What can the parkour craftsmen tell us about bodily expertise and skilled movement?

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the discussion of expertise and skilled movement in sport by analysing the bodily practice of learning a new movement at a high level of skill in parkour. Based on Sennett’s theory of craftsmanship and an ethnographic field study with experienced practitioners, the analysis offers insight into the skilful, contextual and unique practice of parkour, and contributes to the renewed discussion of consciousness in sport at a high level of skill. With Sennett’s concept of craftsmanship, it is possible to describe and grasp important aspects of obstacles put up, repetitions and material consciousness in developing perceptual and physical skills in parkour. The parkour craftsmen conduct a constant dialogue between concrete, material practices and thinking. It is argued in the article that Sennett’s ideas about craftsmanship are, in many ways, similar to Dreyfus and Dreyfus’ concept of mastery, but are less elitist and exclusive than the theory of skill acquisition. The parkour craftsmen add a critical cultural perspective to the academic field of skills and expertise in sport. They furthermore offer insight into the ontology of play, and how it plays an important role in developing skills at a high level.

Keywords:

• Parkour
• skills
• expertise
• craftsmanship
• play

Notes

1. The alternative term of free running was introduced to describe the practice to the English-speaking audience.

2. With the skill acquisition model, Dreyfus and Dreyfus argue that we develop our skills through five stages. Learning a new skill, we start as a novice (1) and gradually move on to become an advanced beginner; (2) to have competence; (3) to acquire proficiency; (4) [….]; and, finally, (5) to gain expertise (Dreyfus 2002).

3. While the two concepts are closely intertwined, motor intentionality describes how we are situated and orientated physically in connection with the environment, i.e. we have a particular embodied understanding of our motricity, while the concept of maximum grip describes how we are bodily inclined to respond to situations in a flexible way in order to find the appropriate movements.

4. It is questionable whether Sennett’s understanding of rules as the very heart of play should be replaced with questions, as Eichberg has suggested: ‘… play seems to direct some sort of question towards the world – and this beyond language and writing, by practical doing and movement’ (2016). When a child builds a high tower of blocks, Sennett makes reference to Erikson and describes how the child is making a rule for ‘How high can it go?’ The question, ‘How high can it go?’ seems more primary than a kind of rule deduced from the test.

5. The anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1973) underlined this by introducing the concept of ‘deep play’ to describe different cultural ceremonies.

6. The explorations are in line with James Gibson’s description of children’s primary relation to the world as looking for possibilities, the so-called ‘affordances’ (1986).