A Reflection on Sportin' Life

The years that I was enthusiastically engaged in sports are long gone. So that cannot be the meaning of “sporting life” I want to reflect upon today. I’m not interested in sports as they are usually displayed. Seldom a championship on TV will draw my attention. Sumo wrestling making a clear exception. But I’m not sure if you can can call Sumo a sport. Maybe “sport” is a typical Western phenomenon. Is there an Eastern form of what we call “sport”? Do Chinese children play Street-football? I really would not know. Yes, they play ping-pong.

Of course living the life of a Sumo-wrestler or training for ping-pong championship in spite of their differences is not a kind of life we would call “sporting”. Western People who’s life turns around playing tennis, cricket, golf and doing car rallies or sailing share their exclusive culture of “sporting life”. You could easily add here a cultural inclination towards alcohol, tobacco, drugs and exquisite food. So, their bodily activities do not necessarily have to do with fitness, living a healthy life and under physical and spiritual discipline.

No wonder that a famous character in “Porgy and Bess” - the drugs peddler - was named: Sportin’ Life, the romantic folk character representing the need for daily supply of unhealthy stimulantia. Without that all these sports would simply be boring. At least there has to be celebrated some party, irrespective of winning or losing. A good sport may never be a bad loser, as long as he can bring a toast to the winner. I’m not talking about spilling champagne, like winners do after popular races.

Is football a sport? What’s so sporting about the life of a multi-million-player of the Premier League? Here I must end this line of thought. I don’t want to make exceptions for the local amateur player, who spends his Sunday on the green field. Let everybody have his or her excitement and fun.

One last question then: why is it that playing in Western sports is structurally dominated by scoring goals, winning as only ambition. Even elegancy in technique is seldom honoured as a form of spiritual finesse, like a brushstroke in fine arts. Could we ever imagine a feeling of sporting life, that would display itself in action as a demonstration of spiritual development?