Leisure is a general term and just like an umbrella, covers the terms, sport, recreation and play. Leisure is the overall term. Below is a diagram to help explain the relationship between leisure, recreation, sport and play: On the continuum between play, recreation and sport, there are a varied level of effort and seriousness. Play is a non-serious form of leisure and sport is very serious. Leisure can be very difficult to define. It is said to be the time spent outside of working commitments and other daily necessities. It can be spent doing anything that an individual would like to do. It is said to be called ‘free choice’. It is our ‘free time’ and is a complete opposite to work. There are many characteristics of leisure including your state of mind. Your state of mind is how you decide to spend your leisure time whether it is shopping or whether it is playing sport.
Leisure may not always be relaxing but it has an aftermath of relaxation and a good feeling. Leisure may be active or passive depending on our state of mind. An example of a passive leisure activity is watching television. You are not active as you are only sat down watching television but it is a very popular leisure activity. An example of an active leisure activity is football. You are very active and you are running around. Leisure activities can also be home-based or away from home. An example of a home-based activity can be listening to music in the home and an example of an away from home activity could be going to the pub. Leisure is enjoyable and can be done anywhere.
A quote from Collins Advanced Vocational textbook of Leisure and Recreation says, “Leisure can be defined as the time that an individual sets aside for activities or pastimes outside work or other necessities such as sleeping.” All the above activities are activities that are done in our leisure time. They are taken out when we do not have work, or everyday duties like sleeping and eating. Recreation is also a free choice activity and is often active. It is more structured than leisure and is not usually done at home. Recreation implies enjoyment and the skill level does not matter. Recreation has a flexibility of rules and is very purposeful as it ‘re-creates the individual’ or ‘re-charges the batteries’ ready for work. Hobbies are usually productive with skill levels increasing with more practice. Recreation has a moral element and has a good attitude about it. Examples of recreation are swimming, stamp collecting and gardening. They are all ‘creating’ something, hence the word ‘recreation’. Swimming creates a stronger person, stamp collecting creates a larger stamp collection and gardening creates a nicer garden.
Recreation is defined as, “the type of activities undertaken for enjoyment or relaxation during a person’s leisure time.” There are physical and passive recreational activities. Physical activities are playing sport, playing music instruments and gardening. Passive activities are watching television, listening to music and playing computer games. ‘Home-based’ recreational activities are cheaper, for example, reading library books is free and eating at home is much cheaper than eating out. It is also non-dependent on anyone else whereas going to a restaurant would involve other people.
A quote from Kaplan in 1975, says, ‘Activity voluntarily engaged in during leisure and motivated by the personal satisfactions which result from it…a tool for mental and physical therapy.’ This is a very good quote to describe the definition ‘recreation’.
Play can also be very hard to define as many people have different views on what play is. Although a major football team play football every Saturday, competitive football is actually counted as sport. An example of play is ‘tig’. ‘Tig’ is a game that can be played anywhere and does not have certain rules or boundaries. Play is very spontaneous and can be done on the spare of the moment. It can be played in the garden and is not competitive. It is make-believe and is often done to get away from the real world. There are no age boundaries and adults and children can play. Play is not very important and has a low level of skill. It is not compulsory and is a free choice what an individual decides to play. Playing does not have to be physical. An example of a non-physical game is playing cards. Whilst playing, no certain skills are being taught but people can learn new things whilst playing. Play can be defined as,
‘Activities from which you get immediate pleasure without ulterior motive.’ This quote was taken from There are many skills learnt by children through play such as physical skills like how to pass a ball properly in football. Other skills are cognitive skills, environmental, social and moral skills. An example for a cognitive skill is where you decide on a decision quick enough to react to it, for example, when an opponent comes towards you dribbling the ball, it is a cognitive skill that is used to decide whether you go and tackle them or not. An environmental skill is where you pick up from people what is the best way to care for the environment and the area around you.
Social skills are how you learn to react around each other, how you learn to be friendly with one another and learn how to communicate in the appropriate manner, for example, a social skill learnt through play is shaking the opponent’s hand after a game. Moral skills are the way you act to other people and the manners use. For example if someone gives you something, you say ‘thank you’. You know it is morally correct to thank the person. This is an example of a moral skill. Play is the opposite of sport.