Dispatch #2: Whether we like it or not, the world keeps spinning.

Woah! Here’s another one. I know…I’m surprised too.

Since your still reading, why don’t you forward it to an unsuspecting friend that you think might enjoy it or buy me a coffee ‘cause I do this for free and caffeine is my only savior.

You could also buy some merch. If that’s your thing.

You could also unsubscribe. I won’t be mad.

Hey, y'all! Well, here we are again. I mused in my last newsletter about how time slips away—increasingly so during the pandemic—and that I was working to find a workable schedule in the ongoing chaos.

I’m happy to report that I did not succeed.

This newsletter, ultimately, was meant to come out monthly but here we are approximately 5 months since the last one…so maybe I should aim for a quarterly newsletter instead.

As many of you may have experienced, the daily navigation of our new reality in the midst of COVID has continued to be difficult. Personally, I’ve found myself uncomfortable reengaging—despite being fully vaccinated—with many activities that used to be so natural. As the summer winds down, I am becoming increasingly uneasy about what the fall semester will bring as I’ll be teaching in person for the first time in over 18 months, and report after report of the continued spread of the delta variant only increased that anxiety.

Instead of focusing on that though, I’d like to highlight some of the things that I was actually able to accomplish over the past several months. Firstly, I want to take a moment to acknowledge something that might not be evident, and that is this newsletter. You may have noticed immediately that this email looks different than my first, and that’s because it is! My first newsletter was sent using Substack; though shortly after, I learned of the really crappy things Substack was doing, particularly around supporting trans writers and providing a platform for those spreading hate. Here’s just a snippit, if you want to delve down a very dark rabbit hole:

So after getting started on a newsletter, I had to start all over again. Thankfully, I stumbled upon Revue and it seemed to fit all that I needed and even had some cool features others didn’t. Hopefully, it will help me stay on target and make it easier to share things with you all.

Since last March, I’ve been busy with a couple of projects and have continued to work to spread more awareness to my work. This has included a few guest podcast visits and remote presentations.

If you’d like to listen to those podcasts, you can find them below:

I also gave several presentations at national and international conferences. You can find recordings of those lectures on my portfolio or on my YouTube channel. You can click the link below to subscribe so that you won’t miss any newly added content.

I also had a paper be officially published in Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport. If you hurry, you might still be able to snag a free e-copy (or you could just find it on my portfolio, shhh).

I’m excited to share, in the coming weeks, some of my recent work. In an upcoming article in the Journal of Sport Media, colleagues and I looked at disability and gender disparities in the coverage of the 2020 Paralympic winter games. We are hoping to repeat a similar analysis comparing this year’s Olympic and Paralympic summer games.

I also have an upcoming book chapter that focuses on the assessment practices with autistic youth coming out in an ebook, Exercise: Physical, Physiological and Psychological Benefits, published by Nova Science Publishers. This was an international collaboration with colleagues in Portugal and hopefully will help center some of our misconceptions when assessing this population.

Additionally, my co-edited book, Not Playing Around: Intersectional Identities, Media Representation, and the Power of Sport, is progressing nicely and should be out early 2022.

I’m most excited to share Disability, Movement, Etcetera, which premiered today (Monday, Aug 9)! If you missed it, you can rewatch my short introduction below. I’ll also be releasing these as podcasts after each show…I just have to spice them up a bit.

In the introductory episode, I mentioned two of my upcoming guests that I’m super excited to have on the show. I’m hoping that this will help create a space and community for everyone to help find solutions to make of the accessibility issues.

You can find the future events at the link below—you can even register, so that you don’t miss future streams!

I hope you sign up and follow along!

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve really been trying to take time and refocus myself mentally for the upcoming semester. That’s meant taking a break from writing and the “typical” work of a scholar. I’ve been reading more broadly and widely to find some influence on the topics that I’ve been thinking about.

This piece by Dr. Kendi highlights the difficulty around the discussion of race in the classroom and provides a solid explanation of just what this “debate” is about. Additionally, he highlights a very clear definition of CRT by Prof. Crenshaw that all should know; CRT is “a way of looking at law’s role platforming, facilitating, producing, and even insulating racial inequality in our country.”

I found this article to be intriguing in that it highlights many of what most of us kinesiologists know about movement and its’ impacts. The author mentions that, “the current findings indicate that a more active lifestyle in older adults may confer cognitive benefits in part through a neurobiological pathway involving brain tissue microstructure that can be quantified and visualized using MRI.” While I find this to be a great insight, I recognize the access issues many, particularly, older adults have to physical activity. This piece got me wondering if those doing this basic science examined the broader lifestyles of individuals. For instance, if older adults have access to physical activity—they live in an accessible community, they likely have some means or independence, and they’ve had previous success when young—I wonder how this influences their outcomes as well. Not to suggest that physical activity isn’t important but is just one part of daily life and can be an indicator of privilege.

This piece really tied things together for me in terms of thinking of access to physical activity. Though this article focused on the impacts of racism, we can see similarities with disabled populations. Though we have legislation meant to remove barriers, 31 years later and we are still fighting the same battles. I’m excited to delve further into this area in the coming weeks, particularly with my upcoming livestream with Syren Nagakyrie who started Disabled Hikers. You can register for the show at my event page or subscribe to my youtube channel, so you don’t miss it.

That’s all I have for now. Thanks for reading!

If you’d like to keep up with even more of what I’m doing, you can find me on Twitter, @ThatHippieProf, or find my Medium page.