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By Rome Jorge, Lifestyle Editor
Think extreme sports and most people think of
injury: Surfing against gargantuan waves that mask beds of
flesh-shredding corals.
Downhill mountain biking on an insanely steep
descent amid bone-crushing boulders. Clinging to bare rock and
risking blood-splattering fall. Skate boarding down stairwell
handrails with every slip promising skinned shins and dislocated
joints.
But people are still going to extremes. These
sports are thriving and their practitioners living long.
Extreme sports, like many other physical
activities offer many health benefits. Mastery and skill develop
coordination and balance. Muscle power is enhanced without even
trying; the stuff is too much fun to be called exercise.
But more than just physical fitness, extreme
sports benefit its adherents in many other ways.
Those who live long in these sports have
fine-tuned their risk management skills. Those who prosper are ones
who stack the odds in their favor, candidly assess their own skills
and limitations and read the nuances of weather and materials. They
plan meticulously. They invest in the best equipment. More
importantly, they invest in themselves and the people around them by
training and pushing themselves. Though they are often not
mainstream 9-to-5 careerists, extremists have their own work ethic
that borders on, well, the extreme.
Extremists are not immune from fear. Nor do they
disregard its warning. Instead, they conquer their fears with sober
assessment, meticulous planning and stringent training. No one
follows more rules than the extremist.
Extremists more than anyone else know what
commitment means. Hesitation kills. They have deadly focus, knowing
what is at stake is not a score or a trophy, but their lives and the
lives of others.
In conquering their fears, they relieve their
stress and get a natural high with the release of their endorphins.
More importantly, extreme sports put everything in perspective.
Mundane domestic troubles reveal themselves as insignificant when in
the face of Mother Nature’s fury. The laws of men mean nothing
when one is preoccupied in defying the laws of gravity.
Contrary to what some believe, extremists
engaged in high-risk sports do not have a death wish. Rather, they,
more than anyone else, experience the thrill of living by taking
things to the edge and beyond. No one but the base jumper knows the
beauty of climbing the sheer rock face of a mountain, flinging
yourself of its peek and gliding down gently with one’s own
parachute with majestic panoramic view of the mountains and the sky.
Only he has felt the rush of adrenaline, marveled at the raw beauty
of nature and lived to tell. Only the rock climber, the mountain
biker or the other extremists know what he’s talking about.
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