Recently I was helping out at my daughter’s sport class at school. The children, all aged around five, were learning/practising ball skills. They were in teams of six, learning to play one of those games for kids like tunnel ball, where they took turns throwing and catching to the head of the line then running around their group.
The children were loving this game, smiling, laughing, being careful to catch the ball, throwing the balls gently, taking care not to throw them too far/hard/high, looking at the person throwing the ball to them, waiting patiently for their turn in the line, running safely through the narrow gaps between each team… you get the drift, it was a pleasure to watch.
Sure, a few balls went spiralling out of control, but when that happened, the child who had dropped it just went straight after it, picked it up with no fuss and returned to their spot in the game.
And then it changed. The sport teacher told the children they were going to now have a race: they were going to play the same game, but this time, the first team to have everyone crouched down, having had a turn throwing and catching and running, would win.
The teacher called “Ready, set, go!” – and pretty much all hell broke loose.
Balls were dropped on the child in fronts’ head. That child would yell back abusively. The run-around-the-team part became a ball game of ‘let’s see how many other children we can crash into’ – many of the boys particularly ‘enjoyed’ this one. Other children on the run tripped over their feet, and bumped into the nearby brick wall. The balls that had been dropped took two or three goes to retrieve – when the children went to pick them up in the rush, they would accidentally kick the ball another few metres away. Some were even prone to further dropping the ball on their way back into the game after having retrieved it.
Then, when the first team had all crouched down and called “Finished!”, another round of shouting began as the children who had been bumped into by the winning team’s members retaliated, accusing them of cheating, hurting them, not running in the right direction, and interfering with their own team.
There were no smiles, no simple pleasure at having been able to catch a ball and throw it back to be caught again. The laughter had stopped, replaced with angry looks at one another.
Some of the children in the ‘losing’ teams didn’t even get to have their turn as they were at the end of the line and once the winning team finished, the game was over. These children looked sad or left out but said nothing; others yelled that it wasn’t fair they didn’t get to have a go.
I did notice there were a few children amongst the chaos who stayed still, able to put the same care into catching the ball, throwing and running during the race as they had during practice. At the end of the lesson, these kids simply skipped off with each other, held hands, and stood in the line quietly, waiting to return to their classroom. But the majority of the class looked angry, were still talking loudly about the race, and taking a long time to get into the line. The classroom teacher by this point began raising her voice at the stragglers to get in line, and looked thoroughly frustrated.
I then saw the next class of five year olds arrive at the sports ground. They assumed their positions in the game, standing in their teams of six, ball in hand, etc., ready to start the same thing all over again…
Healthy competition? I don’t think so. We’re told sport is ‘healthy competition’, but there was nothing healthy about the chaos I saw unfold once the race was called. When it became about winning and not the (activity) ball game itself, something very ugly and destructive came through.
Competition teaches us to be all that we can ‘do’ – it’s never about who we are, and never about being all that we are. Competition erases the knowingness of who we are, that we all have as small children, as we are pitted against one another and heralded for being able to do more / better than another. Is it not possible that we all have skills in different areas and that we can each bring our own particular skill/expression to the table for all to share in, learn from and build upon?
Education needs to focus on equity, cooperation and freedom for each and every child, so they can choose for themselves how they wish to express themselves. With this freedom, and by eliminating the need to compete, we would all benefit as each child naturally brings something different but equally amazing to society.
What would it be like then if competition (including sport) focussed on equity, cooperation and freedom for each and every child, so they could choose for themselves how they wished to express themselves? Perhaps then, and with this freedom, there would not be the chaos and competition that occurs now when a simple ball game becomes a race.
Inspired by the work of Universal Medicine and Serge Benhayon.
By Suzanne Anderssen, Brisbane
380 Comments
Competition does not feel pleasant in the body, makes me feel anxious and stressed out and/or invites judgement into the moment. It separates and disconnects us from each other. Certainly not healthy.
I wonder if the teacher learned this lesson from the children.
There is no equality in competition and perhaps that is why even the winners feel the emptiness of what they have achieved once the initial euphoria is over and hence why they are always having to strive for the next win at great expense to their body and general wellbeing.
A great example of the effect of competition and the ripple effect that this has thereafter. The quality of connection, quality of relationships and how we feel within ourselves, all affected. Harmless fun? I think not,
One day we will wise up to what competition does to us as children but that won’t be for some time yet, but I for one welcome that day. It’s horrible to watch how young children change when you bring in competition.
I’ve watched kids completely change and become totally anxious and nervous when I’ve turned something into a race. If we care all about our kids welfare and content-ness it’s time we dropped the saying that “competition is healthy” and changed it to “competition is unhealthy”.
Anything that is not love is not good for our health and competing against one another is certainly part of that. I really can’t think of anything that could contribute to our health with wanting to be more or better than others.
Competition crushes the truth of brotherhood. It doesn’t allow us to feel that united we can move mountains and that winning or loosing is just the same as being right or wrong and that is not what love is all about. We are all here to learn to learn one thing – love and competition doesn’t add anything to this learning.
Competition erases who we truly are and makes it all about what we can do, ‘Competition teaches us to be all that we can ‘do’ – it’s never about who we are, and never about being all that we are.’
Competition isn’t healthy, it encourages us to go against another- to be better than another, and so create a separation, ‘Healthy competition? I don’t think so. We’re told sport is ‘healthy competition’, but there was nothing healthy about the chaos I saw unfold once the race was called. When it became about winning and not the (activity) ball game itself, something very ugly and destructive came through.’
We need to consider that it’s not actually a natural expression to be competitive, that instead our nature is one of harmony and cooperation. I remember being introduced to competitive sports as a young girl in my first years of primary school, being competitive felt like I had to first fight all of who I am in myself (it felt horrific) before then fighting other children to be the winner.
Yes, to win at all cost and as wars seemingly have followed this same way or is it that wars came first then we played games to practice for being warriors in battle, and now even though we seem to have a some what civilised competition we still fight hard to win on every level. Then the so called game, fighting or ruckus on every level makes it impossible to connected to our child-like-essences and once we start the competitive-ness that contributes to this type of rat-race the one we have made so called normal we become caught in a merry-go-round of life that pulls the wool over our eyes about living in connection with our essence.
This is an extraordinary example of what is being just encouraged but propagated everywhere all throughout our society. one day there will be no competition.
There is a great difference between the wonder of exploring the science of the quality of energy in how we move, interact and connect with ourselves and others and the joy and playfulness that can be celebrated in this activity, in contrast to how the imposition of competition, where there has to be a winner and a loser, annihilates our connection to the wonder of who we are and is in fact all -round abusive.
This is such a great sharing and the example given is so stark, how a simple collaborative game becomes pure chaos and the ugliness comes through when it’s all about who wins and not about how we all are together, and yet in our world competition is seen as healthy and looking at our world I’d say it’s not – time to instead consider how we all work together.
This really highlights that when we lose ourselves and live in anxiousness and competition with each other, this hurts us all and issues then perpetuate themselves. Because we are not connected to ourselves, things don’t flow, then we are not connected with others and this leads to issues and problems playing out between people and if they are in the same stuff it is exacerbated and it grows and continues.
” By eliminating the need to compete, we would all benefit as each child naturally brings something different but equally amazing to society”
One day in the future sport and competition will be looked back on as crazy and harmful as we know; look back on the ability to punch children with the cane. Exercise and play yes – these are amazing forms of learning – competition on the other hand does nothing but foster anxiety and separation.
“When it became about winning and not the (activity) ball game itself, something very ugly and destructive came through.” wow what an insight in to the harm of competition and the losing of our natural joy and simplicity.
Super inspiring article Suzanne. Isn’t this the same in the business world? Where competition is a given. Basically also with a lot of chaos, frustration when people not win, with ugly faces and no cooperation.
I would imagine competition is competition everywhere – same colour.
‘Education needs to focus on equity, cooperation and freedom for each and every child, so they can choose for themselves how they wish to express themselves. ‘ This is the way that education would benefit not only the children that are going through it but the whole of society because they would be the adults of the future who would be expressing themselves in their own unique way and not feeling the need to compete with anyone else.
It is our true nature to work together, yet education often pitches us against one another and this knocks out this natural impulse. It makes sense why children go into anxiety when they start school, because their bodies are being asked to do something that is not natural for them.
Competition is a harm for both parties. Therefore it can not be true success or joy. When someones wins, someone looses and feels less of worth or succes – that can never ever be love. Neither does it support one or another. Competition is not healthy for us, no matter how good we make it look..
And here we are again another extraordinary sideshow… The Winter Olympics is on. And it is as if the spectacles must get together and bigger and brighter and brighter to keep people entertained and indeed distracted from the essence of what is going on. Competition and separation.
People love this as it provides an escape from life and a moment to ‘check out’ and not full all the pressures they are facing, this is why this gets so much airplay and what is really going on in the world doesn’t- supply and demand- truth and responsibility are not currently being called for.
Whilst reading the part of this blog about when the children were told to make their ball game into a competition I could feel my body getting into a bit of an anxiousness at just the thought of it. This is what we are imposing on our kids when we reinforce an importance on competition and outdoing another to feel better about yourself at the expense of the ‘loser’. But the real losers are all of us when we don’t honour each other for who we are, but focus instead on what we can do to prove ourselves to another. A complete waste of time and energy, and a way of life destined to end in separation to others.
It is so true, that competition is a virus that has spread throughout the world, tainting everything in its path. Whatever we can do to arrest the spread of this, whatever role models we can provide is absolutely essential right now.
Wow this really reflects the change when competition is introduced. It is as if we forget the harmonious relationships we have with people and we go into a survival mode. And yet this does not support anyone – it does not reflect people working together or supporting each other. And yet it is built into our education.
True, the focus becomes on the outcome and not on the quality of the interactions and our own quality. Its like in situations like this we leave ourselves and focus on the ‘end goal’. This also highlights why outcome based education does not work- as when you put a very specified end point it does not allow a process of learning and discovering but is simply regurgitating what another determines as important but is not necessarily the knowledge you need to grow.