Sport according to Mat You.

Well, …… well, …… “Sports in our lives,” that’s what everyone is talking about these days. Take, for instance, husband Zepp and his wife Grezz.

Zepp has sports so much at heart that he never misses watching a football match on TV, consuming at the same time a few drinks, and reading about it in his favourite paper while smoking a fine cigar.

Grezz, on the other hand, is so much fond of it that she is always doubly sure to go out to town sporting an emblazooned T-shirt with “I Love Sport” printed on both her swelling front as well as on her bulging lower back.

And that is probably all their involvement in a sporting discipline.

“Why do you participate actively in sport?” ran a question in a physical fitness questionnaire. The replies were numerous and by far in excess of the number making up the sample, because an athlete often believes in more than a single objective.

Some do it in an endless effort to look handsome, pretty and attractive, or to please others or plead for support. Many indulge in strenuous sport activities to keep the human machinery in peak working order, and as an investment for future good health.

That is perhaps why, much before the advent of to-day's philosophies, the Roman pragmatic genius came up with the axiom “a healthy mind in a healthy body,” or, if you want to sound learned “mens sana in corpore sano.”

What is somewhat very surprising is the truth that beauty trends are as fickle as the clouds in the skies on a windy day. The Rubenesque beauty bodies, cherished with such great gusto a few decades away are frowned upon in this day and age. The three graces that fed voluminous curves, broad smiles and corpulent mass are replaced by match-stick bodies, having just enough space to enclose within the vital organs and some pluses.

Out of the two alternatives, the second one seems the most popular perception to-day. Dieting and exercise are the basics upon which a healthy programme is planned. Though the two seem to be complimentary, other considerations may well feature in an optimal formula for keepjng fit, such as mental prowess, psychological attitudes, physical frame, commitment and will power.

Sport is, of course, an education.

Some parents are reluctant in welcoming physical education programmes that are organised in their children’s schools. But whether they like it or not, physical education is, in practically all countries of the civilised world, an integral part of the scholastic curricula. This takes a much higher magnitude of importance to-day, when the incidence of obesity, has reached alarming proportions, and ailments connected with it, have taken centre stage.

From an early age children are therefore launched into the world of sport. Their first impressions in this field will take them a long way along the track later on in life. Evidently, a collateral of physical programmes in schools is the cultivation of better class-management and teacher-pupil relationships because during sessions in the gym, or on the playing field students extrovertedly expose their character traits, temperament, personality and teamship. PE is therefore very congenial to character formation.

The availability of adequate premises, human resources and facilities will undoubtedly render the process more acceptable, enjoyable and eduactional. The best athletes were probably launched on the hard road to championship during their physical education sessions at school.

After health reasons, enjoyment is a close second objective. This applies equally well to both adults and children, both if sport is practised individually or in groups. Joining larger groups is great fun, unless the discipline in question is taken at a high level of performance and consequently carries a high expectations level.
In which case, sport for the professional is practised on a much higher launching platform where targets are set at a much higher level of perforamce. This is where sights are focused and where results lead to the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat. The amount of exercice to be made available to the achievers must be, ideally, unlimited and must enjoy freedom from all possible constraints.

Sometimes we are very prompt to redeem our failures by a set of apologetic and exculpatory reasons. But severe critics readily define them as mere excuses. The use of chemical compounds have no place in competitive sport, in which there are only the victors and the vanquished.

It is surprising how many people launch themselves on a sports programme having solely fun as an objective, enjoyment and company come later, and eventually end up ambitiously keen on competition.

Having read all this, husband Zepp and his sweet wife Grezz, have decidedly taken steps to start a more direct and personal involvement in sports activities. In fact, they are at the moment, on their way to the nearest sports club to join the multitudes of truly sports minded friends.

Are you interested ?

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A-sailing.

Since childhood I always thought that sailing a boat was a thrilling skill. I vividly remember the long hours I spent waiting for a downpour during the early weeks in autumn. At that time it always rained in bucketfuls. I used to squat on the very edge of the pavement in front of mother’s house watching rainwater rushing in front of me. With glee and satisfaction, but to my mother’s chagrin, I folded into paper-boats the pages taken from my best school copybooks.

I just loved watching my paperboats racing down the road. For me they looked like the smart brigantine sailing the high seas.

Soon enough the famous sailors who sailed the high seas became my teenage heroes. During the long sessions of my first reading experiences, I regularly met Captains Flint, Smollett and Singleton. They haunted my dreams. Living so close to the middle sea was indeed a great help to give colour to my wishful wild life sailing in and out of the nooks and crannies of the coastline indenting my Island.

My heroes changed to more important explorers with the passing of time. At my middle teens Columbus, Magellan, Polo and Cook were held in high esteem. Notwithstanding the lack of to-day’s navigational equipment they chartered the oceans with great faith, courage and perseverance.

My brother who was only four years my senior shared the same seafaring feelings. Our parents thought that having a sailing boat and managing it well would add a new perspective to our ample leisure summer time. During the long hot summer months we all lived at the Bay. A second-hand marauder soon became our proud possession. In no time at all we were becoming master sailors.

That was the very start. We never looked back. With the passing of years and with the gaining of further and further sailing experience a succession of models took centre stage. The boat coming next was always larger and faster than the one before her.

Using wind to propel a boat is marvellous. No sound of running engines, no fumes polluting the area, but all that is heard is the noise of waves breaking against the bow. A towering sky-reaching mainsail with its topmost end almost touching the low flying clouds should always be steadily full of air, when cleverly angled and artfully managed. It races the boat to its destination. The boat and its sailors, like the heroes of old before them, move on, faster and faster, tacking right, tacking left, at times against the wind and at other times into the wind, but always moving on, and on, and on…….

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