Swimming in flow motion: an ecopedagogy for health and physical education

ABSTRACT

Becoming educated physically need not be confined to gyms, playing fields, dance studios and aquatic complexes. A case in point is that of swimming which serves notice on training the body exclusively by offering an ecologically attuned, movement pedagogy. As an exemplar for the cultivation of the body-subject and its implication in the flesh of world, a phenomenological analysis of swimming provides a somaesthetic rendition of flow motion by highlighting the motional basis to enhanced ecological responsiveness. The gestures of flow that are shaped by swimming in a pool, a lake, or the ocean and by responsiveness to wave patterns in particular, are indicative of the circulations of not just waterscapes but, by gestural extension, of a bodily immersion within the world at large. Health and Physical Education can thus be guided by aspirations to care very practically and with disciplinary focus for this watery planet.

KEYWORDS:

• Water
• swimming
• flow
• immersion
• phenomenology
• ecopedagogy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.