Exploring the Power of Outdoor Education with Aristea Kyriakou, Ep.20

In our latest episode of the Healthy Seas Podcast, we explored an innovative approach to education that’s not just about learning—it’s about living and interacting with the world around us. Our guest, Dr. Aristea Kyriakou, founder of the European Outdoor Education Hub, shares fascinating insights on how outdoor education can transform not only how students learn but also how they connect with their environment.

Outdoor education is more than just taking lessons outside. It’s a comprehensive methodology and philosophy that places students in natural settings, engaging them directly with their environment. Unlike traditional classroom-based instruction, which often relies on theoretical learning, outdoor education emphasizes experiential learning. This approach allows students to interact with their surroundings, engage multiple senses, and gain practical understanding through hands-on activities.

Aristea’s work with Healthy Seas in our Operation Ghost Farms exemplifies this methodology. By combining cleanups of abandoned fish farms with educational activities for kids, the program not only addresses immediate environmental issues but also fosters a deep, personal connection between students and their natural surroundings.

Listen to the full episode to learn how outdoor education can revolutionize learning and inspire future environmental stewards.

If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to subscribe, rate and review it! This helps to boost its visibility.

Healthy Seas is a marine conservation organization whose mission is to tackle the ghost fishing phenomenon and turn this waste into an opportunity for a more circular economy. They do this through clean-ups, prevention, education, and working with partners who recycle and repurpose this material. The podcast is hosted by Crystal DiMiceli.

Transcript

Crystal: [00:00:00] Today I'm here with Aristeia Kiriakou, the founder of the European Outdoor Education Hub. She recently teamed up with Healthy Seas as a part of Operation Ghost Farms, Reclaiming Waters. In addition to the cleanups of abandoned fish farms in Western Greece, this campaign is also featuring educational activities, both for university students and kids. Aristeia was running the one for the kids. Hi, Aristeia. Thank you so much for joining me today. 

Aristea: Hello, Crystal. Thank you very much for having me here. It's a pleasure 

Crystal: education is near and dear to my heart, so I can't wait to dive into learning more about you and what you do with European Outdoor Education Hub. To begin, I [00:00:45] What are the principles and or methodology of outdoor education versus traditional education?

Aristea: That's a great question to start with, Crystal, as outdoor education can be indeed a methodology, but also it can go as far as to be a philosophy. So basically, outdoor education is defined as an approach to learning that occurs in natural settings often, for sure outside the classroom to say at least, focusing on direct engagement with the environment.

It basically emphasizes experiential learning where students gain knowledge through hands on activities, ecological literacy, and real world experiences. This method This method method Contrasts with traditional education, which typically involves classroom based instruction, structured lessons, and theoretical learning.

Outdoor education challenges students to think critically and creatively by immersing them in dynamic, real world situations. It complements and enhances traditional education by reinforcing theoretical concepts through practical application, thereby fostering a deeper understanding and appreciation for the subject matter, whatever these may be, either languages, maths, physics, chemistry, and so on and so forth.

 Outdoor education is an alternative method of teaching and learning, uh, where experiential learning, that means hands on activities, are in the center of our goals.

Uh, that means that students are not anymore in In the inside environment of the classroom, which is structured and limited by the four walls, but by going outside a whole real world spectrum starts where the environment can be in the center, really in a very active sense of what it can teach us. What can we do outside?

What is the weather like today? What we can learn from something that happens spontaneously. So auto education works as a means for facilitating more re relevant, real world, problem based and problem oriented, um, things to learn. Our, our learning becomes meaningful and impactful. 

Crystal: Excellent. I'm so glad I asked you to do that.

That felt more natural. And I lost my train of thought. that sounds like so much fun. And I really want to go into more of. Uh, some examples of these hands on experiential activities. But before we even go there, can you share a little bit about your personal journey and how you became passionate about outdoor education?

Aristea: Of course. So Crystal, I was born and raised in a rural area in Greece, in a small village, in a family of teachers. Uh, by principle, my life is surrounded by education. Education being the main topic, uh, my brother and sister are also now teachers themselves. So education for us goes much beyond, uh, activity.

It is a topic that regards society, that we try to find meaning in it, and through which we believe that we can change lives. Uh, so, um, by saying this, I mean to make an introduction about how I started learning by doing myself, uh, in the village as such, and how I started observing the natural environment and how that can help us in the process of, uh, our personal learning and moving around, experiment with things and materials.

Later on, I moved to the city as a professional basketball player, so this comparison between the rural and urban environment was for me life changing. I started noticing things, differences, uh, how, how people move around in big cities and how I kept learning through my movement as a person. My passage from the basketball career taught me how I can learn very effectively by at the same time keep moving, keeping a physical health, um, look at my habits, uh, my healthy day to day routine and that set the grounds for later on when I entered the school of education to become a future teacher.

 I saw that We were still discussing traditional methods, uh, whereas I had throughout my life learned how to experientially learn and move around and touch things and, and learn by doing really. That kept me focused on what can I do to develop that and Adopt it as a practice for me and my students.

that is when I found this, uh, very innovative master's program in Sweden. the master's was called Outdoor Environmental Education and Outdoor Life. Where I immediately signed up for, and the day after I graduated from my bachelor's with an excellent grade, I moved straight to Sweden to study and get this life changing experience of what it means to be a teacher such as that.

Back then this was the only program that addressed to teachers, uh, so that was only the beginning for me. This masters and this Swedish experience as a country that really is well known for its education and its results, uh, worldwide. the Scandinavian systems so called. Then I moved to Scotland where I did my second masters in outdoor education and I pursued my PhD in the same topic.

With the generous support of the well known on NASA's foundation as a scholar. 

Crystal: Very nice. 

Aristea: Thank you, Crystal. That means that I continued researching, uh, analyzing, working with schools and school communities around Scotland, after Sweden, and then that created, um, a solid background for me to keep Uh, my further research in Switzerland with a postdoc and right now I am a postdoc affiliate at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece for my other postdoctoral degree.

Okay. 

Crystal: Wow. That is impressive. I, [00:01:30] you know, you make me think about how We all probably grew up, the older generations probably grew up on outdoor education because I remember before we all had screens in front of us, like telephones and iPads and video games. On the weekends, our parents would be like, just go outside, just get outside.

Do something, you know, like we would go off and just explore the neighborhood and, you know, ride our bikes and go to the creek or, just play outside. And that was just the way it was. And now I feel like we've gotten so disconnected from that to the point where, yeah, now, now we have to, to have an [00:02:15] outdoor education.

element to our teaching. That's so important and we don't want to lose that. We don't want our kids to lose that. So  I mean, and you are like an absolute expert, obviously, with all the schooling that you've gotten. what are some key differences in how a student would learn a subject outdoors versus indoors?

Like how can they compliment one another potentially? 

Aristea: One of the most basic differences, Crystal, is that learning outdoors engages multiple senses. That's what we want to make our learning more impactful. It means not only to keep reading things out loud, but really engage with all our senses, to smell something, to feel something, to touch, uh, to hear.

We are, as you said before, so [00:03:00] disconnected from this outdoors world, uh, but that's the, the real proof of how much we need it by seeing how memorable our experiences become when we do get such experiences. That's what we try to take advantage of in outdoor education of how we can best learn so we create a design of the activities it's not play anymore if you wish it's play with purpose where we have some curricular goals to achieve so when we go outside it doesn't mean that Our lesson stops or [00:03:45] pauses, the opposite is that is only the beginning of activities that maximize our learning potential.

This way we have found of the multiple benefits this method has to our students and to the teachers if we can say, because it helps, it enhances even the relationships between them. That is how the literature works. should work in, in general by enhancing relationships, by developing emotions, by acknowledging what is there and how we can do things better for a [00:04:30] community.

Crystal: so if a teacher has a certain curriculum that they need to teach, they could utilize outdoor education to enhance what they already have to teach or is this something separate that they're Adding on to their curriculum. 

Aristea: That's an excellent question. We actually say that They don't need to change anything at all.

We are entirely based on their curriculum in order to Redesign an activity that achieves the same goals but in a different way. So, say for example that you want to talk about climate change in the classroom. Uh, that can [00:05:15] actually appear to be pretty harmful because, uh, that can increase the stress levels to students.

But nonetheless, it's a matter that we need to address in modern schools and in modern education. So how can we do that? We take the class outside and we see, uh, the temperatures we see when, uh, at which point ice melts. We, uh, Examine the ecosystems of the local areas. We see how solar energy, uh, works, how we can even create alternatives of giving power, uh, and energy to our, uh, gadgets.

So by doing all this we create , a profound [00:06:00] understanding of how climate works. So things come as a step by step understanding based on what we have close to us first, more accessible, and then the learner realizes things in a way that The students can act on them, they feel empowered because they have understand why, how, when something happens.

So then it becomes a global thing that students and teachers can act. It's very important to feel that we are able to find solutions. It's a very crucial aspect of [00:06:45] what outdoor education tries to achieve. 

Crystal: is the concept of the third teacher? that you talk about. 

Aristea: The third teacher is , uh, a very fun concept to use because it illustrates right away the importance of the environment in this methodology.

So in outer education, we say that the environment is a third teacher because we all assume There is one teacher that we all know, the teacher of the class, then there is a second teacher that is also evident by how well students teach to each other things. So that's the second teacher, and then the third teacher, which is a bit more hidden, [00:07:30] is our surroundings, it's the trees, it's our sea, our oceans, is active agents of teaching us things, but when we enforce that happen, uh, uh, our grounds, our sun, whatever can be around us that has a story from which we can learn things or by observing it.

And 

Crystal: how does this help in creating a better connection with nature and maybe a better generation for the problems that we will be facing for the oceans and the environment? 

Aristea: And that's a great question because it actually comes from the steps we talked before that it goes step by step to an actionable [00:08:15] plan by understanding how things work.

 For example you don't need to say to a class of students pick up your trash or your litter when that is an environment they already use that they perceive as their home. I would not say their home, but their classroom, their everyday, their space. Their space. That's right. So, by connecting them organically, eh, the connection is there.

That's why we talk about cultivating a culture of school communities that are connected. Uh, enabled to take action on vital environmental and [00:09:00] ocean problems. 

Crystal: Let's now talk more specifically about the work that you were doing with Healthy Seas. Tell me about the program that you ran with them.

Aristea: That was a very exciting and successful program, I may say. Uh, it involved a number of about a hundred students, aged 10 to 12 years old, and their teachers, uh, of two Greek public schools in the areas of The activities included, uh, as we said before, the regular lessons of the day, such as language, maths, physics, chemistry, but our [00:09:45] theme was Russians, and that's where we eventually led the class to go.

So we started from there. classroom as the students would always do their lessons, then shifted to their school grounds where we started with our first, uh, outdoor activities and gradually we went to the local seashore where the students had the chance to go deeper with our lessons of the day. Uh, that, uh, came out to be a very fun and engaging, uh, outdoor education program as those classes of the hundred students had not done something similar [00:10:30] before.

And that showed in, uh, Particular from the teachers feedback and the students feedback, the local community even, as people from around the areas would come to ask us what is exactly what we are doing. 

Crystal: It's so surprising that this school is located so close to the shore and they never bring their students out there to experience it and, and learn from it.

So that, that's quite a surprise to me. How, how old were they, more or less? 

Aristea: They were around 11, and 12 years old. Uh, so primary 4th, 5th, and 6th. And you're so right to say that it's surprising what we [00:11:15] have around us, but we don't know. Uh, keep an eye on those elements until something like this perspective of this methodology, for example, can shift our attention to.

It happens with everything around us, really. Even in our school grounds, we have treasures, but we don't see things around us. Unless something or somebody draws our attention to it, that's the magic moments that we want to experience with other human beings, I would say, with everything around us. 

Crystal: Mm hmm.

That's a good point. So, tell me about these activities that you design, like you said they were working on their usual lessons, [00:12:00] like language and whatnot, but what were some of the activities you did that differentiated from what they would normally do in a regular school day?

Mm 

Aristea: So all of our activities were experiential, that means that the kids were in teams, in smaller teams, uh, inside the biggest group of their classroom, but they didn't compete with each other, they worked with each other. Uh, so that was the context of a very healthy Working together, context of the day, where the teams had to come up with solutions, try to find the answers themselves, rather than us announcing an answer [00:12:45] or the result, the knowledge came from them.

Uh, it may be surprising that we could start even the day by asking, what do you know of the microplastic, for example, and where do you think this can be found? And the kids would assume that as the micro, especially in Greek, it means small, that the microplastic could be a small plastic bottle. of water.

At the end of the day, they could see how small the microplastic really is by having their magnifying lenses and looking for those in the sand, compare them, and examine if [00:13:30] they can dissolve or not as comparison to other natural biodegradable materials. So the whole day was full of Aha moments and understanding that this can really be found in our local Seashore where we swim every day where we go with our parents and let's talk to our parents about that as well So that is the empowerment of the students we talked about before.

They are empowered, they are active, uh, agents of giving this knowledge then later to their parents, their grandparents, the local community.

Crystal: and how did the kids react? Did you have any [00:14:15] interesting feedback from them or the teachers? Oh, they were 

Aristea: so enthusiastic. It's unreal. Uh, they perceived the, the whole day as a day full of activities and fun. And, um, that is the surprising part that never ceases to surprise me, is how students perceive the outdoor education usually as that we don't.

Do our lesson, whereas in reality, they learn hundred times more things, they go much beyond their cognitive, uh, goals that we set for the day by also asking further things. Um, so their enthusiasm [00:15:00] was, um. It's amazing to witness and their teachers actually mentioned that they were surprised by how the students didn't even ask for a break.

And they usually do. They can't wait normally for their break time, but they wouldn't even stop to have a tiny break for drinking some water. We would have to say, now let's pause for a moment, drink some water. Oh, 

Crystal: that's fantastic. Yeah. And yet, so they still received the same. Information, essentially, that they would have traditionally, but they were so much more [00:15:45] engaged and excited about it.

That's encouraging to hear. I love it. That's right. 

Aristea: In fact, we went much beyond the curricular goals we had set for the day. And be, yeah, that's, that's right. And The fact that we achieved them building better bonds with their classmates, with their teachers, with their environment, that was, uh, much beyond any measure we could do to prove the benefits of this program.

Crystal: if it's so beneficial, what are the obstacles to implementing outdoor education more widely? 

Aristea: Mm hmm. Now, that is one of the questions that kept me [00:16:30] academically active over the years, I would say. I keep researching that, and I try to put on the table all the answers.

All the potential obstacles that teachers across countries, uh, report they have, because if we know what these are, then that means we can propose things that can tackle these obstacles so that outdoor education becomes the everyday life for all. for many more schools. Uh, Christa, from what I've researched, uh, in more than three countries, I would say at this point, the obstacles are common.

They are usually the lack of time, uh, for preparation  uh, the teacher's [00:17:15] side. They are the lack of resources, so that means teachers don't have time. any manuals, any books, any trainings, any further seminars on what outdoor education is, how they can be in this methodology, how can they adopt it, and how they can really work with it.

Uh, so this lack of resources is a very basic obstacle. And of course, another obstacle is how we see the curriculum as quite rigid. Although in our organization, as [00:18:00] we explained earlier, we work with it by redesigning the activities. So we don't manipulate curricular goals. We only enhance it, uh, but those are some of the most, uh, significant obstacles for the teachers that, if we may say very rightly so, the Teachers as professionals go through the universities and the schools of education that by principle don't necessarily have outdoor education as a subject Teachers, uh, you asked about my personal journey before I explained how I created this journey, uh, by pure luck that I had the chance to go through all these different academias, uh, the different universities across, uh, four countries, Greece, Sweden. Scotland and Switzerland to create this path in this career.

So as an organization, we have been established to support teachers doing that themselves. We are here to support school communities, uh, actively, practically, by not only creating the resources that they lack, but also to provide the training they need. We hope that this can be, uh, uh, something that we can, uh, scale up for the next year so that we work with more, uh, schools around Europe to facilitate this process.

We really want to see schools thriving in outdoor education. 

Crystal: Yeah. [00:18:45] It sounds like it's just such a fun way to learn. And I mean, the school that you were working with was near the coast, but what about an urban school? Can an urban school also do outdoor education? 

Aristea: Absolutely, absolutely, that is actually motto I love saying that every school can.

Every school can. That is that a school, um, has everything it needs for the first steps in outdoor education by start noticing its outdoor environment. that is their school grounds. If we may say another education program would even involve [00:19:30] the redesign of these school grounds with participatory, uh, methods to involve, the students, the parents, the teachers, the head teachers, the local community, the stakeholders, to redesign their environment in a way that they can later on use as their day to day environment.

That is some of the projects that we are very interested in. In fact, and they are mostly in urban places where they have to take the asphalt away, where they have to reimagine their school grounds with more natural material, with more spaces that they can use for their [00:20:15] teaching and learning day to day.

Crystal: That's wonderful. You're reminding me now of, um, the, Um, as a side note, I, so I do another show called forces for nature and I interviewed a woman who does, um, school gardens. So they bring curriculum to schools and have kids create gardens and yeah, it's the same concept. They're using their own school grounds and bringing the kids outside and teaching them all of these different lessons, you know, not just growing food.

There's so many lessons built into it. Absolutely. That you wouldn't even think of. So it's very surprising 

Aristea: and holistic. That's right, that's right. And if we may say, [00:21:00] if you do the gardening for the sake of gardening, that's wonderful. You want to decorate a few flowers around the school, and that's beautiful and wonderful as it is.

But to take it to the next level and make it into an outdoor education class, we need a few things. Elements to be added on it. We need a structure behind, uh, the curricular goals and what we achieve, what we want to achieve, measuring the results of what students learn from this activity and that activity.

the repetition that this needs to become, uh, not only once and it's done, but a few times per month, if not [00:21:45] per week, I would say, throughout the school year to experience also all the types of weather, the seasons, how things change by the change of the seasons. So, uh, we can quickly see how How deep we can go with a structured outdoor education lesson.

Crystal: I also heard that you have an assistant sometimes with you during your activities, a furry one. How, tell me a little bit about that. 

Aristea: It is very true, and credits here go to our friendly dog named Nesson. He's actually right here now, listening attentively to this podcast. Oh, Nesson is [00:22:30] a specially trained dog, uh, uh, who was found abandoned, in fact, in a forest in Greece.

As a one kilo puppy, but ever since then he has become my outdoor education partner, accompanying me everywhere I go. And we run a few of those programs together, uh, not as pet therapy, uh, as I have heard, that is a usual case, but.

As an active part of our class, where he also needs to look for clues around our school grounds, especially with whatever [00:23:15] regards our nose, he says, I'm particularly loved by the children, and I think that to the students eyes, Nessun, my dog, represents the entire nature. The students can see, and I keep learning, how much nature is capable of doing.

These skills, these characteristics that animals have, they are spectacular. Their special capabilities keep showing in practice and keep amazing us how well they can smell, [00:24:00] how fast they can react. So by bringing Esen with me, uh, he's a constant lesson for everyone. And I particularly engaged him in activities that require putting our nose, uh, to further action, uh, reflexes and movement in the school grounds.

He's an expert and I'm very grateful that I had the chance to find him. 

Crystal:  That's so nice. That's so nice to hear. You said he was specially trained. How, how is he specially trained? 

Aristea: I work with him every day to have his, uh, result of keeping him calm after some proper dose of movement and, uh, being obedient, being friendly to students and, um, behaving the way that.

We expect dogs nowadays to behave. Um, so it's not a random dog that I don't pay attention to and keep bringing with me. Uh, he has been through, through thorough practice with dog trainers, through thoroughly. Crystal, am I correct? Wait, 

Crystal: I'm sorry. I totally interrupted you. He's been, he's been trained thoroughly or he's, what were you trying to say?

Sorry. 

Aristea: He has been trained thoroughly with professional dog trainers, uh, in these four years of his life so far to be able to come safely with With a few certifications that need to be there for us to, uh, keep our lessons interesting and fun and safe with him. 

Crystal: That's so fun. In your opinion, if outdoor education was implemented as an official method in the world for teaching, how would you like to imagine this could change the world? 

Aristea: That's a fascinating conversation from the very first moment of talking about outdoor education worldwide. I would first of all think that language itself shows how different countries perceive outdoor education by itself.

definition. Uh, Uh, we will notice that different languages show a lot of its meaning in their culture. Um, for example, in Swedish it would be Utomhuspedagodik. Uh, in English, of course, outdoor education, but in Greek it would be Utomhuspedagodik. which would literally mean under the open sky. So, we want to invite more languages be conceptualizing the, uh, the method of outdoor education in their own unique ways, in a way that they can adopt it, uh, to their cultural characteristics to their everyday lives, to their climate.

As an overall sense, , I would imagine, uh, this method enabling the schools to be a living organism for every society in the world, for every, uh, local community. So that means that they would be moving around and acting as With the students being citizens of today.

Crystal: How do you measure the impact of your programs on participants development and learning?

Aristea:  We measure the impact of our programs by scientifically rigor methods and that [00:24:45] is informed by our academic background. That means through questionnaires, through extensive feedback we ask from all the participants, with scales that we structure. We always want to back each and every program we execute by Academic research, and that is because we intend to fill in gaps that we have noticed in the realm of education and specifically in our effort to make outdoor education accessible and show in general to the wider audience what we can achieve through this.

So we try to be very [00:25:30] careful with our data collection, data analysis, and we. partner with universities. I still have an active affiliation with the University of Thessaloniki and the School of Education as postdoctoral researcher there, so we always try to have this dimension in each one of our programs.

Now,

Crystal: until the world can get outdoor education into all of its schools, how can educators or professionals incorporate elements of outdoor education into their work?

Aristea: Educators can really do a lot. And we [00:26:15] are here to. Support them doing the first few steps in fact, because they have all the imagination, creativity, and knowledge they need to take things further. Uh, one simple thing they can do to start. is to start noticing things they have in their own school grounds.

Uh, of course, as we talk about outdoor education as a methodology, things are not as simple as to say that Teachers can start taking their students outside and, um, start imagining things. We talked about preparation, a design of the activities, a [00:27:00] plan, curricular goals, um, and a longer term plan as well.

 every educator can be potentially an outdoor educator. It's a matter of

putting some attention to it or, um, I would say it's more about a higher level of Giving them the opportunity to participate in such teacher's training so that they feel enabled and empowered to start taking action in a way that they can have also fun out of making it. It shouldn't be an extra responsibility.

For the educators, it should be a joy, it should be [00:27:45] something that makes them feel more free and more engaged, in better connection with their students, and that they can see that their lessons become more impactful, more engaging, really, yeah, that's it.

Crystal: You're right. Teachers are so busy right now that it's overwhelming, I'm sure, for them to think about adding one more thing to do, but. I mean, I would recommend, just choosing one lesson and seeing how you can change it to, to somehow incorporate these outdoor education elements. 

Um, does the European Outdoor Education Hub have curriculum or lesson plans online available for teachers to look at and [00:28:30] download? 

Aristea: At this moment, Crystal, we, uh, take things from the start of a program. So to speak, we redesigned the program of a school and we provide teachers training alongside, uh, And our final aim, of course, is to empower the school communities we work with to reach this level.

But I can say for sure it's something that we are working on for the near future. Uh, and you're very right to say that teachers are so overwhelmed at the moment. Let's not forget that in our era we talk about the so called teacher's crisis. That is, that teachers don't have time. any [00:29:15] motivation today for being teachers, uh, society doesn't attribute, uh, what they are doing as a social service, if we may say, and that discourages teachers and they lose motivation, uh, to keep doing things.

So, we need first of all to acknowledge that teachers are professionals. They deserve further professional trainings. They deserve to be happy in their professions. If we want the students that work with them also to be happy, to be better students, to, to get better at school, to want to go at school. Um, so we work hard on creating these programs [00:30:00] and, uh, yes, we will be happy to work with more and more teachers in the years to come.

Crystal: And you have some future work with Healthy Seas planned, right? 

Aristea: All the news are traveling faster than what I can 

 When, when partnerships go as well as to say that, uh, our programs, uh, have a real impact, there is absolutely nothing that could stop us with health issues from pursuing things further and having bigger impacts in more [00:30:45] schools and in education. 

Crystal: Excellent. And. And. From the video that Healthy Seas has.

It seems like the kids had a great time. And from everything you've told me, outdoor education just sounds like such a fun way to learn. And I hope to see it incorporated in, in more schools and lessons as time goes on. Thank you for, for joining me today. I'm, I'm so excited to learn more about what you do.

Aristea: Thank you very much, Christel. And A big thanks to health disease for the excellent partnership with a fun way to make things, uh, with trust and real [00:31:30] impact. Uh, we hope to keeping partners for a long time in the future. And thank you, Crystal, for all your interest and your excellent questions 

Crystal: thank you. . 

Aristea: As a child who grew up in a village, in, surrounded by nature, I always had this interest in experimenting with things, touching things, um, putting my hands on everything I would have in my playground. Uh, the movement for me has always been there as a teenager, I became a professional basketball player that led me to extensive practice day to day with a team of people in order to, yeah, just, uh, that, that was a professional sport life I had.

Or no, crystal.