Adventure Sports

Adventure sport is pretty much anything where taking part involves setting yourself an element of challenge. How far down that route you want to go is up to you. Each individual should set her own bar when it comes to risk, and draw her own line in the sand at the point where peeking over it gives a delicious thrill of danger. That could be BASE jumping off the Eiffel Tower, it could be a hike up an unknown hill. Don't let anyone else try to tell you what is your idea of adventure, just enjoy it as it is.

Because of that element of individual boundaries, adventure sports are not usually team affairs (although there are exceptions such as adventure racing or cave diving), rather a very personal exploration of limits. They tend to be less organised and have few formal rules (other than having fun and staying alive). That alone is enough to appeal to whole groups of people who would never have seen themselves as sporty. At one time the outer edge of holiday sport was donkey rides on the beach. Now you're more likely to be offered scuba diving, SCAD diving and surfing - the choice is endless and the rewards can be surprising. Whether it's the teenager who is turned off by team sports at school or the grandma rebelling against being forced into a life of crown green bowls and coffee mornings, adventure sports offer a different approach for everyone. Which is one of the reasons I've avoided the term 'extreme' sport. Many adventure sports are extreme sports - anyone who throws themselves off buildings or races down hills lying flat on an elongated skateboard can call themselves extreme with little risk of quibbling. The term itself, though, has connotations of an exclusive set of young, 'rad' dudes with tribal tattoos and some fabulously imaginative piercings. Nothing wrong with that, just that the whole joy of adventure sport should be its inclusiveness. Adventure sports are all about having a go, not about being excluded because some smart marketing people have hijacked an activity, packaged it and sold it to a 'target market'. So don't worry about what people will think, just get out there and have a go - and then another go.

Adventure sports thrive by nicking ideas from each other - skateboarding copied surfing, snowboarding copied skateboarding, sand boarding copied snowboarding and so the skills and thrills of one can, and should, be applied to others. You may find that you turn out to be good at something you never dreamt you could do. Or you could be hopeless but have the time of your life doing it. Either way the following should be seen not as some kind of defining list but as a menu of potential pleasures, a smorgasbord of sports you may not have heard of, let alone tried.

There's a saying amongst adventure sports people that 'if you're not living on the edge you're taking up too much space'. It's up to you to decide where that edge is, but when you've done so you should creep up to it and sneak a peek over the side. Whatever you do, don't forget to enjoy the ride while you're at it.


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