KRISTY RAM­NAR­INE

kristy.ram­nar­ine@cnc3.co.tt

When did sports be­come a par­ty? Sports should in­spire, not ob­jec­ti­fy. That’s why Den­nise Dem­ming im­me­di­ate­ly said yes when asked to join Re­spect Her Game, an ini­tia­tive led by Dr Gabrielle Ho­sein to chal­lenge the sex­u­al­i­sa­tion of women and girls in sports.

For Dem­ming—Pres­i­dent of Sorop­ti­mist In­ter­na­tion­al Trinidad and To­ba­go, men­tal health coun­sel­lor, and avid run­ner—this was more than just an­oth­er cam­paign. It was a nec­es­sary fight to re­claim the val­ues of re­spect, dis­ci­pline, and well-be­ing in sports cul­ture.

What she sees to­day is trou­bling. The fo­cus has shift­ed. Loud, ag­gres­sive mu­sic blares at the end of races. Post-race events feel more like par­ties than cel­e­bra­tions of ath­let­ic achieve­ment.

Dem­ming be­lieves it’s time for a re­set. And she’s ready to lead the charge.

The men­tal health coun­sel­lor, who bal­ances ther­a­py ser­vices with com­mu­ni­ca­tions con­sult­ing, is a lis­ten­er of Trini­bad mu­sic—a genre of­ten crit­i­cised for its raw lyrics.

“We are us­ing that kind of mu­sic at the end of races, at the end of ac­tiv­i­ties. The lyrics of those songs are ag­gres­sive, they are not re­spect­ful some­times and that is not the kind of lyrics that you should be hear­ing af­ter you run three miles,” she says.

“In terms of the type of mu­sic I think we need to tran­si­tion from the type of mu­sic young peo­ple are cre­at­ing, young peo­ple will say that’s what we want, how­ev­er, there are some rules and we ought to be able to re­spect them and obey the rules.”

Dem­ming is of the firm be­lief that lyrics are sim­ply a re­flec­tion of the cul­ture of a coun­try.

“If my con­tem­po­raries are not lis­ten­ing to that and not check­ing in to it, it means they have ig­nored what has hap­pened to our cul­ture. Our cul­ture has changed it is no longer when I grew up re­spect was a thing. I grew up be­hind the bridge, I grew up on Quar­ry Street, and al­though it was a ghet­to com­mu­ni­ty at the time, it was one in which all the mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty cared about you.

“They en­sured that you did what you were sup­posed to do and if you went home and told your moth­er that some­body told you not to do so and so your moth­er will tell you don’t do it and she would prob­a­bly beat you for it.

“What we have now is a re­flec­tion of what our so­ci­eties have be­come and our so­ci­eties have be­come dis­re­spect­ful. For us to change that we have to change the lead­er­ship and we have to change things in our ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem.”

At the age of 35, Dem­ming start­ed run­ning af­ter re­ceiv­ing the re­sults of an an­nu­al health check-up. Her fit­ness rou­tine be­came a pas­sion as she be­gan train­ing for sev­er­al marathons both lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

“When you are in­volved in sports, cy­cling, run­ning, walk­ing, you’ve raised every­thing in your body. And when you come back at the end and there is more jam­ming mu­sic, it means you have not come down. You have not event start­ed to re­lax and that means what­ev­er your ac­tiv­i­ty was, it may not be as use­ful to your body as it should be,” she says.

“At the end of a ses­sion I have to do stretch­es, take my pres­sure down, my heart rate down.”

Re­spect Her Game is about trans­form­ing the present to some­thing pro­duc­tive, Dem­ming said.

“When I first start­ed run­ning there were no par­ties be­fore and af­ter a race,” she re­calls.

“Cor­po­rate has lost the val­ues around the sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties. I think that cor­po­rate now is first in­ter­est­ed in cov­er­ing their costs. When you look at the races and you have 3,000 peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ing pay­ing $250, cor­po­rate isn’t putting mon­ey in­to that, they are break­ing even.

“And at the end of it peo­ple are go­ing home with all kinds of car­bo­hy­drates and food that will not help their well-be­ing, you’ve lost your val­ue sys­tem and you are do­ing this sim­ply for your brand­ing.”

Sport ac­tiv­i­ties should ben­e­fit the par­tic­i­pants and not be about brand­ing and par­ty­ing, Dem­ming be­lieves.

“I think we have to trans­form what we are do­ing,” she adds.

“Cor­po­rate needs to re­think and start to re­al­ly in­vest in im­prov­ing our coun­try. The health of our peo­ple is im­por­tant.”

Dem­ming high­light­ed that sports should not be a par­ty at the start, a par­ty through­out and a par­ty at the end.