‘Lines of Flight or Tethered Wings’?: A Deleuzian Analysis of Women-specific Adventure Skills Courses in the United Kingdom

In this article we examine women-specific adventure sport skills training courses in the UK utilising a feminist new materialist approach. Drawing on Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari's (1987) concepts of ‘assemblage’, ‘lines of territorialisation’, and ‘lines of flight’, we apply a new lens to ask: what type(s) of material-discursive assemblages are produced through human and non-human, discursive, and non-discursive intra-actions on women-specific adventure sport skills courses? To what extent do these courses enable participants to engage with an alternative praxis and ethics and to think, feel, practice, and become otherwise? Our Deleuzian reading showed that the affective capacity of these courses is currently limited by dominant understandings of these courses as bridges to the real outdoors and as primarily designed for women who lack the confidence to participate in mixed-gender environments. However, these courses also enabled productive lines of flight and alternative understandings and practices related to the self, the body, others, material objects, learning, movement, and physical activity to emerge. These were both characterised and supported by less instrumental and hierarchical flows of relations and an openness to not knowing.

Sociodemographic Correlates of Organized Sports Participation in a Sample of Middle School Students in China

Background: Organized sport participation (OSP) is considered as one method with the potential to increase overall physical activity (PA) levels in young people. It is essential to understand the correlates of OSP to inform future PA interventions.Purpose: This study aimed to explore the sociodemographic correlates of OSP among middle school students from the Nanjing City of China.Methods: A total of 7,097 adolescents (50.1% girls) aged 12–15 years from Nanjing, China, were recruited in this survey. Self-reported data on sex, grade, race, residence areas, proficient sport skills, and parental highest education were obtained. OSP was assessed by the question asked in the questionnaire on whether participants were involved in any “sports club or team” with the binary answer options of “yes” and “no,” for statistical analysis purposes. Generalized linear models were used to determine the correlates of OSP.Results: Only 16.6% reported participating in any organized sport over the past whole year, while boys (OR = 1.34, 95% CI: 1.18–1.53) and 7th graders (OR = 1.40, 95% CI: 1.18–1.65) were more likely to participate in organized sport. Adolescents being Han ethnicity were less likely to either participate in organized sport (OR = 0.60, 95% CI: 0.40–0.92), or masterless (one or two) proficient sport skills [OR (one) = 0.27, 95%CI: 0.20–0.37; OR (two) = 0.43, 95% CI: 0.36–0.50]. Besides, both residence area and parental highest education were not significantly associated with OSP among the participating adolescents.Conclusion: The current study confirmed that only one-sixth of adolescents participate in the organized sport over the past year. At-risk population subgroups include girls, older adolescents, being Han ethnicity, and those proficient in fewer sport skills. Sex, grades, race, and proficient sport skills were significant correlates of OSP. School, community, and families need to provide more resources and support for disadvantaged populations in OSP.

A tool for assessing the horizontal dribble and jumping throw in young handball players

BACKGROUND: Validated tests for the quality of movement patterns are important to help teachers to assess and induce positive performance changes. However, few tests are available for handball sport skills. AIM: Therefore, we developed and validated a checklist to assess dribbling with a jumping throw. METHOD: First, three handball experts were invited to verify if the checklist which contained all the components that describe the skills, and the logical validity process. Then, fifty participants, aged 8 -12 years old, performed the skill of dribbling with a horizontal jumping throw, fifteen of them were re-tested one week apart. Two raters were also selected to conduct an intra- and inter-rater objectivity assessment. McNemar tests were used to compare the proportion of proficient and non-proficient performance between raters. Cohen’s k tests were used to test the intra and inter-rater objectivity. The intra-class correlation coefficient was used to estimated reliability (test-retest). RESULTS: The results confirmed that the checklist contained the necessary criteria to characterize the skill and to discriminate children with different proficiency levels. Moderate-to-high inter-and intra-rater agreements were found. Children's performance pre and post-test were highly reliable. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, the proposed checklist can reliably analyze the movement pattern of the dribbling with horizontal jumping throw – which can be highly useful for teachers and sports coaches.

Understanding sport skills through the theories of visual perception: Contrasting cognitive and ecological approaches

BACKGROUND: Understanding sport skills through the theories of visual perception brings the debate to the level of basic and applied components of science, characterizing contributions from the most relevant approaches in the field of Motor Behavior, the indirect and the direct paradigms. AIM AND FINDINGS: The first section of this article emphasizes theoretical assumptions of visual perception arising from indirect and direct approaches; the notion of relative utility of these perspectives in explaining vision is discussed, which includes analysis of the goals of explanation, prediction, and simplicity. The second section is devoted to demonstrate critical insufficiencies of indirect perspective. The third and final section focuses on the ecological dynamics account applied to sports, with emphasis on elements of decision-making and motor control. Ecological dynamics is shown as an interesting alternative to understand sport skills, accounting for involved complexities of perception, decision-making, and action.

Standards for physical fitness of biathletes during the period of sport skills perfectionм

The purpose – perfection of the techniques for controlling speed-strength capabilities and endurance of the rotator cuff muscles of biathletes during the period of sport skills perfection. Research methods and organization. The study involved 204 biathletes aged 15-17. We tested the speed- strength abilities and endurance of rotator cuff muscles with the Skierg Concept2 ski ergometer (USA). Research results. Significant changes in the endurance of rotator cuff muscles of biathletes occur in the age period from 15 to 16 years. The change in speed-strength abilities of female biathletes, in contrast to male biathletes, occurs against the background of an increase in the number of ski pole movements per minute. We processed the obtained data using the method of determining the boundaries of confidence intervals. Based on the data processed, we developed the standards for assessment of the speed-strength abilities and strength endurance of rotator cuff muscles of biathletes during the period of sport skills perfection with the Skierg Concept2 ski ergometer (USA). We tested applicability of the developed standards for speed-strength abilities and strength endurance of rotator cuff muscles in a one-year educational experiment. Conclusion. We proposed a methodology for testing speed-strength abilities and strength endurance of rotator cuff muscles with the Skierg Concept2 ski ergometer (USA) in the framework of our study. The developed stand- ards for assessing speed-strength abilities and strength endurance of rotator cuff muscles of biathletes during the period of sport skills perfection help to identify strong and weak points of fitness and to predict the possibility of achieving certain results by individual parameters.

Strategy and tactics in sports from an ecological-dynamical-perspective: What is in there for coaches and players?

In sports, strategy and tactics play a decisive role. This is certainly so in sport games like volleyball in which the players need to promptly adapt their actions to the continuously changing game situations. In this paper, we will take a closer look at how strategic and tactical decisions come about. Our goal is twofold. First, we want to tackle this discussion from the angle of the ecological-dynamical approach, in which concepts as perception-action coupling, affordances, and self-organization are put forward as vital elements to explain the control of actions/sport skills. In referring to animal behavior, we will push the idea that cognitive interventions are not a prerequisite for strategic and tactical interventions. Second, we want to translate these theoretical concepts into some general guidelines for coaches and practitioners. In doing so, we hope to increase the understanding that for practice the environmental constraints should be embraced in order to improve the strategic and tactical capacities of the players.