DITCHER! Blog assignment post # 7

I am almost positive no one I know back in America has played, or even heard of, lawn bowling. The thing is, you would be surprised at how fun it was.My team with my roommates, “The Swedish Bakers” won a thrilling match of lawn bowling. It was a tough game to play, but very fun. The entertainment level might have had to do with the light attitude, great weather, and incredible view more than the sport itself, but it was fantastic.

I have noticed a lot of little differences about sports and the participants in Australia versus the United States. It seems like sports and overall fitness are just a very important part to all sorts of people, regardless of age. You see just about everyone participating in sports, little kids just learning the game, to older folks just having a good time and staying active. I love that everyone has some sort of sport they follow and try to do here. For example, lawn bowling is not a very physically taxing sport, but they made it out to be more than competitive activity and I love that. They made it a club feel, more important to stay active, social, and having fun than any one thing. Everyone at the club were older guys just having a beer, hanging out and making sure they were still having good time, not taking life to seriously at that age. In addition to those people, just looking around parks and beaches we see people doing whatever they could, frisbees and footballs being tossed, soccer balls being kicked, and everything in between. 

Obviously the professional athletes are in incredible shape, but more surprisingly the general population is in great shape too. Tons of people are always running all over the city, the bridge and in parks. On a lot of these beach paths there are little work out stations periodically where you can do stretches, pull-ups and all sorts of non-weight work outs, and people are ALWAYS using them. Very cool to see that being such a well used thing, and I thought it was a great idea. There is another thing I believe we should do back home, I think Minneapolis would jump all over something like that.

 I haven’t gotten to ask too many average people about what they do for sports on a daily basis, but I would like to. I get the feel that everyone is doing something. That is one big change I would like to see in there be leagues for all sports, regardless of skill level, for those who are aging. Just about everyone loves playing one sport or another, and most people kind of stop after college. Sports obviously are one of the best ways to stay fit, and we as a country could use a little more fitness all around. I feel like there are just many benefits to be had through sports and we could explore that a little more through out the ages in America.