Practising bodily attention, cultivating bodily awareness – a phenomenological exploration of tai chi practices

ABSTRACT

Tai chi (taijiquan, t’ai chi ch’uan) is a martial arts form which aims at developing conscious awareness through the physical medium in specialised movement practices. In this article, we investigate how bodily attention is practised and might possibly affect the way the body is present to the bodily awareness of tai chi practitioners. The article draws on phenomenological clarifications of attention and awareness in an analysis of ethnographic fieldwork carried out during 10 months in two different tai chi practices, a) a modern sporting practice also known as Wushu Tai Chi, which is practised in China, and b) a traditional non-sporting practice in the Yang-style, Huang Sheng Shyan system, as it is practised in Denmark. The two types of tai chi practices differed in their execution of movements and practice aims. Nevertheless, both types are based on practices of bodily attention through the continuous and deliberate processes of engaging the moving body. Hence, despite the different ways of orchestrating bodily attention, bodily awareness was cultivated and opened up for a transition from a mediated body to an interconnected and unmediated awareness of the body as a whole. The present study has particularly expanded on perspectives of how athletes can assist and actively use bodily attention during skilled movement practices to improve and expand their movement expertise in their cultivation of bodily awareness.

KEYWORDS:

• Bodily attention
• bodily awareness
• tai chi practice
• taijiquan
• phenomenology
• ethnographic fieldwork
• mind-body practices

Acknowledgments

We wish to show our gratitude to Aarhus Tai Chi and Beijing Sports University including all the practitioners who volunteered to participate in the study and without whom the present paper would not have been possible. Lastly, we wish to thank the reviewers for their excellent comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest.

Notes

1. Wushu (武术) is the general Chinese term for ‘martial arts’.

2. Tai chi is an abbreviation of the Romanised transcription tàijíquán or t’ai chi ch’üan (太極拳). Quán, meaning ‘fist’, indicates the art’s link to a ‘distinct system or style of martial arts’ (Ryan 2008, 526).

3. For an extended examination of the global, political and sociohistorical development of tai chi see for example Ryan (2008).

4. Hjortborg’s personal training history includes 15 years of martial arts training in tai chi, participation in competitive sports (karate, kickboxing and Muay Thai) and other Chinese martial arts. Prior to her stay at BSU, she spent a full year in China at a martial arts school, where she studied modernised Yang style tai chi, traditional Chinese martial arts and Mandarin.

5. Informants: Miss Li Qiao Ling, the highly skilled teacher of the class, former national competitor and current international Wushu judge with more than 50 years of experience, Leo, a beginner Wushu practitioner with around three years of daily intensive training and Fan-Hui, Wushu student, former national champion and current international competitor with more than 20 years of daily elite training.

6. Informants: Karsten, a highly skilled tai chi instructor with more than 30 years of experience in two Yang-style systems, Henrik an intermediate tai chi practitioner with approximately 7 years of experience, Janne an advanced tai chi practitioner with around 16 years of experience and finally Tao, a highly skilled tai chi instructor in the Yang-style system and former Wushu athlete in China. She has more than 40 years of martial arts experience.

7. The current principal instructor of the Huang Sheng Shyan lineage, Wee Kee Jin, lives in New Zealand. Twice a year, he gives workshops in the partner schools around Europe and Australia.

Additional information

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes on contributors

Sara Kim Hjortborg

Sara Kim Hjortborg has a Master’s degree in Sports and Health from the department of Sports Science & Clinical Biomechanics, the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Southern Denmark and is currently doing a PhD at the department of Cognitive Science at Macquarie University. Her research focuses on martial arts in relation to interdisciplinary research in phenomenology and qualitative research as well as philosophy and cognitive science.

Susanne Ravn

Susanne Ravn is Associate professor and Head of the Research Unit Movement, Culture and Society at the Department of Sports Science and Clinical Biomechanics, University of Southern Denmark. Her doctoral work (2008) focuses on the phenomenological approaches to skilled movement in dance practice. She has published widely on the phenomenology of dance and on the integration of qualitative research methodologies into phenomenological analysis of different kinds of movement practices. Ravn has been the leading investigator on several funded research projects on topics such as improvisation; phenomenology and skilled performance in sport, respectively.