another canuck wrote:
Sim; In answer to your last question,"is the loss of natural play replaceable at a later point in time?" I believe that Tim Noakes answered that in the positive in his chapter underscoring the importance of not overtraining as a child. However, what may be lost forever is the willingness to get tired while playing, to walk a mile to a field, play a game and then walk home. I'm sure that my own development was aided by the natural play that Renato refers to.
Another Canuck, I'm sure my own was helped in this way as well. There was a lot of randomness going on. Both aspects pretty important, random and a lot of it.
I guess i still wonder whether the 'lost play' is replaceable as an adult. Sure over-training will cause a loss of this but so will over-structuring. I remember as a kid repeatedly being physically totalled many days a week, and that was before i began doing any formal training; it was from unstructured play and tended to be more complete than a formal training session focused on isolated aspects of the fitness spectrum. Swimming or playing on the sand at the beach, wrestling, chasing or racing mates on foot, bike, scooter or whatever. Playing cricket and AFL out on the street. (pretty impressive that 'Olympics of the Street' Renato organised as a youngster). Climbing trees or fences or onto the house roof to get the tennis ball back or under the house for the same ball the very next minute. Or going too far on the bikes and being physically dead and still having to get back home. Even as a young athlete (19-20) there was still a lot of randomness. I remember getting drunk once whilst camping and then getting lost. I came across a wombat and started following it. A chase began that didn't stop for a very very long time. I remember not being able to feel my legs at some point so i forced myself to stop. Good training? For the decathlon, including the beer, this was also the background training, the 'natural training' that was preparing me. I also went skiing for the first time at that age and being a bit bold and a bit naive i was convinced to do a black run on the final day. What took my mates to do in about 45 seconds took me 45 minutes. I just wanted to sit down by halfway but it was so steep i couldn't. The whole thing was a series of jumps with a 180 degree turn so i could land on the next mogul. Needless to say once again i could not even feel my legs.
Still i wonder is the lost play truly replaceable? If the answer is no - then it points to the need for increased care of how our children are developed. If the answer is yes - then i really don't know how to do that totally, only partially.