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This study aims to explore the serious leisure to devotee work (SL-DW) transformation trajectory in the case of yoga. An in-depth semistructured interview was conducted with 15 serious yoga practitioners to examine career change and the relationships between leisure and work. The findings of the research outline the passage from stepping into casual yoga leisure, moving from casual to serious yoga leisure, aspiring to succeed on the professional level, becoming an occupational devotee and finally a possible return to the serious-leisure state. A grounded theoretic model emerges explaining the blurred relationships between leisure and work, and the intertwined, dynamic and interactive nature serving as both the antecedent to and consequence of each other. This study theoretically contributes to deepening serious leisure career, the leisure-work relationships and the Serious Leisure Perspective. Meanwhile, it has practical implications for understanding and policy making for other emerging, leisure-oriented kinds of work in the new era. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Veal's concerns about lifestyle (p. 9), as served up in the I Synthesis i , are considered to some extent in Stebbins ([9]), a book devoted exclusively to leisure lifestyles. The richest discussion of casual leisure as well as its relationship to common sense is available in Stebbins ([6]), another important book that Veal ignored. Turning next to the short section on classification (pp. 2-3), Veal's concern here about the CL-SL continuum is tackled in all its complexity in Stebbins ([5]), which unfortunately, is not in Veal's reference list. Keywords: Serious leisure; casual leisure; social world; macro-level analysis EN Serious leisure casual leisure social world macro-level analysis 590 593 4 07/27/21 20210801 NES 210801 Veal ([11]) has just published a critique of the serious leisure perspective (SLP), and this article is a rejoinder to his observations. [Extracted from the article]

There is a plethora of distinct terms with a range of theoretical assumptions describing these practices, among them 'adventure sports', 'outdoor recreation', 'high-risk sport', 'extreme sport', and 'lifestyle sport'. Some scholars have tried to clarify this terminological and conceptual problem, but no consensus has been reached. The present article unpacks these terms. Then it proposes the concept of nature challenge as a valid conceptualization that identifies the essence of nature sport as conceived of in this special issue and in the wider field of such activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The serious leisure perspective offers a panoramic view of the many different kinds of free-time activities found in modern society, describes their origin and appeal, and explains the different rewards gained by pursuing them. The Perspective also shows how these activities fit in the local community and wider society. Broadly classified as serious, casual, and project-based leisure, they offer different solutions to three key problems in therapeutic recreation (TR). They are (1) to know which kind of leisure to recommend or suggest to people with a particular disability; (2) to come to grips with the still dominant public view that real personal worth is measured according to the work people do; (3) to help offset among the large majority of practitioners the lack of a theory of leisure. The problems are considered first and then the serious leisure perspective is applied as a solution to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigated the choice and pursuit of adolescents' most important and interesting leisure activity. It is underpinned by the concept of serious leisure, recent perceptions of seriousness as a continuum and calls for incorporating contextual elements of serious activity pursuit. A questionnaire survey was administered to 832 students from 10 secondary schools in Hong Kong. Students were asked to nominate leisure activity that they regarded as most important and interesting as well as to complete an adapted version of the Serious Leisure Inventory and Measure (SLIM). Results showed the popularity of sports and performance and graphic arts activities and of psychological reasons for activity choice. There were variations in activity choice between boys and girls and across schools as well as across levels of seriousness in activity pursuit. The study adds to the scant knowledge of adolescents' serious leisure and enhances understanding of motives for and meanings of serious engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Activities such as gardening are fast becoming acknowledged as a much desired health management strategy in later life. However, few studies have examined gardening as aseriousleisure pursuit. The aim of this study was to apply the concept of serious leisure to the context of leisure gardening by older adults in Australia. Casual, participant and devotee gardeners were compared with respect to the relative importance of the characteristics of serious leisure, using self-administered questionnaires (n = 514). Findings indicated that characteristics of serious leisure varied significantly across the three groups. The most powerful discriminating characteristics were Identity, Unique Ethos and Significant Effort; with Identity particularly important for devotee gardeners. The deeper the level of engagement, the more gardening was perceived as contributing to overall life satisfaction. Findings indicated that gardening could be a serious leisure pursuit that assists in the development of a positive leisure identity and contributes to a more mobile and active life for older adults. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The world’s population is ageing. Engagement in physical activities that assist people to age in good health while enjoying quality of life are critical considerations for practitioners and policy-makers. In 1913, the sport of Rugby Union was introduced to Taiwan. As a form of recreational activity, the game became popular among- Taiwanese males. In recent years, older players have sought to facilitate their continued involvement in an activity that is normally played as a full-contact sport. Why these individuals continue to play, how they perceive their experience and how the sport has evolved to maintain their interest and active involvement are especially interesting to explore. Study participants were specifically chosen from an established Taiwanese rugby union club. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted in 2013 with 15 amateur rugby players aged from 54 to 83 years. Results indicated that the main motivations for participants to continue playing was that it gave them ‘a sense of nostalgia and pride’, ‘lifelong friendship and belonging’, ‘pure joy and passion’, with considerations of being ‘mentally and physically active’, keeping up an involvement in ‘a real man’s sport’ and maintaining a sense of one’s ‘self-identity’ with ‘responsibility and commitment’ towards this chosen sport. Findings suggest that leisure providers need to be aware of the opportunities for reducing constraints and providing adaptations that allow older adults to immerse themselves in physically active pursuits integral to enjoying a fruitful ageing journey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Concerted singing is a common amateur activity in many parts of the world. Such singing is at minimum two-part vocal harmony with or without accompaniment, which may, however, be carried out in groups of 150 voices or larger. It ranges from informal gatherings of 2 to 4 people (male, female and both) who come together to sing their favourite songs or hymns with or without accompaniment to large community formations such as the barbershop and symphony choruses. Despite the widespread popular interest in this kind of activity, research on it as leisure outside that on barbershop singing is nonexistent. The concept of institutional chorus is developed and set in the serious leisure perspective. Interview data from a qualitative study of a Chinese university faculty chorus are then analysed and presented according to six concepts: career, social world, constraints and facilitators, costs, benefits, and rewards. Concerted singing in an institutional chorus, this exploratory study suggests, meets the six qualities of a serious pursuit. This kind of singing was found to be a deeply rewarding activity for its participants. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Dabbling is casual leisure, a hedonic activity common in music as well as in a number of other free-time interests. In the past, dabbling has been inadequately conceptualized, one result being some misunderstanding about its nature and its contribution to leisure and even to professional work. By way of clarification we look first at the contemporary explanation of dabbling as set out according to the serious leisure perspective, a main analytic framework in the field of leisure studies. This explanation proceeds from two related articles written by Gates and Jorgensen. Next, dabbling as a leisure activity in music is considered in detail, particularly as it relates to children. This includes an examination of its nature and its role in initiating a leisure/work career in music, as experienced in the passage from dabbler to neophyte amateur and on possibly to professional. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

New leisure is any activity of recent invention undertaken in free time, in the sense that a number of people in a region, nation, or larger sociocultural unit have only lately taken it up as a pastime. The goal here is to examine the nature and import of new leisure activities. It is evident that they are a diverse lot found in serious, casual, and project-based forms. New leisure is symptomatic of social change as well as a vehicle for human inventiveness. It may also challenge established lei- sure. Furthermore new leisure activities appear to be created at a much greater rate today than earlier, in significant part because of conditions and processes leading to globalization. Much, possibly all, of new leisure may be seen as a product of what Godbey calls "leisure customization," a process he says is a contemporary trend where leisure is shaped to the taste of particular categories of participants. The commercial side of new leisure is considered, as is its utility for leisure education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leisure as a tool for rehabilitating people with neuro-disabilities is well established. Yet, despite significant progress in this area, problems remain in the way leisure is used for this purpose. One, as yet, unresolved problem is how to determine which leisure activity or activities will be attractive to people with particular disabilities. Another is how to counteract the persistent, dominant public view that real personal worth is measured according to the work people do rather than the leisure they pursue. The third is to inform practitioners, many of whom are unaware of recent advances in leisure theory, about these advances, which can help them solve the first problem and adapt to the second. The main body of this paper presents such a theory – the serious leisure perspective. It synthesizes three main forms of leisure, showing, at once, their distinctive features, similarities, and interrelationships. The forms are serious, casual, and project-based leisure. A review of the research on neuro-rehabilitation follows. Some implications of the Perspective for neuro-rehabilitation are then presented, including ways practitioners can introduce clients to certain types of leisure, encourage them to pursue the types chosen, and help them develop an optimal leisure lifestyle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Taking a serious leisure approach, a sample of volunteer administrators in community sport organizations were surveyed about their level of organizational commitment and their reasons for initially volunteering and continuing to volunteer. The aim was to explore the dynamics of changing levels of commitment in relation to initially volunteering and continuing to volunteer. Based on their reasons for volunteering, the respondents were categorized as either marginal or career volunteers on two separate occasions. For many respondents, their reasons for volunteering changed from when they initially volunteered to the reasons they had for continuing. Levels of organizational commitment also changed over time and declined for both marginal and career volunteers, but the results suggested that career volunteers are more highly committed than their marginal counterparts. It was concluded that, from time to time, volunteers may re‐evaluate their reasons for volunteering and that as their reasons for volunteering change, so does their level of organizational commitment. Though less committed than career volunteers, marginal volunteers who continued to volunteer held a positive attitude toward their community sport organization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]