Olympic Digressions Pt.2
Pentathlon: a toolbox for the adventurers
The list of Olympic sports now stands at 43. Some date back thousands of years, such as athletics and wrestling, while others, such as breaking, are more recent. The pentathlon evolved from the Greek games, and its modern form includes fencing, equestrian, laser gun, running and swimming. A rather random set of activities, you might think, and so did we. In fact, it takes us back to the ancient games, in a territory of city-states that pass their time in endless brawls. Despite the call for a truce, the games were all about exalting the rivalry between cities, pitting their best warriors against each other in the stadiums rather than on the battlefield. The ancient pentathlon events served to evaluate the perfect soldier.
De Coubertin was compelled to revive the discipline, but he wanted to make it "a veritable consecration of the complete athlete", definitely dropping the martial aspect. The pentathlon emphasises the versatility of the athlete, who must excel in not 1 but 5 different sports, in a formidable display of precision, endurance and total control of breathing.
A holistic approach, then, that takes us deep into the fundamentals of the sport, rather than the pure pursuit of performance. We stop at pentathlon because it resonates with us. In a broader sense, our definition of sport puts little emphasis on numerical results and marginal progress in a single domain. Like the pentathlon, we seek to understand and develop our physical abilities as a whole.
Horses and the military don't necessarily ring a bell in the 21st century, but adventure does. So how about letting that intrusive thought win and imagine our Mover version of the pentathlon? What we offer is a healthy mix of walking, cycling, sailing, mushrooming (it's really harder than you think) and scree sloping. If you don't know what scree sloping is, chances are you'll live longer, but also probably sadder.
To counter the obvious danger of being stabbed by hundreds of sharp pebbles, there's a whole technique to master. It requires a keen sense of observation, strong knees and a will to defy the odds. But perhaps most importantly, you need to listen to the terrain. It is less an intellectual reflex than learning to feel. In the same way that birds sense earthquakes or grandmothers do without measuring instruments. Our Mover's Pentathlon is really about experience, instead of withdrawing into ourselves, it is our way of gaining an eagle's eye view and participating in nature.
