Become an athletic philosopher in just 5 minutes without experience in exercise or philosophy!

Athletic Philosophy?

What does it even mean to be an athletic philosopher anyways?

We don’t need a high-brown academic definition. I taught sport philosophy for 8 years at university and never found a description of this idea, but through my own experiences I came up with this one. An athletic philosopher is someone who takes seriously their intentional bodily movements’ ability to make meaning and bring deep understanding to one’s life.

In short, to be an athletic philosopher means to appreciate the power of moving your body and recognize how it affects your overall life.  

3 Steps

There are just 3 steps you need to take to start living like an athletic philosopher.

They aren’t complicated or difficult to implement. They are different from how you normally look at your body. But once you start thinking this way it becomes difficult to ignore all the ways moving our bodies athletically create deep meaning and understanding.

Let’s break each down.

Step 1: Become aware of the meanings of your body 

Your body isn’t just a vehicle to get you around life.

What happens to your body happens to you. If you injure your leg it does something to your spirit far beyond an inability to walk. You’ve lost freedom, independence, confidence, capability, performance, ambition, and a lot more than just mobility. 

This goes for athletic motions as well; the intensity of these movements generate tremendous meaning when we can do them and create great sadness when we can’t do them anymore.

Step 2: Connect that meaning to your mind and spirit 

If the body is a source of meaning it’s also a place of feeling and understanding. 

A walk in your neighbourhood can feel uplifting or degrading depending on the weather, time of day, your initial mood, etc. 10 degrees celsius feels warm coming out of the winter but freezing when coming into late fall. When you move or feel in the body it has a dramatic affect on your mental state and spiritual fortitude. 

Athletic movements speak to our minds and souls because they offer a chance to achieve something that can only be won through sacrifice, struggle, dedication and performance.

Step 3: Embrace creativity of motion 

The final step of becoming an athletic philosopher is to begin experimenting with the way the body moves and how it helps you understand yourself and your place in the world.

If you need some courage you can try an exercise or sport that scares you a little bit. If you need some resiliency try for an endurance challenge that takes you farther than you’ve ever gone. If you are stuck in a rut do anything physical that you LOVE to do.

When you stop experimenting with the body you start losing out on new experiences that can help you better understand your current weaknesses and how to turn them into strengths.

Takeaway

The final take away is simple.

Being an athletic philosopher is something everyone of us can achieve. It’s just a conscious mindset shift into thinking about the movements of the body as legitimate experiences to craft meaning and provide understanding. It’s about deeply thinking about the ways our bodies move us beyond the physical.

Now you’ve got the basic steps it’s up to you to start walking them! 

Activity

Here’s something you can start doing right away to begin your journey as an athletic philosopher.

Think of a sport or athletic movement you LOVE to play. Now list all the virtues you admire about that sport; think of the characteristics that allow a person to excel at that sport. With these virtues in mind you will now have an explicit link between moving your body is a specific way and how that generates positive character traits in you.

Some examples to get your creative juices flowing:

Ice Hockey Virtues: Loyalty, Courage, Tenacity,

Basketball: Creativity, Coordination, Dynamism

Distance Running: Perserverence, Determination, Patience

I’d love to hear your examples, leave a comment below with your sport and the virtues you identified!