Sport and transition

A fun option at the gym are these trampolines. Our youngest, particularly,
has enjoyed them. My neck is currently giving me some stick, but I'm
hoping I'll be able to give the trampolines a go soon.

Supporting our teens through this transition has been harder than perhaps we expected or you might realise.

One big thing we continue to struggle with is finding an appropriate outlet for our sporty boys. In Japan through the school it's built into the school year. Actually school-based sport there is quite intense, with practises most afternoons and competitions most Saturdays. When we take them out of that and into Australia it's a big misfit. Most sport seems to be private clubs, with only a little bit at school, but generally not starting in July and finishing in December! And of course as teenagers they are quite opinionated about what sport they'll do. We can't just throw them into cricket or rugby. They have no experience in either, and no interest in being newbies either.

And of course we've got one boy homeschooling, which includes no sport at all. The deal we agreed on with him when we said he could do homeschooling was that he got out and did some exercise. He's found that that was a harder thing to do than he anticipated.

Last time we were in Australia we tried to solve this sporting dilemma by having them all join a community wrestling club. It worked well for one or two of our boys, but not so well for the third. This time they are much more opinionated about what they want to do. 

We first tried an athletics club, which started out promisingly, but was a significant commitment as it was from 6.30-8 two nights a week about 20 minute drive from here. This was significant as I needed to work our meals around it and at least one of us needed to be plan to spend that time driving and being present. We were prepared to do all this. But we had a lot of trouble with this plan: especially with boy/s bailing at the last minute—either at home before we left, or once we got there. Some families might cope with this, but we didn't. It was upsetting and stressful for us all. We were prepared to go with the plan, but not if they couldn't make a solid commitment to doing it and the following through with that.

Plan B was to go to a local gym that is much closer to us, in fact we pass it on the drive to school. Not perfect, as it doesn't include much running, and that is really what our guys like to do, but it's flexible and we can do it at times that are much easier to manage (straight after school). David and I can also get involved here and get exercise ourselves.

So this is what we've been working with the last three weeks. Most days it's working, but not every time. We're paying per visit, rather than being locked in to a period of time.

Things will probably move up another level from October as our youngest plans to rejoin the wrestling club in preparation for joining the CAJ wrestling team in January when we return.

The stress of dealing with this is not something you might think about when thinking about the life of a missionary. It's been an element of this transition that's made it hard to feel settled as our lives are pretty lacking in routine anyway, and struggling to get a routine going for exercise has only added to the challenge.