Taking Sport to its Limits.

By: Jaks Lloyd

Around the nineteen eighties a new term, extreme sports, evolved to embrace the growing development of sporting activities that involved an increased element of individualism coupled with an element of danger not associated with traditional sports.

Eagerly taken up by the youth of the day as well as adults, activities such as bungee jumping, hang gliding, sky diving, rock climbing, mountaineering and scuba diving grew in popularity aided by the growth in disposable incomes enjoyed by teenagers and the twenty pluses.

During the last twenty-five years, largely due to the recognition by the marketing industry of the potential for profit, extreme sports have undergone a significant demographic change.

Adults still involve themselves in the more established extreme sports but the emphasis has changed to involving youth and promoting activities that, while still needing high levels of skills and dicing with danger, also require specialized gear and clothing.

If you are a parent you will know the importance of brand names to the young and the marketing boys were quick to exploit this new market.

Nowadays the term extreme sports has become associated with youth culture and the popularity of the specialized sporting activities that the younger generation have become involved in.

From the beginning most extreme sports have differed from conventional sports in two major areas, they are not a team effort and neither is competition against another a required element.

It is the rush of adrenalin associated with facing and overcoming a potentially dangerous, or even life threatening, obstacle that provides the buzz that modern over protected youth craves for.

As an example take a look at skate boarding, is there any adult out there that has not been amazed by the dangerous stunts that these kids seem able to perform so nonchalantly.

However they have to wear what looks like a quite a large amount of specialized gear to perform in.

Apart from the skateboard there are elbow and knee protectors, safety helmet and don't forget the trendy designer label clothing and footwear.

BMX racing, snowboarding, wind surfing, paragliding and all the other youth orientated extreme sports have one thing in common and that is expensive gear.

So parents be warned, encourage your children to take up a traditional sport, tennis football, baseball, cricket, hockey, athletics or swimming.

Oops, sorry, made a mistake as they all need expensive gear and most are just as dangerous as many so called extreme sports. I suppose all we can do is grin and bear it, pay the bills and pray they stay safe.


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