Slow Sport and Slow Philosophy: Practices Suitable (Not Only) for Lockdowns

KEYWORDS:

• Slow philosophy
• slow sport
• emersiology
• immersion
• Eastern bodily practices

Before the pandemic, our life was often described as fast, since in globalised society speed has been generally understood as a marker of efficiency, productivity and diligence; and so many people tended to live at a hectic pace. During lockdowns, however, many people have been forced to slow down, which some initially may have felt as a welcome contrast to the frenetic quality of pre-pandemic life. Nevertheless, lockdowns have coerced us towards slowness in unforeseen and often unwelcome ways, with unanticipated effects, whether desired or not, and whether desirable or not. Many people have found themselves confined to their homes for prolonged periods of time, sometimes unable to go out without a good reason relating to the sustenance of one’s life or the lives of close relatives. And so, one unfortunate side-effect of the pandemic is the inability to perform the usual kinds of movement activities, such as sports, exercises or other recreational activities (see Edgar 2021).

More importantly, most of us have never experienced nor been trained to cope with prolonged periods of slowness. While some people may be used to having time to relax from the usual fast pace for a 60-minute session of yoga or taiji, most people have never chosen or planned a prolonged period of slow life, seeing no value in it. And so this is a suitable time to ask: what values can we find in these slow movement practices? We usually associate these practices with health promotion, maintenance of well-being, harmonization of the body and quietening of the mind. Whilst not minimising this kind of instrumental health-oriented approach, we think that slow practices have much more to offer. The awakening and mindfulness practices of yoga, taiji, qigong and other modes of relaxation or meditation, practices in a close intimacy with the natural environment, and other modes of wandering or roaming such cycling, pedestrianism, Nordic walking, etc., all eschew a ‘competitive sports’ ethos and offer different and various values to participants.

However, the idea of the ‘slow life’ is not a phenomenon so recent as to be unknown before the pandemic. The ‘Slow Movement’ was initiated by Carlo Petrini in Italy in 1986, with the ‘Slow Food Movement’ as a reaction to the plan to open a McDonald’s fast food outlet in his town. He emphasized the eating of fresh, local, sustainable and ethical foods, prepared leisurely and with love, and consumed in the company of good friends and family (Van Gelder 2013). More recently, other practices have followed this lead, with ‘Slow Gardening’, ‘Slow Education’, ‘Slow Parenting’, ‘Slow Ageing’ and even ‘Slow Philosophy’ (see e.g. Parkins 2004; Walker 2017, 2019).

Our interest, of course, is especially in Slow Philosophy, which has been associated with certain aspects of philosophical practice that are carried out at a slow pace—and this inevitably clashes with many of our current institutional practices and demands on the fast production of research outputs, as well our contemporary habits of fast reading whilst scrolling down on internet pages. With her idea of ‘Slow Philosophy’, Walker (2017) especially emphasizes the importance of ‘slow reading’, which she explains as attending to and gradually returning to complex philosophical ideas, and readdressing and reconsidering difficult issues. She also discusses another aspect of reading—attentive listening, which exhibits respect for the author, and seeks intimacy with his/her thinking: ‘To read is to be attentive to the trace of the other, and this attention takes time’ (2017, xxiii). Slowness enables open-ended thinking, and therefore enables us to open ourselves to otherness and strangeness (2017, pp. 4, 31), as opposed to the kind of reading that looks for the confirmation of our opinions. Thus, slow reading offers a reflective and meditative way of life, as a search for meaning and an expression of a love of wisdom. However, the slowing down of the body in Walker’s slow philosophy is rather a by-product of philosophising, and is not further developed. Since the body is not very much in the focus of slow philosophy, it does not get proper attention and adequate treatment (see Geisz 2018). In this special issue, the paper by Geisz finds parallels between Walker’s slow philosophy and exercising qigong, explaining in what sense a qigong form, ‘Hunyuan Qigong’, is analogous to slow philosophical reading.

‘Slow Movement’ has various implications for movement practices. This special issue presents characteristics and values of slow movement practices, which we called ‘slow sport’. At first glance, the phrase ‘slow sport’ seems antithetical to our understanding of sport. For the purposes of this issue, by ‘sport’ we do not mean competitive sport, of which the most paradigmatic example is Olympic sport (Parry 2019) and which is connected to the motto Citius, Altius, Fortius, but rather we refer to recreational movement activities. They resemble sport through the movement activity itself (yoga, martial arts and other practices or Saharan recreation activities), but at a slower pace and without a competitive element. Instead of focusing on the result and its comparability to other competitors’ results, the participants focus more on an immersion into the environment, and the quality of their experiencing. So ‘slow sport’ captures the importance of bodily movement and its cultivation within a specific environment, with the aim of contributing to well-being and to the deepening of our experiencing. This special issue presents analyses and discussions of a range of recreational movement and ‘sporting’ activities, with special emphasis on the element of slowness.

Slow movement brings new aspects of experiencing to the fore. One that stands out is our relationship with the environment. The ‘slow’ often involves an immersion in some medium, activity or context. Slow practices can serve as a support for reflection on the space where our practices are located. The relationship between space and movement is not new in the philosophy of sport. It has been traditionally discussed in the area of ‘nature sports’ (e.g. Howe 2019; Krein 2020; Zimmermann and Saura 2017). Similarly to ‘slow sports’, ‘nature sports’ are non-competitive practices, but unlike ‘slow sports’ they focus more on the skilful negotiation of challenging movement situations in the natural environment. Based on Merleau-Ponty’s ideas, Zimmermann and Saura (2017) argue that the outdoors offers an environment of instability and risk which enables athletes’ presence in the situation and an immersion into the activity, with resultant spontaneous reactions. However, the fastness that is usually associated with these activities, such as skiing and snowboarding, does not allow the participants to dwell with nature and immerse into it.

Recently, the importance of the environment has been discussed with respect to a more ordinary and slower daily practice—walking in the urban environment. The difference from ‘nature sports’ here is that ordinary activities do not require a focus on the execution of skilful movement, and nor are they particularly challenging. Still, they are meaningful for us, but in a different way. In his recent paper, Loland (2021) highlights the cultivation of ‘an extended ecological consciousness and, with that, an integrated disposition for acting and living in sustainable ways.’ His example of walking shows the importance of the relation of our daily movement of walking with the quality of the urban environment, which—when constructed sensitively—can give us possibilities for distinctive experiences, such as offering an extension of our perceptual field, or enabling ‘brain wandering’, contemplation and creativity.

Slowness of movement within a specific environment brings out yet another quality. In ‘slow sports’ the environment is experienced more deeply, which enables close intimacy with it. This may happen in specific environments, such as desert, water, glacier or seaside. And so, instead of dominating nature, or using it to give us stimuli to improve our skill or enable contemplation, in ‘slow sport’ practitioners try to find the link with nature—to merge with it whilst experiencing nature and themselves more deeply. Through the effects of the immersion of bodies in various elements, or immersion into ourselves, the emersion of new sensations may be encouraged. This is done without hurry, whilst opening up to the environment and allowing it to have an effect on us. That is why slowness has its place in ‘emersiology’ (see Andrieu et al. 2018; Zimmermann and Andrieu 2021), the study of phenomena that unintentionally ‘emerge’ through activation of our living body, crossing the threshold of our consciousness—for example, when a change of rhythm occurs, such as in slow practices. In this special issue, Andrieu and da Nobrega describe the idea of ‘deepening of oneself’ as a necessary part of the process of slowing down. Without this ‘deepening’ we would not be able to notice these newly emerged phenomena. They discuss how the ‘awakening of our body’ requires slow deceleration, time for observation, feeling of the elements (the environment), and close attention to our body. ‘Deepening’ thus enables more subtle original experiences.

For example, in this special issue, Gibout describes Saharan recreation practices. According to him, practices such as desert hiking, camel riding and sand bathing in an environment of great contrasts (desert) has a potential for returning the practitioner to and living through one’s own body, enabling heightened sensory communion with the elements, intermingling of one’s body and the environment, being prompted to marvel at the present moment, and experiencing one’s freedom as well as finitude.

However, while some of the slow practices may take place in distinctive natural environments, some require rather non-distinctive places, such as empty rooms or quiet natural conditions (garden, park), with few stimuli to disturb the practitioners. These are practices that focus on one’s body and movement, which have mostly been imported to Europe and America from the (Far) East, such as yoga, taiji or qigong, and other modes of relaxation or meditation or bodily awakening and mindfulness practices. These practices are usually considered as slow activities, as opposite to competitive sports. The lack of environmental stimuli during the exercise of slow movements promotes our immersion into the depths of ourselves, such as in the practice of yoga, meditation or taiji. Here, our body and the quality of our movement comes to the fore. The performed movements are not challenging in a way that they would exhibit a specific skill (such as in ‘nature sports’ mentioned above), but they are challenging mainly in appropriating (and withstanding) slow repetitions of various forms with the aim of attaining fluency and ease of movement, resulting in a balanced overall movement.

In this special issue, these ideas are discussed in three examples of Eastern practices: yoga, zen meditation and martial arts. Damkjær researches different temporalities of yoga, and speaks of the finding and following of one’s own rhythm of breathing, and balancing it with the performed yoga positions (asanas) within Ashtanga yoga, contrasting it with led classes. Rhythmic breathing enables meditative focus, helping to reveal more nuanced experiencing of asanas. Martínková and Wang discuss the transformation of practitioners’ experiencing within the Zen practice shikantaza (just sitting), which is a practice of sitting in its most purposeless way, allowing the practitioners maximum slow-down. When ‘just sitting’, our thoughts start to disappear and quiet awareness of the present situation comes to the fore, which affects our sensing, thinking, movement and overall presence in the situation. Legendre and Dietrich present the concepts of ‘slowedness’ and ‘slowness’ within Chinese and Japanese martial arts, with the aim of gaining efficiency as well as health. Slowedness (man) within movement means artificial slowing down in order to develop proprioceptive sensitivity, thus perfecting one’s movement. Thanks to slowedness, the practitioner acquires natural rhythm of movement, which the authors call ‘slowness’ (huan).

Last but not least, slow movement does not imply merely an immersion and heightened focus on the self and the emersion of new phenomena in a specific environment, but it may also bring about more intense sharing and being-with others. For example, the intensification of feeling may help to highlight touch. Touching and being touched in ordinary life defines an exchange and sometimes a reciprocity. Unfortunately, during the pandemic, handshakes, hugs or other touching gestures have become dangerous because of an invisible and not immediately known danger. This has happened in public life as well as in sport. Athletes in many sports often get within close proximity of each other, and touch the same equipment (e.g. balls) and so in some sports the risk of virus transmission may be high (see more in Francis and Francis 2020). That is why some sport events have been cancelled or suspended in times of greater anxiety about the virus, and why certain practices have been prohibited/prescribed, for example shaking the opponent’s hand before or after games, keeping one’s distance from others, etc. (United Nations 2020). However, the absence of traditional touching during handshakes and other kinds of touching—feeling the texture of the skin of others, tactile manifestations and the persistence of affects—could lead to a certain deprivation of internal sensations, emotions, and felt proximity to others. Slow practices may bring these important aspects of our lives back in a different way. We may have to reduce the number of contacts with others, but when we do touch and feel others, we may learn to do so with more awareness, intensity and sensitivity. So, thanks to slow practices, our being-with others may become stronger than in sports competitions, where ‘being-with’ is combined with ‘being-against’. Also, non-tactile being-with others may be emphasized through the ability to be more fully in the present moment, attending to the other.

In conclusion, slow practices that help us to find a closer relationship to our body may deepen our sensations, help us to be more fully in the present moment, and help us to be with others with more sensitivity. And so, slow practices may help us to enrich our life in general, including those times of lockdowns.

Acknowledgement

This paper was written with institutional support from Charles University, Prague,Czech Republic (Cooperatio - Sport Sciences Social).

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).