Sporting embodiment: sports studies and the (continuing) promise of phenomenology

Embodied collaborative writing in graduate dance education

This paper explores how embodied writing can inform teaching, learning, and research presentation in graduate-level dance education in a kinesiology faculty. The focus is on a graduate dance course "The Dancing Body in Motion", which combines the anatomical analysis of the physical body, social theory, and lived dance experiences to promote more embodied and holistic teaching and learning. The authors, an instructor and a student of the course, share their experiences and reflections on the course through an embodied presentation of a dialogue that combines the instructor's lecture notes, the student's learning journal entries, and their reflections both separately and in conversation with each other. Their reflections offer insights into how the body and mind, material and social body, and practice and theory can all be brought together using embodied writing practices, such as a learning journal and performance ethnography, in a dance performance.

A longitudinal interpretative phenomenological analysis study of athletes' lived experiences in elite disc golf competitions

Gaining the inside perspective of an elite athlete throughout the competitive season provides a unique approach to understand the lived experience during multiple competitive events. The purpose of the present study was to investigate how elite disc golf athletes perceive and interpret their experiences of performing during various training and competitive events over the course of an elite disc golf season. Two elite disc golf athletes, one man and one woman, were recruited using homogeneous purposive sampling. The participants were interviewed three times and observed during three competitive events, as well as before and after a training session. A longitudinal interpretative phenomenological analysis (LIPA) was adopted to capture temporal and dynamic changes of the participants' lived experiences. The findings illustrated the athletes' personal experiences of performing during competitive disc golf events, with both athletes' experiences of competition changing during the season. Their competitive experiences appear to relate to the meaning disc golf has for the athletes, which in this study had both an experiential and existential level of meaning over time. Such a finding illustrates the importance of honoring athletes' unique experiences in making sense of their performances during an elite disc golf season. Taking the time to understand athletes' perceptions of their personal experiences appear important in attempting to understand their sense-making of their hot cognition before, during, and after competitions.

Embodying or resisting social normativity? A carnal inquiry into exercise addiction experiences

Exercise addiction has sparked a growing interest in the scientific and clinical literature, yet this behavioral addiction has mainly been investigated quantitatively, from a positivistic perspective. This article explores the subjective and embodied dimensions of exercise addiction, broadening current conceptions of this emerging, still unofficial mental health category. Building on carnal sociology, and through a thematic analysis of mobile interviews conducted with 17 self-proclaimed "exercise addicts" from Canada, this article examines the interrelations between the embodiment of exercise addiction and the normative social elements at stake in the shaping of the category, providing insights on how exercise is experienced as an addiction. Results show that most participants describe this addiction as "soft" and "positive", highlighting the virtues of exercising. However, their bodily accounts also reveal a suffering body, bringing forth the vices related to excessive exercising. Participants also put in relation the quantifiable and the sensible body, revealing the porous boundaries of this construct: exercise addiction can sometimes be regulatory in certain contexts and counternormative in others. Thus, it appears that "exercise addicts" enact various contemporary normative requirements, which vary from asceticism and body-ideals but also to the phenomenon of social and temporal acceleration. We argue that exercise addiction questions how certain behaviors, deemed potentially problematic, illustrate the tensions and complex articulations between embodying and resisting social normativity.

Adventure-based mindsets helped maintain psychological well-being during COVID-19

OBJECTIVES

Research conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic underscores the value of physical activity and nature for psychological well-being in the general population when people's mobility and activities are restricted due to government mandates. Since restrictions may thwart the psychological benefits reported from participation in adventure recreation (e.g., rock-climbing, white-water kayaking), it is important to understand the psychological well-being of people who previously benefited from adventure opportunities. Thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate the lived experiences and psychological well-being of adventure recreation participants during COVID-19 restrictions.

DESIGN

A descriptive phenomenological approach was used.

METHOD

Participants were fifteen men, four women, and one non-binary person who engaged in a variety of adventure recreation activities that included ski-mountaineering, free-diving, rock-climbing, white-water kayaking, back-country skiing, skydiving, SCUBA diving, BASE jumping, and mountaineering. Participants had an average of 11.7 years of experience in at least one of their preferred adventure recreation activities. Participants were invited to take part in a visual and audio-recorded semi-structured interview on Zoom. Interviews lasted on average 69.3 min. Reflexive thematic analysis was undertaken inductively.

RESULTS

Overall, participants discussed a range of nuanced impacts that COVID-19 restrictions had on their psychological well-being. Participants discussed how negative affect resulted from restricted opportunities for physical and mental challenges, emotion regulation, connections to nature and people, and excitement. However, participants also benefited from several silver linings, such as reflecting on past adventures, a reduced need to compare themselves socially, and opportunities to spend quality time with others. Participants also explained how 'adventure-based mindsets' (e.g., resilience, focusing on controllable elements, humility) were protective strategies they used to limit the ill-being impacts of COVID-19 restrictions.

CONCLUSIONS

This study extends the alternative sport and exercise literature by illustrating how participation in adventure has the potential to enhance participants' resilience and their ability to maintain psychological well-being across diverse and novel contexts (e.g., the COVID-19 pandemic).

The impact of Confucianism on social and emotional health of Vietnamese adolescents: A phenomenological study

Confucianism has become an educational ideology in Vietnam and blended its philosophy with other religious and spiritual doctrines. The current study explores the impact of Confucianism on social and emotional health (SEH), which focuses on the skill-based aspect of Confucian Vietnamese adolescents. A hermeneutic phenomenological study was chosen as an appropriate approach for collecting and interpreting descriptions of 15 Confucian Vietnamese adolescents to explore how these lived experiences have shaped their current perceptions of SEH. We have labeled the two shared common characteristics in the participants' various SEH experiences, including (1) Authentic perception of Confucian philosophy strengthens the self-esteem; (2) Positive practice of the 5-essential human virtues helps establish and maintain healthy, supportive relationships. The two essences reflected the positive impact of Confucianism on SEH of Vietnamese adolescents. The adolescents' SEH experiences are consistent with Confucian philosophy while at the same time not conflicting with other religious doctrines. The findings of this study have broadened our understanding of the applicability of socio-emotional competence models to promote positive psychological development in adolescents, and the feasible goal-setting in counseling and psychotherapy from different psychological theories about the combination of religious and spiritual practices.

Both Physical and Virtual: On Immediacy in Esports

This article strives to make novel headway in the debate concerning esports' relationship to sports by focusing on the relationship between esports and physicality. More precisely, the aim of this article is to critically assess the claim that esports fails to be sports because it is never properly “direct” or “immediate” compared to physical sports. To do so, I focus on the account of physicality presented by Jason Holt, who provides a theoretical framework meant to justify the claim that esports is never properly immediate and therefore never sports. I begin by motivating Holt's account of physicality by contrasting it with a more classical way of discussing physicality and sports, namely in terms of physical motor skills. Afterwards, I introduce Holt's account of physicality as immediacy and engage with its assumptions more thoroughly to problematize the claim that esports is fundamentally indirect. Lastly, I argue that the assumption that esports necessarily lacks immediacy is based on a narrow understanding of body and, consequently, of space. In response, I offer a different way of thinking about body and space, focusing on the subjective, bodily engagement of the esports practitioners with their practice, whereby physical space and virtual space can be appreciated as immediately interconnected during performance in a hybrid manner. In providing such an account, the article contributes directly to the broader, growing discussion on the relationship between physicality and virtuality in an increasingly digital world.

"Negative Things That Kids Should Never Have to Hear": Exploring Women's Histories of Weight Stigma in Physical Activity

Scholars have proposed that cumulative experiences of anti-fat bias and stigma contribute to detrimental physical activity experiences, as well as social and health inequities. The objective of this research was to explore how enacted weight stigma experiences are constructed and impact women's physical activity experiences long term. Eighteen women who identified as having had negative experiences related to their body weight, shape, or size in physical activity contexts participated in semistructured interviews. Using reflexive thematic analysis, four themes were identified: (a) norms of body belonging, (b) distancing from an active identity, (c) at war with the body, and (d) acts of resistance. These findings deepen understandings of how historical experiences of weight stigma can have longstanding consequences on physical activity cognitions, emotions, and behaviors. To equitably promote physical activity, it is imperative that movement spaces (e.g., fitness centers, sport organizations) both target anti-fat stigma and adopt weight-inclusive principles.

"Being" an Older Adult Skier: The Phenomenology of Masters Alpine Ski Racers

This research examined the lived experience of older adult Alpine skiers in their continued participation in competitive ski racing. The aim was to gain an understanding of the meaning of the experiences for older adults as they continued to compete in Alpine ski racing. Masters skiers between the ages of 69 and 82 years participated in individual interviews. Data collection and analysis were iterative processes informed by phenomenological methods and visual mind mapping. The overarching theme identified in participants' accounts was the significance of the identity of "Being" a Ski Racer. Supporting subthemes were Enjoying the Feeling of Ski Racing, Adapting in the Sport, and Skiing as a Lifestyle. These insights offer the opportunity to encourage and support the holistic experiences of older adults who maintain their athletic identity as they age. This research highlights how inclusion of older adults' stories may foster critical reflexivity and challenge assumptions about aging.

Organ Transplant Recipients' Experiences of Physical Activity: Health, Self-Care, and Transliminality

Physical activity (PA) is an important lifestyle component of long-term health management for organ transplant recipients, yet little is known about recipients' experiences of PA. The purpose of this study was to shed light on this experience and to investigate the possible implications of PA in the context of what is a complex patient journey. Phenomenological analysis was used to examine interviews with 13 organ transplant recipients who had taken part in sporting opportunities posttransplantation. Findings illuminate how participants' experiences of PA were commonly shaped by the transliminal nature of being an organ transplant recipient as well as a sense of duty to enact health, self-care, and donor-directed gratitude. This analysis underlines the potential role of PA in supporting organ transplant recipients' attempts to live well following transplantation and makes novel connections between PA and our existing knowledge about challenges related to identity, survivorship, obligation, and patient empowerment.

Accent bias: A barrier to Black African-born nurses seeking managerial and faculty positions in the United States

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of Black African-born nurses (BABN) with non-native accents regarding their nursing career advancement in the United States. Data were collected using individual interviews. Fifteen nurses originally from three sub-Saharan African countries were included in the study. The findings were reported under six themes: perceived low level of intelligence, not suitable to lead, making fun of/belittling, prejudging without evidence, downgrading, and accent modification. The finding indicated that participants believed that their race and accent influenced their professional nursing opportunities. These results are relevant to BABNs, nurse educators, and healthcare organization leaders. BABNs are capable of participating in nursing leadership and education despite their non-native accent.

The experience and meaning of aging with multiple sclerosis: An existential phenomenological approach

OBJECTIVES

Over the past 3 decades there have been significant advances in the development of pharmaceutical and rehabilitative treatments for persons with multiple sclerosis (MS), such that life expectancy is continuing to increase. Whilst these advancements are exciting, there are also concerns and unknowns regarding what it is like to age with MS. The objectives of this research were to explore the lived experiences and meaning of aging in conjunction with having MS.

METHODS

Semi-structured interviews with 40 persons with MS over 60 years were conducted. Thereafter data were subject to an existential phenomenological analysis.

RESULTS

Four different ways were discussed with regards to embodied experiences of aging with MS: aging makes MS worse; MS makes aging worse; aging makes MS better; and MS makes aging better.

DISCUSSION

This research highlighted the complexity of aging with MS and the various of ways persons over 60 with MS experience and interpret this phenomenon.

Outdoor Therapy: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis Examining the Lived-Experience, Embodied, and Therapeutic Process through Interpersonal Process Recall

This research explores an innovative methodology for understanding the process and practice of UK-based outdoor therapists. Recent studies address the need to expand circles of knowledge, and capture the lived-experience of outdoor practitioners to examine the ‘altered’ therapeutic process and frame. Interpersonal process recall (IPR) methodology offers a nuanced and contextualised lived-experience of outdoor therapists. IPR includes three phases: (1) initial-interview; (2) post-session-reflective-recording; and (3) an IPR-interview to replay and explore the participants’ recorded reflections of the outdoor therapy session. The sample included three UK-based outdoor therapists. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to qualitatively analyze the data. The study presents the theme of ‘transitional landscapes—transitional thinking’, which explores the embodied experience, the parallel process between the client and therapist, and watching for drift. The findings provide insight for training and supervision and generates constructive dialogue amongst outdoor therapists. The research supports IPR as a methodology offering participant and researcher experiential and reflective positions. Parallels are drawn in relation to existing research, literature, and contemporary professional issues surrounding outdoor therapy as a mental health treatment.

Exploring Women’s Experiences: Embodied Pathways and Influences for Exercise Participation

It has been well-documented that women face pressures to conform to a slim, toned, and athletic body, becoming “tyrannised” by beauty ideals. Under these contemporary ideologies of perfectionism, women are placed under constant surveillance, evaluation and, objectification and are thus reduced to “being” their bodies. However, there is little known about the potential relationships between different types of exercise, body image, and exercise motivation. With this in mind, this paper contributes towards a small but developing body of research that utilises feminist phenomenology to reveal twelve women’s early embodied motivations for exercising and draws upon material gathered from a three-year ethnography into the embodied experiences of women in fitness cultures. This paper delves into the influences on their continued participation over time and explores how these experiences shape their understandings of the embodied self and the broader constructions of the gendered body. The discussion provided illuminates how early influences on exercise participation and how pressures on women to conform to dominant notions of the “feminine” body are imposed by structural, cultural, historical, and localised forces in ways that affect and shape future physical activity participation, and the physical cultures where these tensions are played out.

Enacting Phenomenological Gestalts in Ultra-Trail Running: An Inductive Analysis of Trail Runners' Courses of Experience

Using an enactive approach to trail runners' activity, this study sought to identify and characterize runners' phenomenological gestalts, which are forms of experience that synthesize the heterogeneous sensorimotor, cognitive and emotional information that emerges in race situations. By an in-depth examination of their meaningful experiences, we were able to highlight the different typologies of interactions between bodily processes (e.g., sensations and pains), behaviors (e.g., actions and strategies), and environment (e.g., meteorological conditions and route profile). Ten non-professional runners who ran an ultra-trail running race (330 km, 24,000 m of elevation gain) volunteered to participate in the study. Data were collected in two steps: (1) collection of past activity traces (i.e., race maps, field notes, and self-assessment scales) and (2) enactive interviews using the past activity traces in which the runners were invited to relive their experience and describe their activity. The enactive interviews were coded using the course-of-experience methodology to identify the phenomenological gestalts that emerged from activity and scaffolded the runners' courses of experience. The results revealed that runners typically enact three phenomenological gestalts: controlling global ease, enduring general fatigue and experiencing difficult situations, and feeling freedom in the running pace. These phenomenological gestalts were made up of specific behaviors, involvements, and meaningful situated elements that portrayed various ways of achieving an ultra-endurance performance in the race situation. They also highlighted how runners enact a meaningful world by acting in relation to the fluctuations in physical sensations and environmental conditions during an ultra-trail race. Practical applications for preparation, race management and sports psychology interventions are proposed to enrich the existing recommendations. In conclusion, this approach provides new research perspectives by offering a more holistic grasp of activity in trail running through an in-depth analysis of athletes' experience. In doing so, we may expect that runners can connect these typical gestalts to their own personal experiences and stories as trail runners in order to sustain a viable approach to their sport.

"The Weight Is Even Worse Than the Cancer": Exploring Weight Preoccupation in Women Treated for Breast Cancer

Cancer-related changes in body weight are problematic given that excess weight is associated with an increased risk of cancer reoccurrence and mortality. The purpose of this qualitative study was to explore the experiences of weight-concerned women treated for early-stage breast cancer. A purposeful sample of women were selected based on criteria for high weight and body image concerns ( n = 11; M_age = 65.31 ± 10.96 years). Each participant engaged in a one-on-one semi-structured interview. Five themes were identified: weight concerns contributed to psychological distress, prevalent history of weight cycling and ongoing quest to manage weight, shifting psychological impact of cancer versus weight, perceptions of failure around goal-oriented weight management behaviors, and internalized and explicit social pressures for weight loss in the context of risk reduction. In light of the fundamental challenges of weight management, and the present findings, improving weight-related distress should be a clinical priority to improve the well-being of women in survivorship.

Bodies Matter: Professional Bodies and Embodiment in Institutional Sport Contexts

Bodies are always present in organizations, yet they frequently remain unacknowledged or invisible including in sport organizations and sport management research. We therefore argue for an embodied turn in sport management research. The purpose of this article is to present possible reasons why scholars have rarely paid attention to bodies in sport organizations; to offer arguments why they should do so; and to give suggestions for what scholarship on bodies and embodiment might look like using various theoretical frameworks. Using the topic of diversity as an example, we explore what insights into embodiment and bodily practices the theoretical frameworks of Foucault, Bourdieu, Merleau-Ponty and Butler have to offer researchers and how these insights may lead to better understandings of organizational processes in sport.

The Thin Line: A Phenomenological Study of Mental Toughness and Decision Making in Elite High-Altitude Mountaineers

Mental toughness (MT) is a key psychological variable related to achievement in performance domains and perseverance in challenging circumstances. We sought to understand the lived experiences of mentally tough high-altitude mountaineers, focusing primarily upon decisions to persevere or abort summit attempts. Phenomenological interviews were conducted with 14 mountaineers including guides, expedition leaders, and doctors (M_age = 44 years). A content analysis was employed to identify key themes in the data. Participants emphasized the importance of MT in extreme environments and described rational, flexible, and vigilant decision-making. Turning around without summiting was the toughest decision reported, with recognition of the thin line between persevering and overstretching. In contrast to much MT literature, mountaineers accepted limits, demonstrated restraint, and sacrificed personal goals to aid others. Costly perseverance was also reported with some mountaineers described as "too tough": overcompetitive, goal-obsessed, and biased decision-makers. These findings revealed both benefits and dangers of MT in mountaineering.

Severe Obesity and the Ambivalence of Attending Physical Activity: Exploring Lived Experiences

Physical activity is considered fundamental in lifestyle interventions. We explore experiences of physical activity prior to, during, and following a 10- to 14-week inpatient lifestyle modification program, including high volume of physical activity, for the treatment of severe obesity. Eight participants from a prospective clinical trial were selected to participate in a complementary qualitative study. The participants' experiences with physical activity during and following the treatment program represented different opposites: "pain and pleasure," "desire and duty," and "bubble and battle." We summarized the findings into one overall theme: "the ambivalence of attending physical activity." The ambivalence is experienced as a shift in how participants experience physical activity during the intervention period and as an ongoing, dynamic, and constantly shifting experience during such activity. To address and reflect upon such experiences with the participants, and acknowledge ambivalence as a legitimate part of being physically active, might be important within obesity treatment.

Arqueologia fenomenológica, fenomenologia genética e psicologia: rumo à gênese das manifestações culturais

Resumo Neste artigo é realizada uma investigação teórica de fundamentos e princípios da fenomenologia clássica enquanto orientação metodológica para o estudo de fenômenos culturais. Tal investigação se inscreve no domínio qualitativo de pesquisa em psicologia e, portanto, no domínio da psicologia da cultura. Porém, ao considerar o domínio geral dos estudos fenomenológicos em psicologia, constata-se a regularidade de críticas à fenomenologia clássica, pondo em questão alguns pressupostos metodológicos adotados por Husserl, tendo por referência, sobretudo, seus trabalhos publicados em vida. Com base em autores contemporâneos que têm se dedicado ao estudo de suas últimas obras e manuscritos ainda não publicados, o debate em torno dessas críticas é atualizado de modo a inovar as reflexões sobre a aplicação empírica de sua fenomenologia. Verificam-se então equivalências entre a arqueologia fenomenológica das culturas e a fenomenologia genética que delineiam as primeiras orientações metodológicas para o estudo de fenômenos culturais.

Touching moments: phenomenological sociology and the haptic dimension in the lived experience of motor neurone disease

Currently, there is a relative research lacuna in phenomenological research into the lived experience of motor neurone disease. Based on a sociological research project in the UK, involving 42 participants diagnosed with MND, this article explores the potential of a phenomenological sociology for analysing experiences of this drastically life-limiting neurological disorder. Calls have been made for sociological researchers to analyse more fully and deeply the sensory dimension of the lived body, and this article also contributes to this newly developing body of literature. While the social sciences have been accused of a high degree of ocularcentrism, here we take forward the literature by specifically focusing upon the haptic dimension, given that touch - and particularly the loss of key elements of the haptic dimension- emerged as salient in MND patients' accounts. To illustrate the potential of our phenomenologically inspired theoretical perspective, we consider two specific haptic themes: (i) being out of touch: the loss of certain forms of touch within MND and (ii) unwelcome touch by medical staff.

Surviving breast cancer: women's experiences with their changed bodies

In this study, we explored women's experiences with their bodies following treatment for breast cancer. Eleven women who had been treated for the disease (M(time since treatment)=4.45 years) were interviewed. Data were collected and analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis (Smith et al., 2009). Four main themes emerged from the data: changing visibly and invisibly; experiencing intense thoughts and emotions; meaning of the body: a vehicle of health, well-being, and social expression; and managing and dealing with physical changes. Overall, the women experienced various physical changes that shaped, mostly in a negative way, their perceptions, thoughts, attitudes, feelings, and beliefs about their bodies. The women described attempts to make positive lifestyle behavior choices (e.g., diet, participate in physical activity), and used other strategies (e.g., wigs, make-up, clothes) to manage their appearances and restore positive body-related experiences. Based on these findings, it is important to be cognizant of women's body image concerns following breast cancer given the poignant and lasting effects they can have on their psychosocial and emotional well-being.