Play like a child

How important is play and playfulness in elite sport? More important than conventional wisdom permits: playfulness is central to both the acquisition of skill and the ability to perform under pressure.

Superficially, my opening question is an odd one, because the language of play is bound up with the language of sport. We ‘play sport’ (or at least we say we do); sportspeople are interchangeably described as ‘players’; one athlete is said to be ‘playing well’ while another is ‘playing badly’. In many instances, ‘play’ has become a synonym for ‘perform’ or ‘achieve’. A great player is a great achiever.

So, there is an understandable conflation of two different definitions of play. And in trying to make a case that one influences the