Msida, Malta

Sport and Leisure Studies

Bachelor's
Table of contents

Sport and Leisure Studies at UM

Language: EnglishStudies in English
Subject area: physical education, tourism, services
University website: www.um.edu.mt/

Definitions and quotes

Leisure
Leisure has often been defined as a quality of experience or as free time. Free time is time spent away from business, work, job hunting, domestic chores, and education, as well as necessary activities such as eating and sleeping. From a research perspective, this approach has the advantages of being quantifiable and comparable over time and place.
Sport
Sport (British English) or sports (American English) includes all forms of competitive physical activity or games which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants, and in some cases, entertainment for spectators. Hundreds of sports exist, from those between single contestants, through to those with hundreds of simultaneous participants, either in teams or competing as individuals. In certain sports such as racing, many contestants may compete, simultaneously or consecutively, with one winner; in others, the contest (a match) is between two sides, each attempting to exceed the other. Some sports allow a tie game; others provide tie-breaking methods to ensure one winner and one loser. A number of contests may be arranged in a tournament producing a champion. Many sports leagues make an annual champion by arranging games in a regular sports season, followed in some cases by playoffs.
Leisure
And leave us leisure to be good.
Thomas Gray, Hymn, Adversity, scene 3.
Leisure
Retired Leisure,
That in trim gardens takes his pleasure.
John Milton, Il Penseroso (1631), line 49.
Leisure
Certain ways of life, especially leisureliness and contemplation, are said to be marked by “self-sufficiency” (Aristotle). Here there is a double connotation of not needing much from others to carry on such a life, and of the life itself having the character of finality. Both connotations suggest forms of independence. Not needing much from others means being independent of them. And “finality” implies that the activity of thinking, or, more generally, of being leisurely has intrinsic worth. Thus the leisurely person is independent in the sense that the value of his leisure does not depend on any consequence it may have, for example, the consequence that it restores his energy for the next day’s work.
Lawrence Haworth, Autonomy: An Essay in Philosophical Psychology and Ethics (Yale University Press: 1986), pp. 12-13.
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