Sport Initiation and Childhood: A view over Artistic Gymnastics

Abstract

Nowadays, sport initiation is an issue that arises many discussions. The literature recommends that children should practice a variety of sports during this phase, mainly to develop a large motor repertoire and, afterwards, they would be ready to choose the sport to which they want to dedicate. The Artistic Gymnastics (AG) is one of the possibilities within sport initiation programs. The purpose of this study was to investigate how the process of sport initiation in AG is oriented in sport clubs in the city of Sao Paulo. For data gathering we used a semi-structured interview and the content analysis was used for the treatment of data. The results revealed that the course of sport initiation in AG is not clear, and maybe it is a reflection of an emphasis upon results.