CODY SHIMIZU

A look into my life, a journal to look back on, a blog for others to see.

Alas! As the snow melts, temperature rises, and nature returns another school year comes to a close. Although this time, a little early. It feels weird to be done school so early in the year, having classes end by the beginning of May. This extended summer I can only dream of what to do with all the extra time I have on hand, places to travel to, things to accomplish, dreams to be made into reality. Aaaaaannnnddd NOPE, just kidding Im doing spring courses; which, will take me to end of June leaving me with the usual 2 months of summer. Anyways forget about that, I’m here to tell you about the past 8 months of my life.

So as many of you know this past year was the first of hopefully only 4 years of my bachelor of kinesiology degree. Its been a lot of learning and adjusting to learning in an university setting compared to grade school. Sitting in large lectures, having to take your own notes, doesn’t really matter if you’re in class or not. I really enjoy the style of self-motivated schooling. I mean really, this education is the most expensive thing I’ve ever purchased in my life. I’m going to make sure its something I’m interested in. Thankfully for me this first year has only confirmed my interest in the field of Kinesiology and opened many doors to pursuing a career in this field. Especially KIN 200, although a second-year course I took it since I had some leeway in my schedule. So far the best class Ive taken so far! Especially considering how relevant it is to cycling with all the talk of watts, anaerobic thresholds, and HR zones. While many of my class mates couldn’t put into perspective what 100watts looked like from 1000watts on an bike ergometer I could just feel the burn in my legs thinking about being able to put out a 1000watts. In the lab component of the course we had the opportunity to learn how to perform, and analyze the data from all different sorts of sports physiological tests such as an anaerobic threshold, VO2 max, Wingate, and even underwater body composition tests. It really put into perspective of how important data is from these tests to apply to your daily training schedule and for tracking progress.

On the other hand as I immerse myself deeper and deeper into the world of sports looking at it from a business and sociological perspective really shows how lucky I am to be able to have participated in many different sports as I was growing up. Everything from Hockey, soccer, to cycling any sports has such a high barrier for disadvantaged individuals and families to overcome to be able to participate in sports. Everything from club fees, equipment, travel fees, and time off of work needed to take kids to and from sports. Also the debate of government funding towards sports whether it should go to elite athletes such as the Own The Podium program or should it be distributed across the country to promote mass participation and the fine balance that is required. Not only that but how sports affects individuals who do not directly participate in the sport such as the Olympics coming to a city, or government funded sports facilities.

Learning about the facts of sport and how inaccessible it is to many individuals is heartbreaking to me. Having had grown up riding bikes, playing hockey they are both very expensive sports, equipment’s, and club fees sports have defined my youth. But pursuing a career in what people only know as a past time, something that is not a necessity is hard for me to understand. How in this time of an obesity crisis where physical activity is more important then ever with such sedentary lifestyles we lead, yet the fundamentals for leading a healthy life of learning about physical education is not available to all youths in the world only due to the fact of societal situation they were born in is in my opinion unacceptable. But at the same time Ive been there to see many of my cycling friends pursue a higher level of sports. Trying to make a living out of what they are passionate about. And it isn’t cheap either, having to buy the most performance oriented equipment, and the costs of training, and traveling to races. So I am morally caught in this debate of high performance vs. mass participation. How is my career not only going to affect me but affect others around me. Ultimately will it fulfill my moral beliefs of the world.

So far as Im concerned. I know that this is what is interesting to me, after suffering through Statistics 151 and 2 english classes I am certain that those are careers I definitely don’t want to pursue. But at the same time I really don’t want to work with little kids either. I want to work with high performance youth athletes, as either their coach, athletic therapist, strength and conditioning. Something along those lines. But it is this uncertainty of not knowing what I want to do that not only worries me but motivates me to see and find what I want to do. This first year of university was eye opening into the career path which I choose, and where I can take my education and apply it to the real world.

This post turned into a bit of a ramble jumping all over the place and it might have been a bit hard to read, but in reality that’s what my life feels like right now, not too sure where I’m heading, all I know is I’m heading in the general direction of where I want to be. Now to see what the summer holds!