In:Moving Bodies in Interaction – Interacting Bodies in Motion: Intercorporeality, interkinesthesia, and enaction in sports
Edited by Christian Meyer and Ulrich v. Wedelstaedt
[Advances in Interaction Studies 8] 2017
► pp. 245–265
Chapter 10Teaching bodies
Visual and haptic communication in martial arts
Published online: 14 August 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/ais.8.10sch
https://doi.org/10.1075/ais.8.10sch
Abstract
The article is concerned with teaching and learning embodied knowledge in a martial arts class. It argues that in pair exercises of motion sequences practitioners do not only enact something together in a shared corporeality. Rather, these exercises are also communicative means. We can therefore speak of haptic communication once physical contact between bodies is made in the expectation that the other participant will understand the contact as a sign and react to it in a certain way. In martial arts classes different forms of contact between bodies are accomplished in order to create embodied experience about the movement order the students wish to learn.
Keywords: embodied knowledge, communication, learning, martial arts, ethnography
Article outline
- Introduction
- Learning martial arts as an ethnographer
- Teaching by doing – visual communication in martial arts classes
- Embodied learning
- Haptic communication
- Conclusion
Notes References
References (36)
Alkemeyer, T. (2011). Bewegen und Mitbewegen. Zeigen und Sich-Zeigen-Lassen als soziale Körperpraxis. In R. Schmidt, W. M. Stock, & J. Volbers (eds.), Zeigen: Dimensionen einer Grundtätigkeit (pp. 44–72). Weilerswist: Velbrück.
Barnes, B. (2001). Practice as collective action. In T. Schatzki, K. Knorr-Cetina, & E. von Savigny (eds.), The practice turn in contemporary theory (pp. 17–28). London: Routledge.
Delamont, S., & Stephens, N. (2006). Balancing the Berimbau. Embodied Ethographic Understanding. Qualitative Inquiry, 12(2), 316–339.
Downey, G. (2007). Producing Pain: Techniques and Technologies in No-Holds-Barred Fighting. Social Studies of Science, 37(2), 201–226.
Garfinkel, H. (2002). Ethnomethodology’s program: Working out Durkheim’s aphorism. Lanham et al:Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Goffman, E. (1963). Behavior in Public Places: Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings. New York: The Free Press.
Goodwin, C. (2000). Practices of seeing, visual analysis: An ethnomethodological approach. In T. Van Leeuwen & C. Jewitt (eds.), Handbook of visual analysis (pp. 157–182). London et al.: SAGE.
(2003). The Body in Action. In J. Coupland & R. Gwyn (eds.), Discourse, the Body, and Identity (pp. 19–42). New York: Palgrave/Macmillan.
Goodwin, C., & Goodwin, M. H. (1996). Seeing as situated activity: Formulating planes. In Y. Engeström & D. Middleton (eds.), Kognition and Communication at Work (pp. 61–95). Cambridge, England / New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hindmarsh, J., & Pilnick, A. (2002). The Tacit Order of Teamwork: Collaboration and Embodied Conduct in Anesthesia. The Sociological Quarterly, 43(2), 139–164.
Hirschauer, S. (2006). Putting things into words. Ethnographic description and the silence of the social. Human Studies, 29(4), 413–441.
Kalthoff, H. (2003). Beobachtende Differenz. Instrumente der ethnografisch-soziologischen Forschung. Zeitschrift Für Soziologie, 32(1), 70–90.
Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. New York: Oxford University Press.
Messmer, H. (2003a). Der soziale Konflikt: kommunikative Emergenz und systemische Reproduktion. Stuttgart: Lucius & Lucius.
(2003b). Konflikt und Konfliktepisode. Prozesse, Strukturen und Funktionen einer sozialen Form. Zeitschrift für Soziologie, 32(2), 98–122.
Mol, A. (2002). The Body Multiple: Ontology in Medical Practice. Durham/London: Duke University Press.
O’Connor, E. (2005). Embodied Knowledge The Experience of Meaning and the Struggle Towards Proficiency in Glassblowing. Ethnography, 6(2), 183–204.
Olivero, F., John, P., & Sutherland R. (2004). Seeing Is Believing: Using Videopapers to Transform Teachers’ Professional Knowledge and Practice. Cambridge Journal of Education 34, 179–191.
Plowman, L., & Stephen, C. (2008). The Big Picture? Video and the Representation of Interaction. British Educational Research Journal, 34(4), 541–565.
Schindler, L. (2009). The production of «vis-ability»: An ethnographic video analysis of a martial arts class. In U. T. Kissmann (ed.), Video Interaction Analysis: Methods and Methodology (pp. 135–154). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.
(2011b). Teaching by Doing: Zur körperlichen Vermittlung von Wissen. In R. Keller & M. Meuser (eds.), Körperwissen (pp. 335–350). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften.
Schütz, A. (1944). The Stranger. An Essay in Social Psychology. American Journal of Sociology, 49, 499–507.
Spinney, J. (2006). A Place of Sense: a Kinaesthetic Ethnography of Cyclists on Mont Ventoux. Environment and Planning D, 24(5), 709–732.
Suchman, L., & Trigg, R. (1991). Understanding Practice: Video as a Medium for Reflection and Design. In J. Greenbaum & M. Kyng (eds.), Design at Work: Cooperative Design of Computer Systems (pp. 65–90). Hillsdase, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Cited by (4)
Cited by four other publications
Lefebvre, Augustin
Katila, Julia & Johanne S. Philipsen
Lundesjö Kvart, Susanne & Helen Melander Bowden
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 10 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.
