I love playing tennis and I play quite a few social tournaments. This last I've joined is offering great prizes (weekends at hotels), so it ends up being a great deal, considering I can reach the final four haha. When you are doing sports prizes are also involved? What's the best prize you've received?
The last time I did a sports activity where prizes were involve was during a summer camp program I did a few years ago. I was an instructor and there was a basketball game between the camp instructors and some of the older kids. The prize was pizza and a dinner at a nice restaurant. The adults won but everyone got pizza. However, later in the evening I did enjoy a wonderful dinner at a beautiful restaurant with all the employees on the team.
I also love playing tennis, both competitively and for recreation! I have never gotten involved in a tournament that offers prizes, but I have aspirations toward doing so! I really do feel as though I need to work on developing my game, perhaps playing more often throughout the week, and ensuring that I not only "play tennis", but that I focus on my "weak spots" and find out the best ways to correct and improve them. I've been a bit lazy when it comes on to doing this, so I think that that's why I've become "rusty" after a while--that and the added pressure of family life, school AND work--but I also recognize the unquestionable benefit in sacrificing time to do what you love, especially if it requires intense and sustained physical activity that targets all areas of our body. I think that one of the flaws in "today's sportsmen" is that they tend not to compete "for the love of the sport", but merely train and spend hours "slaving away at training practice", with this sole objective in mind: making money by competing in the tournament. This might particularly be common amongst those who compete professionaly, whereby a hefty sum is garnered for merely "showing up" in a particular Grand Slam tournament, even if one does not win the final. One may argue that the guaranteed promise of a prize has robbed sports of those athletes who merely competed for the sheer love of the game. BUT, in the end, I do believe that it is not only possible, but HEALTHY to play and compete for prizes. But one has to be careful that one concentrates on "loving the sport" FIRST, and then doing one's UTMOST BEST to demonstrate the beauty of perfecting the unique skills attributable to one's sport of choice, rather than making it a "never-say-die-only-for-money" scheme. Keep competing...for the LOVE of it!
I am not into any kind of competitive sports. I like swimming and riding my bike, in my own time, usually alone, or with a friend. I can't see myself being a member of a sport club. Even when I still went to school, I always skipped sport lessons when there was some kind of competition going on with another school. I don't even like watching competitive sports on TV.
I think it's hard, at least I can't conceive it, to compete in some sport if I don't love it, I would not have the motivation unless it was my profession, which sadly is not the case lol. But just figure, you can occupy your free times doing what you love and on top of that you can win prizes, can it get any better than that?
I went on a cruise and they had a darts game where you could win free drink vouchers. At the time I had been playing a lot of darts at a local club in my home town and I dominated the competition. The crew and other holiday makers thought it a good idea to load me up with my free drinks to put me off my game, but it only improved it and I was banned from playing after that.
Haha, now that made me laugh, because darts in a cruise is the most coolest sport I can think of, even more when the prizes are free drink vouchers! Thinking of if I was in a hotel once that had a bingo activity and I won a bottle of rum, these are good activities and entertainment for the holidays, not exactly pure sports though.
