| This was a study using grounded theory as the research methodology. The question under analysis was what attracts people to participate in movement activities, including sport and dance, and what sustains their continued participation. The data were collected from personal interviews and questionnaires involving slightly over one hundred people. Most of the respondents were college students. The data showed that one of the primary attractors to movement and a fundamental reason for continuation (adherence) in movement was movement joy, the joy a person experiences through participation in movement.;Sustaining emerged as the core variable of the theory. People who participated in movement were endlessly engaging in the waxing and waning dynamics of activity. The frequency and intensity of participation was always changing because of a seemingly endless variety of factors that influenced it.;Three stages in the life cycle of movement emerged. The first was imagining, the second was participating, and the third was realizing. This study revealed five categories that affected all three stages---experiencing movement joy, becoming physically fit, acquiring physical skills, acquiring physical abilities, and socializing.;The second stage, participating, ranged from not participating on the low end to extreme participating on the high end, with infrequent and frequent participating in the middle of the range. The third stage, realizing, also had a range from not realizing to extreme realizing, as in flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975). Sustaining was at the core of all three stages.;Just as in participating, realizing had an everchanging range from not realizing joy, fitness, skills, abilities, and socializing to extreme realizing. People continuously attempted not only to sustain their level of participating, but in many cases to increase it. Not realizing was influenced by time, injury and illness, boredom, and disillusionment. The participants who fell victim to injury and illness, boredom, or disillusionment decreased their participation or completely stopped, either temporarily or permanently.;When a participant was at the optimum level, he/she was at the highest range of realizing, extreme realizing. Csikszentmihalyi (1975) stated that flow was the optimum experience of any endeavor. Elite athletes strived to get into the elusive flow state because it was here that they experienced the most success and, more importantly, the most joy. |
