The 10 internal values of sport

What I learned from relearning sport philosophy

The teacher becomes the student

I just finished a months long deep study of a book I used to teach to my first year undergrad students as a sport history and philosophy prof. Instead of reading it to highlight what a beginner needs to know, I examined it as the launching point for writing my own sport philosophy book where I’ll make my own argument about the deep nature of sports and it’s best value to individuals.

One thing I’m trying as an academic outside the academy is to rely less on the arguments of others and focus more on formulating my own original ideas. In the academy, it can feel like a presenter goes from quote to quote, from thinker to thinker, without ever inserting an original thought of their own into the process. It becomes a type of signal, how obscure a text and author can you reference to impress the audience of your vast intellect.

But that means finding the harmony between what’s already been said and written and my own unique addition to the larger ‘body of knowledge.’ With that goal in mind, I want to share my thoughts on the conclusion of a great introductory book into the world of sport philosophy: Introduction to the Philosophy of Sport by Heather Reid.

The conclusion states 10 intrinsic values in sport, the inherent goodness of the activity when aimed towards it’s true nature. My historical and philosophic investigations inform me that the nature of sport is religious, spiritual, and educational in character.

With that frame in mind, I’m going to give my take on these 10 values and why I think they are great choices to inform us about the true nature of sport.

I’ll also add a way for you to make each one real in your life, because theory without application is useless.

1. Autotelicity - Sport is an end in itself

The first value of sport is that when done properly, it is not a means to an end. It’s not aimed at gaining money, status, politics, etc. Sports are important precisely because they have no purpose beyond the games themselves.

For sport to have value it needs to be separated from the ‘ordinary’ world just as religions must demarcate what is holy and sacred from what is mundane and normal. The Old Testament defines holiness as being ‘set apart’ from the average. For sports to retain their spiritual nature, they cannot be tethered to anything outside of the sport itself.

You live this by playing sports for the sole reason of playing them. The values you get flow from that internal desire to forget the demands of the real world and enter into a special place where different rules apply.

You can apply this lesson by simply playing for the sake of play itself. Think of the way a child plays sports and do your best to touch that essence at least 1 time a week as an adult. A good example would be going for a bike ride because you love the feeling of moving fast or having a game of catch because you love the flight of the ball and the challenge of hauling it down.

2. Boundaries - Playing by a different set of rules

If sport has to be ‘set apart’ to retain its nature, then the rules and bounds of sport are paramount in preserving it. Scholar of comparative religion Mircea Eliade formulated two important concepts to help us understand this: Sacred Space and Sacred Time.

This is a religious idea that helps us demarcate the spiritual from the temporal world. In the normal world, we are ruled by the 7 day week, the 24 hour clock, our home life, our work life, our social life, etc. But inside a house of worship, we enter a space ‘set apart’ from the ordinary, that exists on a different plane of time. For example, in Judaism we circle through the same 5 books of the Old Testament every year and have a schedule of prayers to get through every Saturday for Shabbat Services. Days start when the moon sets, not when the sun rises, because the religion uses the old Lunar Calendar, not the modern Gregorian Calendar.

This is the same in the sports world. A baseball game may start at 7:05pm but it’s not over until 9 innings (or more) are finished with one team scoring more runs than the next. The stadium itself separates sport as a ‘distinct’ place with different rules. In sports there is the ‘in bounds’ and ‘out of bounds’ that dictates what players can do while ‘inside the lines.’ Boundaries create the realization of ‘sacred space’ and ‘sacred time.’

You live this in your life by setting apart sport and exercise as special places in your day to day. Just like you prepare yourself to enter into a house of worship with a ritual, designate the sports world as a holy place, set apart, from the ordinary where different rules apply.

You can apply this lesson by engaging in a ritual before each training session or competition. Maybe it’s wearing the same gear, listening to the same song, whispering the same prayer on your lips, or anything that helps you transition from the ‘ordinary’ world into the ‘sacred world’ of sports.

3. Freedom: It’s voluntary and liberating

Freedom is one of the most misunderstood concepts in the modern world. Is it the absence of coercion or is it the presence of opportunity? For most, when they hear ‘freedom’ they think action without consequence, the ability to do what you want at any moment. But that’s not freedom. Freedom is the other side of responsibility. It’s the ability to act without coercion, to engage in voluntary exchanges, and to be responsible personally for any of the consequences (negative or positive).

In sports, freedom exists when there is a harmony between the rules and the intention of the players. Freedom requires boundaries. No rules isn’t freedom, it’s total chaos. For sport to have value, individuals need to choose to participate, they cannot be forced. Then it’s not longer ‘autotelic.’ But if I want to play the game properly and find the freedom to act within it, I have to submit to the rules. A beautiful play in basketball is only possible if I agree to dribble the ball instead of simply running with it.

You live this in your life by creating hard boundaries around your sport and exercise. These are non-negotiable spaces on your calendar. You gain that ability by showing up in the areas you ‘neglect’ when you train harder and with more presence. This frees you up to enjoy the training because it enhances your ability to deal with the responsibilities that you have. You also create a structure in which you have freedom inside but not outside. You don’t skip workouts, but within your allotted exercise window you get to choose what you do, how you train, and where you eventually compete.

You apply this in your life by allowing exercise to be a true expression of your spirit, that part of you that yearns for freedom. That way when you are engaged in it you aren’t bogged down by the external world. The right boundaries and right intention create the space for maximum freedom.

4. Challenge: It’s not supposed to be easy 

Sports rest upon the logic of a game. In any game, there is the purposeful insertion of obstacles in order to create the conditions of the game. That’s what makes them different from ordinary life. In the ‘real world’ we want to find the fastest, most efficient way to accomplish any task and celebrate those who discover it.

In a game, we willfully accept inefficient means as the whole point of the exercise. To use basketball again as an example, the game is a lot easier if I don’t need to dribble and if the net was 6 feet off the ground. But I DO need to dribble and the basket is 10ft off the ground. Why? Because the challenge provides the entire POINT of the game.

You live this in your life by embracing struggle as the means towards your true potential. That’s what makes sports spiritual in their nature. In order to overcome the obstacles we must find a way, within the rules, to struggle towards the truth of the contest, who will win and lose. No one likes to play a game against an opponent who is too strong or too weak, because there is no CHALLENGE inherent in the contest.

You apply this in your life by using sports as a place to push the boundaries on what you believe you can achieve. Sign up for a race a little longer than you’re comfortable with, a perfect example. Embrace the challenge and use the ‘doubt’ to fuel your accountability to struggle and work towards completing the task.

5. Fairness: Equal opportunity based on the nature of the game

Sport isn’t sport if one side has all the advantages baked into the rules of the game. We can argue ‘is any competition truly fair’ considering the different contexts people come to any contest. Is it fair that a competitor slept poorly while another dozed beautifully before a big competition, putting one at a disadvantage over another? But such diversions into the margins isn’t helpful when thinking about the ideal of fairness. We can’t control all variables between people that make them different (and let’s be real, we shouldn’t want to and trying makes everything worse).

Fairness in sport simply means a fair contest where the rules provide each side an equal probability of victory. Importantly, it’s about respecting the limits of the game and striving to achieve within them.

It’s the celebration of a good contest that provides the correct tests and challenges between opponents. It’s not about ‘levelling the playing field’ between people with disparate starting points. It’s about maintaining a space where the possibility to win is open to anyone willing to put themselves on the line in public.

You live this in your life by being brutally honest with yourself about your athletic capabilities in the present. As an adult, this is tough, especially if you grew up with some athletic talent. But you have to accept where you are in your life and adjust your expectations accordingly. Sports won’t serve you if you sign up for something too easy or too hard.

This is why rec sports don’t quite cut it. They aren’t serious enough to provoke a real challenge. It’s also why a lot of people expect to jump back into their athletic primes after years of neglect and immediately quit due to injury or realization they can’t accomplish the task they imagined they could.

You apply this in your life by wading into competitions at the proper skill and challenge level. You wouldn’t sign up for martial arts and immediately challenge the black belt to a sparring match. But that’s the attitude many take with races, and other contests geared towards adult participation. A little humility and honesty go a long way in creating the fair conditions for your skill level.

6. Uncertainty: We can’t know who wins before the game starts

If we knew the outcome of the contest, we wouldn’t bother to watch. Fans of professional wrestling, a predetermined athletic performance, don’t want to know how a match or story line is going to end, even when they know it’s scripted. It’s most important in a contest testing skill and execution, predicted on fairness and respect for the challenge, in order to bring about the best potential of the individuals involved in the game.

It’s the drama of the contest that captures our imagination as spectators AND participants. It’s why blowouts aren’t entertaining. It’s why last second miracles capture our hearts. The inability to ‘know’ is the hallmark of sports.

You live this in your life by shifting away from goal orientation to process orientation. Release the idea of ‘certainty’ in the outcome and instead focus on the building blocks. Focus your orientation towards the steps needed to achieve the goal, instead of the goal itself.

You apply this by dialing in on training as the primary objective when you aim at a competition. Let’s use a race as the example. Instead of thinking that you’ll ‘become’ something by finishing the distance on competition day, change your orientation. It’s the day to day process of training that provides the real transformation, not the one day event.

7. Learning: Use your mind to mine for deep lessons

In philosophy, the uncertainty of knowledge is the first step towards discovering the truth. Uncertainty therefore is the precondition for any type of learning. If you were already certain, what more would you need to learn? It’s the same in sport.

Because we’re unsure of the outcome of a contest it focuses us into using the training as education. Need to get faster? Work on technique and form. Need to go longer? Work on your cardio and VO2 Max. Need to get stronger? Progressive overload in lifts with high intensity sessions. You learn about your body’s limitations and therefore work to overcome them with new bodily knowledge.

But it’s not JUST in the body, it’s also in the mind and spirit that you grow and learn through sports. You learn how to defeat excuses with action. You learn resiliency in the face of adversity. You learn how to trust your guy and SEND IT. You learn virtue, the best qualities about your character, and become confident in extending the lessons beyond competing and training.

There’s a catch though. It’s not an automatic process. In the body, yes. But not in the mind and spirit. You have to bring conscious intention to learn deeply about yourself through sport. It’s doesn’t just happen through osmosis.

You live this in your life by moving beyond the limits of just the body when you engage in exercise and athletic competition. I talk to a lot of my athletes and clients about the proper aim of exercise. Some workouts are for the body, the ones you crush and feel unstoppable. But that’s not all of them. Some are for the mind and spirit. The ones you want to skip but manage to fit in. The mental gymnastics of moving around schedules and obligations when things ‘come up.’

You apply this by understanding the correct aim of your efforts. If you aim at body only, you’ll be blocked out from the deepest education you can get from sports. But if you aim and body, mind, and spirit, you’ll access a world of deep knowledge about yourself. When you show up when you want to quit, you just got an A+ in spiritual training. When you dig deep mentally to push out the final set, run that final minute, you get an A+ in fortitude. Learn how to recognize not just the physical wins, but the mental and spiritual lessons you’re gaining as well.

8. Excellence: Becoming the best version of yourself

We aren’t all destined to be world beaters in sport. So few of us have the elite genetics required to make it all the way to the top level of sport, and that’s ok. We should still aim at physical excellence. Why? Because the skills used to excel in sports are not physical, but are the virtues and character traits we pick up in the mental and spiritual area of sport. The excellence of sport that’s open to all of us is the virtue acquired through dedication to training and competing, not the outcome of the competition.

If we go all the way back to the Ancient Greeks, the famous poet Homer gives us a good idea of why this is the proper aim. When talking about the heroic warriors in The Iliad and The Odyssey and their athletic prowess he uses a term aristea. It’s the excellence that transfers from training to our character. And it’s that excellence of character that matters most, since that determines how we act in all situations in life, not just the sporting arena.

You live this in your life by setting a high internal standard of conduct and principle. It’s not up to others to determine excellence, it’s up to you to demand it from yourself. Use sports to train your character, tapping into the different types of learning mentioned above.

You apply this in your life by consciously transferring lessons from training into your day to day actions. One thing you learn in training is that showing up pays dividends the most when you don’t want to. But you demand the best, so you never skip a workout or quit on yourself. Now when things are difficult in real life, you bring that same determination you’ve acquired in training to show up when most people make excuses and back away.

9. Community: Individuals are best in a group

Sports don’t exist in a vacuum. They live as a tie between the past and future through the present. Each sport has its own history, traditions, customs, values, aesthetics, legends, and significant moments. The individual practitioner gains the most of sports by situating themselves inside of that environment and living with the community as best they can.

Without the group, the individual cannot realize virtue and potential through sport. Each contest requires an opponent who respects the game similarly to you. Each participant learns the sport from someone who’s played and internalized the value of the game. Then participants become coaches and inspirations to the next generation of athletes.

You live this in your life by finding your tribe. Surround yourself with people who play the sport you love and train for competitions for the same reason as yourself. To use the challenge to bring out your best self. To use the training as the orientation of growth and learning. To strive toward an excellence of character together to honor the past and determine the future.

You apply this in your life by joining local clubs or online communities. It used to be so much harder without the internet. Now, you’re just a few clicks away from connecting with the like minded people you need, but that may not be in your proximity. My work with Tribal Training is a perfect example of what’s possible in the digital age. You can also apply this by inspiring other people around you to join your pursuit. Become the leader and the hero for other people to follow and admire.

10. Beauty:

The final internal good is the glue that holds all the other values together. Modern philosopher Roger Scruton expertly summed beauty and it’s importance:

“Beauty is an ultimate value—something that we pursue for its own sake, and for the pursuit of which no further reason need be given. Beauty should therefore be compared to truth and goodness, one member of a trio of ultimate values which justify our rational inclinations.”

Without an appreciation for beauty, it becomes impossible to access the deep internal goods of sport. How will you find that internal motivation, to play just for the sake of playing, without an appreciation for the beauty of skill, challenge, and determination? Further, how can you have a fair contest, to test for excellence, to learn about yourself, to belong to a community, to realize virtue, if your aim is anywhere other than the truth of the activity.

The ancient Greek philosopher Plato believed that an appreciation of beauty was a precondition to understanding the meaning of moving our body. Beauty is what separates just a ‘physical’ motion from a spiritual endeavor. It’s what elevates and ‘sets apart’ sports from a mundane activity into a sacred one.

You live this in your life by taking an artistic perspective of training and competing. The artist attempts to capture beauty and represent it through any creative channel. When you view your body and its physical expressions as your canvas, the world of sports becomes an artistic playground to create beautiful motions and moments to remember. This frame allows the internal goods of sport to emerge naturally from your practice and intention.

You apply this in your life by playing sports you love, acquiring skill for its own sake, perfecting your movements for execution in a competition, to learn deep lessons of yourself, and benefit your community with a better version of yourself. You need to let go of other people opinions of what matters deeply to you and just GO FOR IT. Stop letting their insecurities stop you from accessing the truth about yourself through athletic training.

What does it all mean?

Taken together, these 10 internal goods provide us a powerful perspective on the true nature of sport and how it can become a positive activity in our lives. But without action, none of it matters.

The ultimate meaning of looking deeply at sport and examining it at its core is to help us live towards our best potential. So it’s about how you, as the individual, determine to live this in your life.

My advice is to not worry about needing to hit all 10 at once. Instead focus on the area that immediately speaks out to you. What grabs your attention the most? Where does your focus naturally land. What speaks most strongly to your spirit? AIM HERE with everything you’ve got.

The true key is to aim with your heart and be open to the truth that flows from the action that follows. I can’t tell you exactly what that is, because it comes from inside. But I can tell to you to listen, to pay attention to, and then be directed by that little voice inside your center that wants more and refuses to settle. And when you turn on to that truth inside, you’ll be able to access all of these internal goods of sport.

If you want to start living athletically but are still unsure how to tap into these internal goods, send me a message using the button below and I can help you find you aim and start walking that path just like I’ve done for so many of the clients and athletes I’ve helped in the past.

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