‘Doing’ competitive swimming: Exploring the skilled practices of the competitive swimming lifeworld

Abstract

Despite a developing literature on various facets of sporting embodiment, there is currently a research lacuna with regard to in-depth analyses of actually ‘doing’ sporting activities within specific physical cultures. In this article, we address that gap by drawing on a developing theoretical literature in sociological phenomenology to investigate a particular physical–cultural domain. Here, we present and analyse data from an ethnographic study of competitive swimmers undertaken in the UK. Responding to calls to explore the domain of ‘body pedagogics’, we investigate the embodied work involved in the skilled practice of ‘doing’ and learning how to ‘do’ competitive swimming. This embodied work plays a key part in the swimmers’ ability to inhabit the competitive swimming lifeworld. In the analysis, we highlight how the acquisition and ‘habituation’ of these body techniques and skilled behaviours are not achieved simply through the repetitive rehearsal of coherent movements over time. These processes are complex, demanding practical experimentation, discovery and the ability to adapt constantly to changes in the environment and the swimmer’s own corporeality.

Superwomen? Young sporting women, temporality and learning not to be perfect

“…Katri's comments above resonate strongly with research by McNarry et al (2020aMcNarry et al ( , 2020b that similarly demonstrates the 'embracing' and normalisation of sustained 'hard training' in performance swimming, as part of the 'endurance work' (Allen-Collinson et al, 2018;McNarry et al, 2020a) that characterises many sports requiring a level of endurance and tolerance of heavy training loads. Katri admits that there are some days when she is feeling fatigued, but then she reminds herself that 'in the end, you are doing this for yourself'.…”

Qualitative research in sports studies: challenges, possibilities and the current state of play

“…Bonde, 2009), discourse analysis (e.g. Dowling, 2020), longitudinal research incorporating socio-narratological and mapping methods (Barker-Ruchti et al, 2014Schubring et al, 2019), ethnography (Lenneis et al, 2020;McNarry et al, 2020;Williams & Gibson, 2017), arts-based, creative and sensorial research (e.g. Sparkes, 2017;Svendler Nielsen, 2009;Williams, 2018aWilliams, , 2020Williams & Annandale, 2020;Winther, 2018), narrative and biographical methods (Caddick et al, 2015;Dowling, 2012Dowling, , 2020Phoenix & Griffin, 2013;Phoenix & Smith, 2011) and visual methods (Degerbøl & Nielsen, 2015;Orr & Phoenix, 2015;Phoenix, 2010).…”

Paddling with Maxine Sheets-Johnstone: Exploring the moving body in sport

“…These immediate feelings obtained from our bodies, such as from our senses, can be called embodied experiences (Johnson, 1999; Sparkes, 2009). A growing body of studies have explored varied embodied sporting experiences, such as risk, pain and injury, time and space, and aesthetic, sensuous and gendered feelings, through the phenomenological lens (Allen-Collinson, 2003, 2009, 2011b; Allen-Collinson and Hockey, 2001; Chisholm, 2008; Hockey and Allen-Collinson, 2007; Inglis and Hughson, 2000; Liu and Howe, 2012; McNarry et al, 2020; Wessinger, 1994; Woodward, 2009).…”

“…One of the most influential contributions to phenomenologically informed empirical studies of sport came from Allen-Collinson and colleagues (e.g. Allen-Collinson, 2009; Allen-Collinson and Hockey, 2010, 2017; Hockey and Allen-Collinson, 2007; McNarry et al, 2020). In one study, they drew on Merleau-Ponty’s concept of perception to explore haptic perception in running and scuba diving and of the surrounding world (Allen-Collinson and Hockey, 2010).…”

“…They also used Merleau-Ponty’s concepts of being-in-the-world and intercorporeality to explore inter-connectedness while running together (Allen-Collinson and Hockey, 2017). Allen-Collinson and colleagues argued that despite the diverse dimensions of sporting embodied experiences that have been examined, there is still a dearth of scholarship on ‘doing sport’ or ‘doing sport together’ (Allen-Collinson and Hockey, 2017; McNarry et al, 2020). One of the aims of this paper is to seek to contribute to studies on ‘doing sport’ and ‘doing sport together’ by drawing on Maxine Sheets-Johnstone’s (1990, 2009, 2011a, 2011b, 2015) movement-focused phenomenological concepts.…”