This paper is about one of the puzzles of bodily self-consciousness: can an experience be both and at the same time an experience of one′s physicality and of one′s subjectivity? We will answer this question positively by determining a form of experience where the body′s physicality is experienced in a non-reifying manner. We will consider a form of experience of oneself as bodily which is different from both "prenoetic embodiment" and "pre-reflective bodily consciousness" and rather corresponds to a form of reflective access to subjectivity at the bodily level. In particular, we argue that subjectivity is bodily expressed, thereby allowing the experience of the body′s subjectivity directly during perceptual experiences of the body. We use an interweaving of phenomenological explorations and ethnographical methods which allows validating this proposal by considering the experience of body experts (dancers).

In this article, we deal with how sense experiences can be described and analysed in movement activities such as dance. We present a methodological framework of how multi-sited fieldwork and phenomenology can be combined to explore on-going constitutive processes of subjects' sense experiences. The challenge of how to employ phenomenology in relation to a fieldwork based on particular and subjective experiences is constructively related to phenomenological discussions of the content versus the structure of experience. Phenomenology as a philosophical enterprise is subsequently linked to concrete methodological challenges, by presenting and discussing how, in a specific study, we handle the 'in practise' sense experiences of different dancers. Being a dancer herself, the first author included her embodied competence when per-forming the fieldwork. The body thereby became both the researcher's tool and the subject to be investigated. The comparative structure implicit to performing a multi-sited fieldwork was used to build a creative tension between the researcher's and the dancers' experiences. Two descriptions of dancers' sense experiences are presented. They exemplify how the dancers turn to an overall sense of how the body feels in preference to working with specific modalities of sensing. Furthermore, the dancers' sensing of the physicality of their moving bodies appears to be shaped by their unique intention is at the same time given form through their interactions with other dancers.

Based on a single case study of a Danish elite golfer, this article focuses on describing the different ways in which the golfer experiences the physicality of her body during training. The aim of the article is to explore how phenomenological insights concerning self-consciousness can be used actively in the analyses of the golfer's descriptions to better understand how the embodied expertise is practised in her training. The descriptions of the elite golfer's daily practice were generated using a combination of participant observations and interviews. Drawing on phenomenological insights, we suggest that the golfer's experience of the physicality of her body can be considered in relation to three possible dimensions of self-consciousness: a pre-reflective subject-related dimension, a reflective object-directed dimension and a pre-reflective performative dimension. The pre-reflective performative dimension is to be understood as a non-objectifying dimension of subjects experience and, in the present case, appears central to how the golfer adjusts and reshapes her technical skills. The golfer exemplifies how a possible pre-reflective performative dimension reflects the overall 'feeling' of the moving body. From a methodological perspective, the analysis of the single case study also exemplifies how phenomenological insights might concretely influence the analysis of an actual practice and how the achieved understanding can be important to the further development of elite athletes' expert training.

For decades, qualitative researchers have used phenomenological thinking to advance reflections on particular kinds of lifeworlds. As emphasised by Allen-Collinson phenomenology offers a continuing promise of 'bringing the body back in' to theories on sport and physical activity. Turning to philosophy, traditionally, phenomenologists have not paid much attention to qualitative research. Nevertheless, phenomenology does contain a strong emphasis on using 'data' or experiences from daily life and on drawing on data from medical pathology. In other words while qualitative researchers employ phenomenology to empirically investigate the domain of sport and exercise, phenomenologists employ empirical data to substantiate their claims concerning foundational conditions of our being-in-the-world. In this article, we suggest a way to enhance the collaboration between the two fields by pointing out and giving examples of the resource of 'the factual variation.' Coined by Shaun Gallagher and developed from the Husserlian eidetic variation, the factual variation uses exceptional cases, normally from pathology, to shed new light on foundational phenomenological concepts. Drawing on our research of sports dancers and expert musicians, we indicate how qualitative researchers across the board, through the factual variation, can contribute to phenomenological thinking and thereby also strengthen their own theoretical foundation.

Running can be a painful endeavour. In this article, we focus on four elite middle-distance runners' experience of non-injuring running-related pain, with the aim of better understanding how their handling of pain is a part of their expertise as elite athletes competing on an international level. The article employs phenomenological clarifications of bodily self-consciousness and pain in the analysis of an ethnographic fieldwork carried out during four months in a Danish elite middle-distance training group. The first author's background in competitive running enabled him to draw on his own 'insider' experiences as a runner to perform participant-observations and facilitate rich descriptions in both formal and informal interviews. The analysis indicates that a large part of the runners' training and racing relied on three overarching ways of handling pain. The runners possess a familiarity in dealing with the 'acidic' pain experienced during short intervals and races, they 'shuffle' with pain in order to enhance their performance, and they persistently ascribe context-dependant meaning to the experienced pain of running. Importantly, the runners continuously draw on this nuanced familiarity of their pained runner´s bodies while practicing and competing. We suggest that these ways of handling running-related pain can be understood as integral to their expertise as elite runners.