Q: What does "athletic advances" mean? In the video Learned Helplessness, there is a word "athletic advance" that I don't understand much:

We have all been stuck on certain topics in school
given up on ambitious conquests to learn in a language, and experience failed attempts at athletic advances and our respective sports before

Cambridge dictionary defines "advance" (noun) as "the forward movement of something, or an improvement or development in something". I understand that an "athletic advance" is simply a move in a sport? Like kicking is an athletic advance in football, and punching is an athletic advance in martial arts? If the move doesn't move forward, like in dancing you need to step back sometimes, then would it be an advance?

A: An advance is a name for progress from one level to another. For example, if all you can do is swim the breast stroke, then you learn the crawl, that is an advance. If all you know is present simple in English, then you learn the present continuous, that is also an advance or progress in your knowledge or physical ability.
When you advance in something, you make progress, just like the Cambridge definition states.
It can be confusing when the advances in question refers to making physical progress in a sport.
Individuals or institutions can make advances in any field of human endeavor. Advances in medicine, advances in technology. His advances in English. etc.
Cambridge dictionary defines "advance" (noun) as "the forward movement of something, or an improvement or development in something"
