ABSTRACT
In relation to youth sport the terms ‘lifestyle sports’ and ‘lifestyle activities’ tend to be used in one of two (overlapping) ways. For those charting allegedly postmodern trends in youth cultures, lifestyle sports are defined as ‘a specific type of alternative sport, including both established activities like surfing and skateboarding through to newly emergent sports like kitesurfng’ (Wheaton, 2008: 155). In this ‘alternative’ sense, the term lifestyle ‘encapsulates the cultures that surround the activities’ (p. 155) as much as the activities themselves. Thus, according to Tomlinson, Ravenscroft, Wheaton and Gilchrist (2005), there are three ideas central to the concept of lifestyle sports. First, they are alternative in the sense of being different from conventional sporting forms (such as team games) and, unlike some sports, are fundamentally about participation rather than spectating – either live or via the media (Wheaton, 2008). In addition, and in contrast to conventional sports, ‘alternative or lifestyle sports are characterized by a relative lack of regulation and a customary refusal by participants to follow regulatory codes’ (p. 2). Second, the meanings attached to lifestyle sports often have a personal dimension beyond success in competition. Finally, they have a tendency towards being extreme insofar as they involve risk-taking, ‘including extreme locations, extreme emotions, transgression and extreme skills’ (Tomlinson et al., 2005: 2).
