My revelation about what leisure really means to me

Wow! Who would have thought this class would make me realise the answer to a question about my life that I had never been able to find the answer to before.

I used to have more then just a passion for working with kids. I used to be a passionate rugby player. I started playing rugby at Vanier just because I had stopped doing competitive gymnastics and needed to stay in shape. Long story short I fell in love with Rugby! I played one season and then gave up my job at camp Kinkora to stay in Montreal so I could play club rugby all summer to improve my skills. My second season I was the hooker a very important position on the team. I played for 3 seasons with Vanier, one summer for TMR and Vanier became number one my second season when we beat John Abbott in the finals!! I realised that my passion wasn't just for the sport its self it was for the team! Its hard to explain... It was my first time playing a team sport and I experienced what I now know is true leisure like never before. I think the leisure was missing for many of my last years doing gymnastics and now I had found it again. I was intrinsically motivated I was playing for me not my mom.

Our team was a family, a big family all the guys and girls all our practices were together we were one team!

One day it all died. My second summer I joined TMR again but something was wrong. I was always finding excuses not to go to practice and I didn't know why. what I did know was that I was 20 years old and if I didn't want to play my mom wasn't going to force me. So just like that I stopped playing I quit TMR. Everyone was shocked all my friends and family couldn't understand. Whenever someone would ask me why I stopped they would say "but you loved it so much??" I was so embarrassed I never knew what to say because I never really knew why I quit. My passion for rugby just died and I didn't know why until today! This class has made it so clear, it was the leisure part of rugby that was gone. Playing with TMR wasn't like playing with Vanier. There was so much politics with coaching and the team was very divided. It was no longer fun. For me it was missing all the elements we learned about in class that make up leisure. I was no longer intrinsically motivated and I was no longer experiencing flow. When I started at Concordia I went to some winter practices but again it wasn't there. Rugby wouldn't be rugby without Vanier!

Thanks Steve!