Archives - Page 3

• Vol. 25 No. 268 (2020)

  The proper use of technology
  Since the last decades of the last century, technophiles firmly believed that the Web would solve all the world's problems. No one disputes the benefits of technology and its advancements, but also, as Evgeny Morozov, a visiting professor from Belarus at Stanford University states, there is no doubt that the Internet is filled with spam, scams, and identity fraud.
  False messages circulate from non-existent accounts, proliferation of anti scientific groups, conspiracy theorists and others, whose messages impact with the same intensity (or in many cases greater) and truth value than more rational and reasonable criteria.
  Being attentive to these aspects may help to affirm that with the proper use of technological and communicational resources we can build communities that are less violent and intolerant, more fair and egalitarian.
  Tulio Guterman, Director - September 2020

• Vol. 25 No. 267 (2020)

  Can you live without soccer?
  Soccer is much more than a sport, some think that it constitutes a universal language, understandable to any inhabitant of the planet. Its intense importance in our societies produces diverse ideas about its relevance and influence: from its playful and healthy sense to its political and economic impact.
  It is considered as a contemporary religion and has an integrating function in local and regional communities. At the same time, its concealed ideology as an alienating spectacle is similar to a drug in the service of power to control the masses.
  In his analyses, the French anthropologist Christian Bromberger affirms that the comic potentialities that provoke unpredictable situations and deception, cunning or cheating, are one of the fundamental schemes of the game. In this sense we miss soccer, to express unique and genuine feelings and emotions. And to let the imagination fly together with the teams and the players, true contemporary heroes.
  Tulio Guterman, Director - August 2020

• Vol. 25 No. 266 (2020)

  This means winning
  Marcelo Bielsa, being the technical director of soccer, experienced painful defeats, such as the elimination of the Argentina team in the first round at the 2002 World Cup in Korea-Japan, the two finals in a row lost to Athletic Bilbao, or being on the threshold of promotion the year before with Leeds, the same team he had just led to the Premier League.
  Leeds fans and their leaders love him, surely in the dimension that Slavoj Žižek defined when he says that loving is loving imperfection. Bielsa also stands out when it is circumstantially his turn to lose.
  It teaches us that you don't always win, that in reality only one wins (the champion) and the majority lose. But insisting, fighting and with convictions, it is also possible for once to be first in the table, without cheating, nobly, with the best intellectual, bodily and ethical resources.
  Tulio Guterman, Director - July 2020

• Vol. 25 No. 265 (2020)

  Sport, segregation and prejudice
  Most high performance sports, even today, maintain the regulation that competition has to be segregated, women on the one side, men on the other. They explain that these rules guarantee equal opportunities and fair play. But if we limit ourselves to these labels, a high-performance athlete is denied the possibility of choosing their gender perception and expression. And particularly for any talented woman, the insurmountable obstacle of access to the sport's biggest prizes. Given this, the gap between male and female competitions produces an inescrutable segmentation.
  Currently, alternative ideas lead us to much more challenging perspectives. In this sense, Judith Butler, North American philosopher claims that biology has a social history and gender has not always been considered in the same way. And she adds that categories tell us more about the need to categorize bodies than about bodies themselves.
  Just as we see racial segregation in sport today as an arbitrary and unfair practice, so is gender. It is now that those who make high sports performance possible (they manage, sponsor, communicate, prepare, compete and do science) begin to imagine -and above all make possible- integrated and fair practices.
  Tulio Guterman, Director - June 2020

• Vol. 25 No. 264 (2020)

  It's not just about voluntary confinement
  The Covid-19 pandemic pushed us into an uncertain, sudden and unexpected crisis. Its consequences are unpredictable, its present a risk scenario where maintaining health became a priority.
  It is not only avoiding infection but also being well fed, exercising, being accompanied, alert, communicated and culturally connected and stimulated. Solving this is very complicated for large sectors of citizens, since the crisis further exposed the exclusion and oppression that already existed.
  Living during this time generates a bitter taste but also allows gaining invaluable experiences to improve and personalize the educational, health, labor and other systems of the future in the search for the well-being of local and global communities. George Orwell (the author of the 1984 novel) stated that The important thing is not to stay alive but to stay human. It's about learning, teaching, sharing, accompanying, helping. And keep inventing, creating protocols and new organizational and technological resources that are as essential as the vaccine.
  Tulio Guterman, Director - May 2020

• Vol. 25 No. 263 (2020)

  The post-pandemic world
  What will the world be like when quarantine ends? What will happen when there is no risk of sanitary collapse and massive contagion?
  We hope that it is not another moment of shock, of being disoriented, not knowing what is happening and uninformed as characterized by the researcher Naomi Klein. Brutal scenario for an elitist minority to take advantage of this historical and political moment to impose their practices of social exclusion and thus expand profitability at any price, including that of human life.
  An enormous majority slowed down the pandemic, from their homes, betting on life, recognizing the work of the health workers, and of all those who came up against the tragedy. That is the strength to transform this crisis into an opportunity, to extend rights, to demand that those who have the most, those who have surplus resources and those who are mainly oriented by corporate greed pay for reparation.
  Tulio Guterman, Director - April 2020

• Vol. 24 No. 262 (2020)

  Fantasy and reality
  Many sectors, especially the most privileged, have always tried to convince us that education and health for the State are an expense and never a good investment. But in these times the classic phrase is confirmed: An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
  In all the films that North American industry produces, they are the ones who save the world from aliens, catastrophes, the murderous meteorite, and some messianic leader. But fiction aside, the US government wants to get the vaccine at all costs to sell it at an exorbitant price to the rest of the world. Meanwhile, one more dead person is added to the chronology.
  We should not give space and movement to the virus. We are at home, isolated. It is proven to be an effective way to take care of ourselves and others. But this should not mean passivity and submission. We should not stop thinking, reflecting and sharing with others.
  Tulio Guterman, Director - March 2020

• Vol. 24 No. 261 (2020)

  The secret of success
  Many people consider that sporting, professional, personal success is the result of fortuity or chance. Others claim that it is genetics, natural conditions. Very rarely, effort, dedication and perseverance are celebrated.
  In these last two decades I had the opportunity to meet a large number of very relevant people in the field of Physical Education and Sports in many events. So I spent time with teachers, coaches, athletes, writers, journalists, doctors. I learned something from everyone. One of the ones that caught my attention was Alcides Sagarra, who as the Chief Director of the Olympic boxing team in Cuba won more medals to his athletes, in Olympic Games, World Cups and Pan American competitions than any other in the entire history of the sport.
  I share his quote, to explain his astounding successes. Work while others sleep; study while others have fun; persist while others rest and then you will live what others only dream.
  Tulio Guterman, Director - February 2020

• Vol. 24 No. 260 (2020)

  Adolescent Health Promotion (Special)
  Health promotion in adolescence is extremely important, as their behavior can be modified if it is stimulated early, avoiding health risks in adulthood. In Brazil, for example, adolescents represent the largest population of all times (30.3%), that is, more than 35 million adolescents. Promoting healthy habits in this stage of life is essential for development in the world with its innovative, persistent and creative ability.
  Non-Communicable Chronic Diseases (NCD) has lately shown an increase in precocious incidence rates. This increase is directly related to the type of lifestyle adopted. There is much to be done in the field of adolescent health in order to prevent future diseases in this population. Much thought should be put into finding interventions that involve them, that are able to break the barriers of technology and language.
  This special issue sought to deepen theoretical knowledge on the “Eight Natural Remedies” and their influence on adolescent health. It is a construct that includes practical recommendations for a health-promoting lifestyle, represented by the English words of the acronym “NEWSTART”: Nutrition, Exercise, Water, Sunlight, Temperance, Air, Rest, Trust in God. It also brings the meaning of a “New Beginning” that refers to an accessible and affordable health education proposal, recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO).
  It also includes a methodological study with validation evidence of an instrument to assess adolescent lifestyle based on the Eight Natural Remedies Questionnaire (Q8RN). It ends with an original research on the lifestyle profile of 282 elementary school students from private schools in the south of Sao Paulo, Brazil.
  Drs. Fábio Marcon Alfieri, Maria Dyrce Dias Meira and Gina Andrade Abdala, Centro Universitario Adventista de Sao Paulo (UNASP-SP) - January 2020

• Vol. 24 No. 259 (2019)

  Art and Soccer in Barracas
  It is huge and colorful like the ceiling painting in Rome created by Michelangelo. It is powerful, expressive, brilliant and if we put it in relation to its surroundings, it impacts more by contrast. There is nothing nearby that anticipates what engages the senses.
  Albert Camus, Nobel Prize in literature, recalling his experiences as a goalkeeper in a team in Algeria wrote the phrase "what I finally know with greater certainty regarding morals and the obligations of men, I owe it to soccer". Perhaps if he had walked through Barracas and entered that neighborhood gym he would have scribbled a phrase about the understanding of art and its relationship with his favorite sport.
  Above, the heavenly painting, below, the ideal place where any player is inspired in every moment and gives an intense meaning to the game of soccer.
  Tulio Guterman, Director - December 2019

• Vol. 24 No. 258 (2019)

  Multiplicity of practices, diversity and inclusion
  Who is more skilled? A soccer star, a great volleyball player, a street juggler or a dancer? No doubt all of them are skilled, each in his own talent. But our point of view is influenced by the context, by the value that the market sets to that ability, by the lens that the media adjusts.
  We are witnesses - in many passive cases - of the globalization of sport that overvalues aspects that are linked to the commercialization and despises the skills that claim the multiplicity of bodily practices.
  The group of Physical Education teachers has a lot to contribute in defense of local cultures, diversity, inclusion, gamification and the environment. The road is very arduous and complex and it is the school environment where this challenging game is played.
  Tulio Guterman, Director - November 2019

• Vol. 24 No. 257 (2019)

  School skiing: a debt paid off
  They are boys and girls from popular sectors. Many live in deprived and marginalized urban neighborhoods. They attend public primary school, the fifth grade. They live in the area, but many, the majority, never went to the Mount. They looked at it from afar, because some people, for a long time, made them believe that access to the mountains is for the privileged few.
  Skiing in Bariloche is a regional sport. But it is also a social and cultural practice that allows the citizenship construction; it is the care of the environment; it is the right to learn content that is part of literacy in these Patagonian lands; it is the future opportunity for recreation, interacting with others and also for accessing job sources.
  Thanks to the tireless effort of committed teachers, the entire educational community and municipal, provincial and national institutions, today School Skiing has been set up as part of the Strategic Plan of the Ministry of Education of the Province of Rio Negro and is a State Policy in the field of Humans Rights. Thus, since a few years ago, the snowy mountains dress up to receive the children of the earth, who while learning to ski dream that others have the same opportunity they had.
  Thanks to the tireless effort of committed teachers, the entire educational community and national and provincial institutions today, School Skiing has been set up as part of the Strategic Plan of the Ministry of Education of the Province of Rio Negro and is a State Policy in the field of Human Rights. Thus, since a few years ago, the snowy mountains dress up to receive the children of the earth, who while learning to ski dream that others will have the same opportunity they had.
  Tulio Guterman, Director - October 2019

• Vol. 24 No. 256 (2019)

  To Rank second
  To rank second. To be second. A great feat!
  Some people would consider the second as the one who almost got it. They are the ones who critic, acidly. Without deliberations and with the worst adjectives. They take the opportunity to question others. They are the ones who do not try but demand everything from everyone; those who have no idea what it takes to access a place that is for few. It's just win or win, no matter how.
  We reached the final. The stage everyone wanted to reach. Where a few weeks ago only the players and relatives imagined participating. They had to lose, but also to live a unique experience that claims to understand the moment and capitalize on the experience. It will surely be a foretaste of what is coming, the possibility of becoming champions. Of Ranking first.
  Tulio Guterman, Director - September 2019

• Vol. 24 No. 255 (2019)

  The long road of school Physical Education
  In the beginning was gymnastics, military and medical. The era of nations required young and strong citizens, for the army and/or for hard work. And the school had to prepare them from an early age and especially under criteria of control and discipline.
  The failure of this project -racism and chauvinism produced millions of dead and mutilated products of the two world wars of the twentieth century- redirects teachers to new ideas that influenced teaching. The games and some sports occupied the space and time of the Physical Education classes in the last decades of the last century.
  The new scenarios of the current time support other conquests: the full inclusion of any person beyond their physical possibilities, the generic integration, the selection of local games and sports (not only those of Anglo-Saxon origin or of the European continent) and other own bodily practices of the popular sectors. And in a framework of solidarity, coexistence and nonviolence, in favor of improving the school and social climate.
  Tulio Guterman, Director - August 2019

• Vol. 24 No. 254 (2019)

  Twenty-first century technology to sheer muscle
  The massive irruption of technology promised an almost ideal world. A more relaxed life was approaching, with a reduction of working hours that would allow access to free time dedicated to relaxation, leisure and physical recreational activities. And in addition robots were coming: physical effort would continue indispensable in sport but unnecessary for the labor world.
  For some, this premonition happened. But for many, those who lead many global endeavors applied from cell phones, it is the other way around: job insecurity, endless working days with minimal retribution, non-existent rights concealed behind a discourse on independent entrepreneurship.
  They are necessary and sweaty bodies that add fabulous profits for these technological giants of the 21st century. Similar bodies, efforts and systems of exploitation built the Pyramids in Egypt, the Coliseum in Rome and extracted coal in the subsoils of the Industrial Revolution, to the satisfaction of the powerful people of each era.
  Tulio Guterman, Director - July 2019

• Vol. 24 No. 253 (2019)

  In the footsteps of Gilmar

  The news moves, hits, hurts, shocks. Gilmar Mascarenhas de Jesus died. In Rio de Janeiro, his city, which he had visited tangibly and symbolically. Run over by a bus, while riding a bicycle to do a professional task.

  He was an innovator, a pioneer in the field of Geography of Sport for this region of the world. An essential actor that encouraged this enormous field of Social Studies of Sport that drove great conceptual transformations to understand and to intervene in reality from critical, diverse and expert perspectives. He investigated both the local and global reality, his tracks hit to the distance from where the messages of pain arrive: almost the whole planet.

  I see the picture of Gilmar in Buenos Aires, more or less for this time, fourteen years ago, with the background of the neighborhood of La Boca. I remember him in his smile, his gestures, his look, his word. A huge legacy that we are going to treasure.

  Tulio Guterman, Director - June 2019

• Vol. 24 No. 252 (2019)

  Homophobia is also violence

  In Argentine soccer, part of the celebration in the stadium is the singing of an extensive playlist of songs with homophobic and misogynistic content, which seek as their main objective to degrade and humiliate the opponent. This form of symbolic violence is currently not only allowed but is even celebrated.

  Eric Dunning, in the mid-80s of the last century, said that sport is one of the main male preserves and therefore it is of potential importance for the functioning of patriarchal structures.

  If xenophobic, chauvinistic or discriminatory chants or gestures against a rival are punished, there must also be some sanction that draws attention to these expressions that until now have been naturalized as part of soccer’s rituals.

  Sports events, as important places of our daily life, can also contribute to positively transform reality and build an equal and fair society.

  Tulio Guterman, Director - May 2019

• Vol. 24 No. 251 (2019)

  For these times a striking debate crosses the world of sports and therefore the world culture. The IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) has decided to define the category Women according to a hormonal test. In this way, the South African runner Caster Semenya - double Olympic champion (2012, 2016) and triple world champion (2009, 2011, 2017) of the 800 meters - and other athletes, should make risky interventions on their bodies to participate. This biological excess, it's argue, calls into question the egalitarian character of competition, even when it is not produced artificially.
  Simone de Beauvoir said that one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. Part of that cultural construction is carried out in the context and the decision to practice the sport that each one likes, without having to pay the price of the invasion of privacy, well-being and the impairment of social and professional possibilities.
  Faced with the claims of athletes and leaders of the countries they represent, the CAS (Court of Arbitration for Sport) must decide these days where the rules of sport will be oriented, recurrently affirmed in the "sacred nature of a legal and open competition ", a euphemism that hides a practice of exclusion that explicitly violates all international agreements on human rights.
  Tulio Guterman, Director - April 2019

• Vol. 23 No. 250 (2019)

  Is it necessary to be a Greek Adonis and have a perfect body to study Physical Education and become a teacher? Not long ago that was the predominant belief. Some, less and less, still consider that, in a world that is experiencing enormous social and cultural changes.

  It is evident that there is not only one way of teaching, there are many strategies to educate. Today there are many teachers with disabilities who perform their tasks with similar efficiency as any other person. And in each class that starts we see more people with disabilities interested in pursuing the course.

  The United Nations International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities states that discrimination against a person because of his disability is an act against the dignity of the human being. It even states that institutions must hire teachers with disabilities.

  Experiences show that with the reasonable adaptations and the aids that facilitate full participation, the development of talent and creativity in professional training is possible. And this is an act of justice.

  Tulio Guterman, Director - March 2019

• Vol. 23 No. 249 (2019)

  What is the secret of sports? Why do we like to be spectators? Why its attractiveness and its universal acceptance?
  Sports represent certain ideals that we often see far away from the daily life we lead: friendship, solidarity, self-confidence and companionship, commitment, overcoming, faith in our own abilities, singular and shared effort.
  And also making mistakes, risking and keeping trying, The champions continue playing until they get it right, proclaimed Billie Jean King, one of the greatest tennis players in history.
  In that place and time something begins and ends: aesthetics is expressed, ethics is discovered and the epic is dramatized. In sports, everything seems to be possible.

  Tulio Guterman, Director - February 2019

• Vol. 23 No. 248 (2019)

  What is the use of sports and physical activity? It is usually associated with the improvement and maintenance of health but it is also a perfect place and time to stimulate the senses, live intense experiences, share with others.
  In these days La Corsa di Miguel in Rome is celebrated for the twentieth consecutive year in tribute to Miguel Benancio Sánchez, who was disappeared in 1978, in the hands of the last military dictatorship in Argentina. He was pulled out from his house a few days after running the San Silvestre in San Pablo. Miguel was an athlete, an employee from the bank and a poet. And above all, as defined by Abraham Maslow, he was a self-realized person, with a deep feeling of identification, sympathy and affection for human beings in general.
  La Carrera de Miguel took place in hundreds of towns and cities in the world where running and walking continues to exercise the Memory, where an athletic test keeps putting up a relevant meaning to our lives.

  Tulio Guterman, Director - January 2019

• Vol. 23 No. 247 (2018)

  Many modern sports were created in Britain in the 19th century. Participation was originally reserved for upper class men. An exclusive code ensured their elitist characteristics: the ambiguous rules of fair play and amateurism.
  Colonialism through, the English expanded their culture across the planet, along with football, rugby, rowing, tennis and other sports. The local inhabitants transformed sports to their idiosyncrasies; economic interests transformed many sports forever.
  Ayrton Senna, well-known Formula 1 driver who died in the middle of a race in Italy, expressed that The second is the first of the losers. Those who promote extreme ideas affirm this idea. But there are also those who recognize the effort and merit of reaching the top, even when the jackpot cannot be won. And that is something that we should also applaud and celebrate.

  Tulio Guterman, Director - December 2018

• Vol. 23 No. 246 (2018)

  When we perform a teaching task, is there a need to contextualize the practices? It seems an obvious question that any person, teacher or not, would answer yes. However, when we inquire on a recently developed proposal that suggests to take into account social, cultural or geographical facts, offers rarely abound.

  Paulo Freire, Brazilian educator, proposed to fight for an education that teaches us to think and not for an education that teaches us to obey. Even so, education still follows homogenous proposals, despite the enormous progress made towards a world that seeks respect for diversity and acceptance of heterogeneity.

  During these times, it is a great challenge to be able to create the conditions so that we all have the same opportunities of being different.

  Tulio Guterman, Director - November 2018

• Vol. 23 No. 245 (2018)

  A few days ago, the Youth Olympic Games ended in Buenos Aires. In the context that there is very little information circulating, it is known that the expenses were considerably higher than expected.

  Now, is it worth such an outlay? Does getting some medals justify it? Or it is like Will Smith says: We spend money we do not have, on things we do not need, to impress people we do not care.

  Is it really beneficial to host large sporting events? Opinions vary. For some, when a candidacy is launched, the crowds are attracted by the event, the sponsors contribute so that the expenses are minimal and the consumption that is generated justifies such an investment. Others argue that the earnings for the arrival of visitors are relative, the sponsors are scarce and some of them even take advantage to charge for some services and that the expenses become uncontrollable.

  Following this last trend, many citizens have rejected the possibility of being an Olympic venue. Hamburg, Boston and Toronto turned their backs on being hosts due to the high costs. In the 2015 Hamburg referendum, citizens voted to invest money in social projects instead of organizing an Olympic Games.

  Before any initiative of this nature it is always convenient to ask ourselves the question of rigor: By whom and how is the party paid?

  Tulio Guterman, Manager - October 2018

• Vol. 23 No. 244 (2018)

  When it comes to understanding a phenomenon, are statistics enough? Is it possible to approximate with certainty and get closer to the truth with the invaluable help of numbers? The norm, the normal, is neither more nor less the tendency of what happens the most, the most usual in a universe. But then what do we do with the rest? Do we discard it? Do we label it as abnormal, forget about it and send it to a specialist to turn it - with time, patience and treatments - to normal. Undoubtedly the understanding of diversity requires other comprehensive tools.

  Nicanor Parra, Chilean mathematician and poet, explained them like this: There are two loaves. You eat two. I do not eat any. Average consumption: one bread per person. In other words, someone ate in excess and another does not cover his basic needs. The world has untiringly abused of statistics to explain the inexplicable, and to make true the unusual.

  So today a selected group can pay a round trip ticket to the Moon, but there are people who walk miles to go to work because what they are paid (the astronauts?) is not even enough to pay for the bus ticket. The media title with fascination every month that they have found water on Mars while a recent report by the World Health Organization reports that 2100 million Earthlings lack drinking water at home.

  Maybe someone is currently saving for a long trip, one way.

  Tulio Guterman, Manager - September 2018