Brain Type and sporting

I’ve been going over the book “Your Key to Sports Success”
[ braintypes.com/products.htm ]
and find it very interesting and full of good info, and am looking forward to hopefully getting the next book, which is coming out in early 2007 “Get the Most Out of Life: with Your Inborn BrainType” –as soon as it’s available.

I’m INTP
Hubby is ESFP
#1 Boy is INTP
#2 Girl is INFP (most assuredly likely so)
#3 Boy is ENFP (most assuredly likely so)

Brain Typing is not the same as other personality typings, but it is connected. I find that I’ve not looked much lately at MBTI stuff minus the one book for Mothering Styles that I have, but mostly look at Socionics stuff. I really see the connections to any of it with Brain Typing, but most especially Socionics.

The value of the book I first mentioned is great, it’s not just about “sports” but mostly is, but it can be applied to other areas of life. I come to it from a unique perspective: being INTP, I’m not very sports inclined at all. The least so of any “brain type” and this book is aiding to me appreciate the “sports” aspect of other members of my family, and I hope it will allow us all to “do more together” sportingly so in the back yard, understanding what each of us is best at doing, and what we need to work on to make our bodies do things better.

The book goes over tennis and track for INTP’s –those being the likeliest sports for INTP’s –if they are inclined so. I did have interest in track, in 7th grade, and was going to go out for the team in 8th, along with another girl who was also interested, but in 8th grade I couldn’t ’cause we moved in October to another state. That state was Florida, too hot for me, and I fell out of “active” status sportingly wise entirely. It was interesting to me to note the differences, I was going to run track in PA, but in FL I couldn’t run without nearly dying (heating up and getting so very sick every time in PE classes there that we had to “run” outside.)

When I was an adult, newly married, my hubby and I decided we’d like to play tennis, and got a key for the courts at our church (a special $ privelage) –bought rackets and balls and played a time or two together and played doubles a couple of times there with our neighbors. I really enjoyed it, we did it when it wasn’t ‘as hot’ out. I felt I could improve much, but was naturally inclined towards it, not as a vocation, but as a hobby. I hadn’t come into contact with tennis before that.

I do recall actually liking playing ‘handball’ in 8th grade in FL, and in a later grade we played ‘raquetteball’ inside and I really did like that. These were things that I only had access to “in school” and once that part of PE was done, it was over for me.

I did also play soccer in PE in 10th grade, and was praised by the teacher as “a real hustler” (I really moved and stuck with it and ran, ran, ran …) but that was a class and eventually the ‘soccer phase’ was over.

As I got older all along I just didn’t do much, and prefered to “play” only nature-like ways. Walk and run on the beach, go on a canoe trip on the St. Johns river, go tubing on Rainbow river, things that wore me out but were so pleasant.

Once married, for a couple of years, we went to the Smokies for a week and I was able to drag my hubby out onto a trail to hike to a waterfall. It was something I liked doing, hiking, but I hadn’t done much, just enough through the years, and had plenty of time in my childhood in PA climbing up hills and “mountains” behind my house, and running all over nature (like my children have no oppurtinity for where we live.) I like camping, had camped as a child with my family and then in my “college” years I camped with the group at church for that age. So I have wanted to get my hubby out to go camping, hiking, combing the wilds, but I’ve only gotten him into the small hikes, mostly to water falls. He says he will go camping some day, but I don’t know when. He’s gone once in his life and the experience was short and futile and he won’t try again. It was a horrid time, I’m sure it was, I wasn’t around at that time of his life. It was a fluke sort of thing and it’s jaded him. What’s a girl to do? Oh well.

I love hiking and it’s just funny to see me, with so little energy to expend, really loving “outdoorsy” stuff, just not having an ‘outdoorsy’ hubby, but it being my most energy expending ability that is release and great and wonderful.

My hubby was a softball player when I met him. He played on two or three teams at the same time. I went along with it when we first married, and then begged him to cut down, then totally cut it out. It was making me feel left out, and leaving me sitting on a bench three or four nights a week, or staying home alone.

So now hubby is a sales guy and has no time to play on a team. He tried once in the last 9 or less years. It didn’t work out.

ESFP’s are supposed to good at athletics, many varieties of things to choose from. I’ve wanted my hubby to be more active, and I think he’d be happier if he was home more and did sporty things with us. We’ve occasionally had a football to throw around in the yard, but never do they last long, the dog gets them and chews them up, nerf or leather, of course. We’ve not had a football for a long while now and it’s something I want to get. Hubby wants to get a basketball hoop thingie. I don’t mind that idea, I just don’t want to have to do that on the driveway. Anyhow, I’ve done playing around with basketball “Two on Two,” “One on One” sorts of things in college for fun. I really liked that (but I highly dislike organized basketball, collegiate or professional, or children in primary and high school, too.)

My youngest, boy 6, is quite like what the ENFP brain type is described as. Highly energetic, entertaining, cute, acrobatic-like, charming, etc. He’s the most inclined of the children for sports. My dear eldest is a brainiac like me, and needs to really work on things to feel good about doing them [in elementary school the teams in gym class were “picked” by children, two that the teacher picked as “captains” and invariably I was always last picked, or second to last.] –thankfully he doesn’t have to go through that humiliation [homeschooled.]

My girl is a type that has sportability supposedly, but we’ve not worked on anything. She’s an Introvert, so inclined along with us INTP’s in the family to just sit and read and do quiet things. She’s just turned 8, and has years to go to find active physical interests, and I’m not going to be putting them [she as well as her brothers] into pressured situations to perform unless they wish to later, themselves. I do not wish for any of them to try for a ‘career’ in sports (I have every inclination against pro-sports, that’s a sermon for another time, if I am so inclined to air my views then … but I’m not ready for the head bashings I might receive, so I keep them pretty quiet.)

My dear daughter is very artsy inclined, so that’s my main aspiration to encourage her in. She’s reading now, and will be getting into heftier books sooner than later.

My eldest boy is a reader, and loves his Bionicles and such. He seems inclined towards some things, but it’s not clear as to what to pursue with him yet, except for get him to buckle down with “educational work” that I want him to do (like many INTP’s he see’s nothing worth doing, except for reading books, it’s all highly boring and painful therefore –and I’m not giving him garbage like they would give him to do in school … freedom has it’s costs. He doesn’t know how good he has it with me as his mother. 🙂 ) I know that he has the oomph inside his mind to do what he needs to and will supply the outward version of it when the time is ripe.

My youngest boy is very much like I described above, highly energetic, full of life, cheerful and all that, but also very stubborn and still has much growing up to do. He’s daring and a climber and an acrobat. He’s definitely one to keep an eye on and will need shaped physically/mentally –steered towards what he does best and taught to stick with it, and do more.

Hubby want to do things with them, but not what I’ve considered good for them. Like have the eldest on a team of something … he’s not cut out for that, not at his age for his type. Going outside and working together on things is possible and something he desires to do with him, and somehow it just doesn’t happen (a sports inclined daddy with a non-sports inclined son can be trouble.)

Our disorganizational garage is not the place to put equipment, and so anything we have is buried under … whatever it is buried under. We do need to get other things and clear out the garage and get a door in the back of it to the backyard, and get the stuff we have and will buy in the future hung on the walls, ceiling, etc.

We did buy a croquet set this Autumn. Unfortunately it all came in a nice carrying bag, and once we got the mallets put together, they would no longer fit in the bag and so … apparently, I was told this morning by my eldest, the yellow mallet is broken …

I grew up with a croquet set in my family. It was all wooden, lovely mallets and balls, and they all fit into a lovely cart perfectly, great for storage, great for bringing anywhere to setup a game of croquet.

I would love to have a set like that, it’s the right thing for organized or organizationally-challenged folk.

Anyhow, we have a set of books coming to us that we ordered, that will get us doing stuff in the backyard, fun, educational, and fun. I’ll write more about them once we have them and have utilized something about them.