Asperger's and athletic hobbies

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Though not that great at it due to a lack of ball skills, one of my special interests is rugby.

Also in my time I used to run, a lot, everyday. Was never fast but could runs for hours. Same with swimming.


Even now I enjoy walking long distances. I find that I can blank out the many thoughts in my mind and get some peace when I exercise in a repative menner.

As a kid I had potential to be pretty athletic, but I didn't understand the rules of most games, didn't socialize well enough for teamwork, and couldn't pay attention to everything that was going on in a team sport. It takes a lot of brain-coordination to to work out what the opposition is doing and work in tandem with your teammates. I tried playing soccer but just ended up running back and forth across the field a lot, trying to look like I had a clue what was going on. The only sport I ever figured out was volleyball.

I have many athletic hobbies. As a child, I didn't, though. I've come to learn that there are certain things I can learn to do, but I have to be aware of how I learn.

I practice Tai Chi, yoga, downhill skiing and I've recently gotten into --believe it or not-- unicycling! Also, I used to do a lot of martial arts.

Tai Chi is complicated, but it is practiced slowly, and I've learned what to look for as I learn the forms. Yoga is hard, but it is equally hard for everyone, so I don't feel like I'm trying to keep up with everyone else. It's also not at all competitive, so there is no pressure to keep up anyway. Skiing is not as hard as it looks.

I'm trying to compose a post about just this subject right now and I hope to explain better what I mean.

I can just forget about something like volleyball, where I would have to meet a moving object. Figuring out where the ball will be in real time must involve magic, I've concluded.

Skating and sprinting are two of my favorite things to do, and I do them often. I used to enjoy snowboarding, but the expenses of it made me lose interest. Funny that you mention beach volleyball, as that is the sport I'm the least good at (how people can tolerate serving the ball is beyond my comprehesion). If there isn't any communication involved in a particular sport, I don't see why an aspie would have any more trouble with it than an NT would. Do you ever pace? Pacing is moderate running.

i used to be really good at basketball but havent played regularly since i was 18!

In the past I have been quite good at volleyball, baskettball, running, football, cycling, snowshoeing, and mountian climbing.

I was wondering about this- I can't do anything involving a ball or hand-eye coordination or playing with a team, but I love walking, biking, ice-skating, kayaking, or cross-country skiing. Things that I can do alone, that involve repetitive movements in a straight line or a circle.
If I don't get some physical activity on a regular basis my anxiety level goes through the roof.

I think people with AS can become quite good at individual sports, such as track. I have often suspected that Roger Bannister has strong indicators of Asperger's.

I like team sports with limited physical aspects - namely Counter-strike, a first person shooter. The only physical things about it are knowing what key is where and precise aiming. Communication is a matter of filtering what's important to say, and saying it. You don't really discuss strategy in mid-round as there's not enough time to, you just say where you are and where the enemies are and everyone sort of picks up on the right thing to do to win.

I don't excel at sports either because I'm clumsy, and won't play in team sports, for fear of seriously hurting someone. It's not because I'm agressive (I'll admit I had some of those moments when I was younger, but sometimes when people thought I was being aggressive, I wasn't trying to), but because I'm clumsy, and hit someone by accident, but don't actually mean to. There is only one "sport" (if you wish to call it that) which I think I do fairly well at, and that is rollerblading. I don't enjoy this as a sport though, I enjoy this as I do math, since I learned to rollerblade out of a physical principle, and that was what made me like rollerblading. I don't doubt other sports have physics behind them, but rollerblading just seemed most obvious to me, not to mention I'm not really a physics major, but how I learned to rollerblade just made so much sense to me that there was no way I wasn't going to test it out. I still fall occasionally, and probably have a few disgraceful moments, but I still enjoy it.

I play badminton, it's great because if you intellectualise it and have good visual sense you'll do well, everytime I go to club everyone looks at me and thinks i'm so weird cos I don't talk much but on court i'm this mysterious, artistic shuttlecock warrior!

rock on