The Social Practice of Self-Defense Martial Arts: Applications for Physical Education

Abstract

The practice of the self-defense martial arts has much to offer physical education. In this paper we draw on Pierre Bourdieu's sociological theory of the Logic of Practice to present a case that when viewed as a social practice, these movement forms generate certain, specific, practically oriented schemes of dispositions or habitus in the practitioner. We then consider the potential value of using matia1 arts practice in physical education for their ability to offer a glimpse at genuinely alternative ways of relating to oneself and the world through the physical mediunm that would help to compliment and offset the overriding domninance of dualist understandings of the mind /body nexus that currently exists in Western physical education.