As many of you know, the Olympics came to a close this Sunday. I was able to catch some of the Olympic events, unfortunately not everything that I'm interested in, but that's the way it goes sometimes. I did get to see the entire Trampoline competition, which was really awesome. The truth is, I don't even own a TV, so unless I was visiting a friend that had a TV or was in a bar, I couldn't really catch much of the coverage. But anyways, sad sob story for my lack of a TV aside (I only miss it SOMETIMES, like when there's a show on that I like, or every night when the Daily Show and the Colbert Report are on - *sigh*) the Olympics still made me think a lot about my own experience growing up with sports and music lessons.
I have a few students who are very involved with multiple activities. At certain ages, this seems to be more common for obvious reasons, i.e. kids start to get more coordinated as they get older, and obviously gain more interests in things. When I was growing up, I don't recall that there was quite the same emphasis placed on multiple concurrent athletic activities. I wanted to swim because my older brother swam, but that really was the only sport I could focus on at one time because it required every day practice. Correction, I believe I begged my parents to let me swim, seeing how much of a seemingly fun involvement my brother had with his team. Sadly, I didn't quite click with the girls on the team (maybe because I was a really shy dorky girl? I don't really know) so my experience being on a team didn't quite match my brother's. I did join the cross country team in high school, and that seemed to be the place for me, where many of my friends were already involved, and it was exactly the type of experience I was trying to get when I was a swimmer, but was always lacking.
My point (yes, there's a point!) is that while I watched the Olympics, it made me think about the choices people make as to what to focus on intently in life. It seems that many of my students are spread thin with school, various sports, sometimes another instrument, and my piano lessons on top of it all. Sometimes I feel guilty piling on an activity during the week, because maybe piano just isn't really a priority. But if there is something that you want to be good at, it needs to be a priority. Once any of the Olympic athletes showed any prowess and interest in an activity, that became their passion and their priority in life, and many other things probably had to fall by the way side. Not because other activities are less important, but because one needs to decide whether they want to be a Jack-of-all-trades and a Master-of-none, or an aspiring Olympic athlete, aspiring concert pianist, or an aspiring [insert one activity] ....... something.
I imagine this is how my parents thought, that maybe it would be best to focus on piano because that's what I showed the best promise in, while I had to beg to be put into swimming, something that I was ok in but would never be great. Or maybe it's because I grew up in small town of 17,000 and one activity was really all you could get. I'm writing this while smiling because, it all works out in the end. Michael Phelps gets to be Michael Phelps, and Gustavo Dudamel gets to be "the dude".....and they'll never have to compete with each other because they only wanted to be the best at their one thing, their passion. Now all I have to do is explain that to a 9-year old.....
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