Mushin: learning in technique-intensive sports as a process of uniting mind and body through complex learning theory

Abstract

Background: Interest in the use of learning theory to inform sport and physical-education pedagogy over the past decade beyond games and team sports has been limited.

Purpose: Following on from recent interest within the literature in Eastern philosophic traditions, this article draws on the Japanese concept of mushin and complex learning theory (CLT) to propose a CLT-informed pedagogy for coaching the ‘technique-intensive’ sports of track running and swimming.

Method: This article grounds theoretical discussion about learning in specific examples of practice to establish a dialectic relationship between theory and practice. The suggestions we make draw on first hand teaching/coaching experiences and CLT as a broad theoretical framework within which we draw on Eastern concepts of learning expressed in the Japanese concept of mushin as a state in which mind and body are united.

Conclusion: The pedagogy we suggest challenges a dualistic view of theory and teaching and the mind/body binary that has long dominated physical education teaching and sport coaching. It offers a means of recognizing and accounting for the body in learning and of offering positive pedagogy for teaching technique-intensive sports.

Keywords:

• mushin
• technique-intensive sport
• mind–body unity
• complex learning theory