also helps that I don’t have to intellectualize too much with her -ex post facto- to try and define that moment.

Found this one over at rosstraining.com:

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.†(George Bernard Shaw)