I just started following Alex Rotas Photography on Facebook. Her photos of Masters track and field athletes are stunning, in both the quality of the photography and in how she captures the focus, competitive fires, and sense of community and friendship amongst the athletes.
Her photography challenges notions of ageing such as older adults can’t learn new things and should not exercise, it’s too dangerous, they’ll just get injured. The idea that gentle movement is preferable to high-intensity exercise. We will all grow old as grannies sitting in rocking chairs and knitting. And all such nonsense.
Well. I have a new motto: You are stronger than you know. That’s what I tell my fellow female Masters swimmers. More on that later.
By engaging in training and competition, Masters athletes challenge those notions of ageing. Many Masters athletes are continuing what they used to do when they were younger. Some join Masters teams when their children do sports. But many are learning new ways of being active, and finding out that it brings them joy. The joy of being physically fit. The joy of feeling strong. The joy of friendship and community. The joy of improving and fine-tuning their skills, and pushing themselves with demanding training regimens.
The motto for Masters swimming is “Fun, Friendship and Fitness”. Notice the emphasis on fun and friendship. As Alex notes in the article, the one thing that keeps Masters athletes engaged is the community of like-minded people with a shared passion for training and competition and achieving excellence in their sport. You build friendships, some that are enduring. There is a shared understanding that the competition is not between your team-mates or other people; it’s with yourself.
She makes special mention of older women and their participation in athletics. Here’s a quote from the article that will resonate with many of us:
“I think that sport is especially important to women of my age and older because we grew up in an era when sport was associated with masculinity: it was something that boys did, but it wasn’t so okay for girls to be competitive and fiercely focused and determined on the sports field. You had to police how you showed your body, you had to be ‘ladylike’.”
Right? Back in the day, I was known as a “tomboy”. My mom would dress me up in the pretty little dresses she made (yes, made, again in those days when clothing was expensive), did up my hair, and (to her horror) I would promptly go outside and muck around in the backyard. While I was no athlete at the time, it was the same body- and tone-policing about how a girl ought to look and behave. By daring to be sweaty and strong and competitive, we challenge conventional notions of femininity.
One awesome thing Alex is doing is showing her photos to a younger crowd; children in elementary school. When she asks them what an old person looks or acts like, they all invariably stand with a stooped posture and hobble around holding imaginary walking sticks. Then she shows them the photos, and the kids are gobsmacked. And inspired! Wow! Old people can do THAT?!
Alex is amazed that she can use photography to re-define perceptions of ageing. What she wants is for Masters sports to be treated as just another branch of sports within mainstream media coverage. To normalize athletic competition in later life. To normalize “grey hair and muscles!” She is now collaborating with a filmmaker to bring the lives of four older female Masters athletes to the world. Here’s the trailer:
Now, back to my motto:
You are stronger than you know. The inspiration for my motto came from a Stevie Nicks song, Leather and Lace. To me, it’s one of the most beautiful ballads ever written and sung. In it, she sings to her lover:
I have my own life
And I am stronger than you know
She is saying that she alone knows her strength. So I flipped it to mean that you may not be aware of the strength within you as you get older. That you can tap into it, develop it, and push yourself to achieve athletic feats you never thought possible in later life.
I have always loved swimming, but before I joined a Masters swim team, I never thought about swimming competitively. I never knew I could swim 2300-2500 metres in an hour practice, and enjoy it. To be still doing this at the age of 58 (59 in July!) sometimes blows my mind. I am indeed stronger than I knew.
So, dear readers, what do you think? Have you surprised yourself with your strength, your endurance, or how you enjoyed pushing your body through a tough training regimen? Do you feel joy in being sweaty, strong and taking up space?
Image of a woman in a swimsuit, cap and goggles in front of a swimming pool. She also has a BIG smile on her face and is dripping water after her swim!
