In my household, I was not bred to enjoy or excel at sports. I grew up in a culture where I was rewarded for good behavior, which did not welcome running, throwing, kicking or screaming. Clothes drenched in mud and complexions red from racing qualified as misbehavior, of which I was mortified. My mother was raising me to be a lady, and if I couldn’t do something gracefully, then I was not to do it at all.
The intentions behind my upbringing were more than understandable: well-behaved little girls give parents their much-desired peace of mind. There’s no cleaning dirt from beneath fingernails, there’s no icing knee scrapes and there’s no apologizing for tantrums. I learned at an early age to sit politely and speak softly, associating compliance with good manners.
With my physical expression stifled, I found solace in mastering verbal communication and discovered freedom through words. For the most part, adulthood favors such traits and so I saw no issues in the disconnect I felt from my own body. My mind was doing a fine job getting me through life successfully, and conformity had served me well so far.
And then I started working with Kick & Play at Super Soccer Stars, a movement and pre-soccer program for toddlers. I suddenly found myself standing in front of a dozen 18-month-olds to whom my sophisticated vocabulary meant absolutely nothing! I quickly understood that their physical freedom and skill development depended on mine – and in order to succeed I would have to drop the carefully constructed mask and armor I had worn for years. If I was going to teach them about lions that jump, run, score and roar, well, then I would have to let go of being a “lady.”
After one particularly active class, in which I had taught my students to be silly like monkeys, messing up their hair and shaking their whole bodies when they scored a goal, I looked at myself in the mirror. With my hair tangled to bits and my shirt on backwards, I caught a glimpse of Little Me before I had been molded into a polite young woman. My laughter then was so loud and warm that it was contagious – and I found myself moved to tears by the release that my own classes had allowed me.
My Kick & Play classes provide for my students what I was never given: a 40-minute window of uncensored self-expression within the structure of sport. Their little developing bodies will know their potential, and they will be better equipped to create, express and flourish.
Without any words, my young students showed me how to communicate again and, as it turns out, it wasn’t too late for me to learn the lessons that I was teaching.
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Larissa Dzegar was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil. She has been living, learning, and teaching in New York for the past nine years. After five seasons as an instructor, Larissa is now the Kick & Play Program Coordinator at Super Soccer Stars.
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