Bodily knowledge beyond motor skills and physical fitness: a phenomenological description of knowledge formation in physical training

Abstract

Bodily knowledge has attracted significant attention within the humanities and other related fields over the last two decades. Although theoretical discussion on bodily knowledge in the context of physical education has been active over the past 10 years, these discussions lack clear conceptual analyses of bodily knowledge. Using a phenomenological approach, the purpose of this paper is to clarify the notion of bodily knowledge, furthering epistemological discussions of the topic within reflective, embodied practices. Instead of seeing bodily knowledge inherently connected to the acquisition of motor skills or improving physical fitness, we will discuss physical training as a reflective, embodied process that can turn sensuous information about the moving body into knowledge. Using outdoor running as an example, we describe the process of forming bodily knowledge, which includes: (1) the exploring and identifying of movement qualities, (2) developing capabilities of registering changes in the body and (3) directing and modifying one's own training processes based on bodily findings. Contextualizing this epistemological discussion with adults' recreational physical activity, this paper argues that bodily knowledge can cultivate individuals to trust their own body awareness and embodied responses to take more responsibility for their own physical exercise. When biomedical knowledge of the body in sport sciences tends to shrink the body to physiological attributes, such as muscle mass and fat percentage, our analysis stresses the agency of the lived body as a source of knowledge in physical activity.

Running: A way to increase body awareness in secondary school physical education

“…Perspektivet baseras på Bourdieus (2005) tankar, där bland annat en persons habitus utgör grunden för personens uppfattningar, tankar, handlingar i olika sociala sammanhang (Crossley, 2001). Slutligen, den definition som är utgångspunkt i denna avhandling, är rörelseförmåga definierad som en subjektivt förkroppsligad process av kroppen i rörelse baserad på sensoriskt erfarande och ökad kroppsmedvetenhet (Parviainen & Aromaa, 2017). Subjektiva upplevelse av kroppen i rörelse anses ur detta perspektiv bidra till meningsskapande och förståelse för hur kroppen kan användas i rörelse.…”

“…Lärande som förståelse beskrivs snarare som ett tillstånd eleven befinner sig i, än något den gör (ibid.). Den levda kroppen blir på så sätt en källa till information och bärare av mening (Parviainen & Aromaa, 2017). Med hjälp av feedback, som loopar mellan kropp/subjekt och världen (Standal & Moe, 2011), kan individen ta in upplevd rörelse som en helhet för att sedan kunna välja det för stunden mest lämpliga sättet att utföra rörelsen på.…”

Embodying Industrial Knowledge: An Epistemological Approach to the Formation of Body Knowledge in the Fitness Industry

“…Forming bodily knowledge is neither linked to improving one's own movement skills, physical fitness, or aesthetic nor to legitimizing physical activity in the name of healthy living (Parviainen & Aromaa, 2017). Instead, bodily knowledge encourages individuals to trust their own body awareness and learn to understand the ambiguous feelings, intuitions, and sensations emerging from the body during physical exercise.…”

A Daily Diary of the Quantified Self – The Influence of Fitness App Usage on Psychological Well-Being, Body Listening and Body Trusting

“…After a three months training program that targeted interoceptive awareness via meditation practice, measures of attention regulation, emotional awareness, self-regulation, body listening, and trusting increased compared to a re-test control group 21 In the field of sport and exercise science, higher levels of body awareness were found in athletes compared to non-athletes 22 and in advanced yoga and Pilates practitioners compared to beginners 23 . Body awareness was also identified as a training component that can reduce risk factors of physical injury in sports 24 Body knowledge can lead to higher body trust and modify the exercise process based on body sensations 25 or to more physical activity in children 26 . In a relaxation intervention that targeted body awareness in taekwondo athletes, positive effects on the athletes' performance were found 27 .…”