Contemplations on sport, complexity, ages of being and practice

Gilbourne, David

Abstract

From my experience of working alongside coaches, I would say that they are complexpeople. The people they coach are complex too. In the present paper, I considercomplexity as an underlying dynamic to (coaching) practice, something that might beunderstood, not only through one's own life, but through the notion of shared lives.The central thematic of the story to follow is that we live and practice through different‘ages of being' and that our complication changes as we age. These ideas and theirrelevance to critical thinking and personal practice are illustrated through a personal story,a father and son story. The tale begins, as many sporting father and son stories might, asthey run together on a windswept beach. From that childhood memory, a meandering taleof growth, companionship and critical reflection unfolds. By charting this particularrelationship, one shaped and sustained by a shared history, yet defined by different ‘agesof being', I contemplate often fractured and sometimes shared relationships betweenourselves and with sport. It is a story described partly in parallel, across generational andworking contexts and in life-long terms. The story telling ends with an attempt at definingmyself, my complexities and my own practice in the present day. Through this, I urge al lcoaching practitioners to reflect on their work and on the intentions and scope of theirresearch and, finally, the associations of such thinking with their own ages of being.

Citation

Gilbourne, D. (2012). Contemplations on sport, complexity, ages of being and practice. Sports Coaching Review, 1(1), 4-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/21640629.2012.689491

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Apr 18, 2012
• Online Publication Date: Aug 13, 2012
• Publication Date: 2012-05
• Deposit Date: Nov 13, 2014
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 13, 2014
• Journal: Sports coaching review
• Print ISSN: 2164-0629
• Electronic ISSN: 2164-0637
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 1
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 4-16
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/21640629.2012.689491
• Keywords: Contemplations on sport; Complexity; Ages of being and practice; Autoethnography; Narrative storytelling; Creative analytic practice
• Public URL: https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/467675
• Publisher URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21640629.2012.689491
• Additional Information: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Sports coaching review on 13th August 2012, available online: http://wwww.tandfonline.com/10.1080/21640629.2012.689491