Good sportsmanship, or "Playing for life or death"

I played table tennis with my father when I was young. I used to play a mean game, though I'm unpracticed now and not anywhere close to competitive. I also, bowl, play golf and tennis. One of the things I learned from these sports is to pay attention to how my body feels when I make a mistake, and how it feels when I do it correctly. When something works, I actually try to memorize the body feel. I am 63 years old, and yet I hit my golf ball further than when I was 16, when I was 27, or even 5 years ago. I shot an 82 the other day. As I stopped worrying about how well I was doing and paid attention to what I was doing, I have improved. Often I talk to the golf ball. When I make an error, ...I say, "OK, you're telling me this is not quite right. How might I change it a little?" The golf ball becomes a living entity, and speaks to my mind. My concentration level goes up, and I do not see the mistakes as something awful, but something to learn from. The score is not the most important thing, ....though my score continues to improve as my concentration levels go up, and my fear of failure goes down. Just some thoughts. I'm sure professional athletes do some of thing type of thing.

LordSims When I was young, ....and I could be your parent, ....we did not have all the organized sports. There were some, ...but just not like today. It seems like the more organized sports we have, ...the more the parents get involved in it, the more need to win becomes a part of the game. Coaches need to justify their job, ....parents want the teams to do well so their kid can get scholarships, ...etc I am a girl, ...so the development of sports for women has been slower, ...and my perspective may be out of whack for you fellas, ........but I wonder if the old neighborhood baseball games, and backyard basketball doesn't do more for a lot of kids. I guess it is harder to get everyone involved. walkgal