Dangerous Play With the Elements: Towards a Phenomenology of Risk Sports

Abstract

This file was dowloaded from the institutional repository Brage NIH -brage.bibsys.no/nih Breivik, G. (2011 Dangerous Play with the Elements -Towards a Phenomenology of Risk SportsGunnar Breivik, Norwegian School of Sport Sciences AbstractThe purpose of the article is to present a phenomenological description of how athletes in specific risk sports explore human interaction with natural elements. Skydivers play with, and surf on, the encountering air while falling towards the ground. The kayakers play on the waves and with the stoppers and currents in the rivers. The climbers are ballerinas of the vertical, using cracks and holds in the cliffs to pull upwards against gravity forces. The theoretical background for the description is found in the phenomenology of Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty. The phenomenology of Husserl focused on the theoretical intentionality of the transcendental ego. With Heidegger the human being's concrete and practical interaction with the environing world moved to the foreground. Heidegger's analyses of 'equipmentality' throw important light also on the equipmentality in sports and how we deal with tools and equipment in sports. However in Heidegger's analyses the body resides in the background both as subject and object. The importance of the active body-subject is well documented in the work of Merleau-Ponty, and also Todes. The human being is a bodily 'being-in-the-world' and the body is the active medium through which the world is grasped. The body is however also situated and aligned with the fundamental dimensions of the world, with the vertical gravity and the horizontal action space. In the article I show in a concrete way how we in some sports use fundamental characteristics of the environing world in a mode of playfulness. In these sports human beings play in an extreme way with fundamental elements of nature. The 2 article thus puts phenomenology to a test. It should be able to move from general characteristics to specific features of our bodily human involvement with the environing world.

The search for freedom in extreme sports: A phenomenological exploration

“…Nicols (2000) wrote that freedom defines "Dasein's authentic potentiality for being, a potentiality which reveals the being of beings as they are 'in themselves', including both innerworldly beings and Dasein itself" (p. 3). Freedom entails being free from the social "they" of everyday life and accepting the reality of the abyss (nothingness), the acceptance of the presence of anxiety and of being open to confront one's own death (Breivik, 2011).…”

Skiing and its Discontents: Assessing theTuristExperience from a Psychoanalytical, a Neuroscientific and a Sport Philosophical Perspective

“…Dangerous sports put people from relatively safe societies into situations which highlight 'human finitude' as a fundamental component of authentic understanding (Martínková & Jim Parry 2016). Disruption of the everyday life world can provide a glimpse of authenticity (Breivik 2010(Breivik , 2011. Sartre already underscored the continuity between scientific research (the quest for knowledge) and skiing, and this seems to be confirmed by Turist, although skiing seems directed at deepening self-knowledge rather than nature knowledge.…”

“…Besides the fact that several pictures of Heidegger on skies can be found on the Internet, it is well known that one of his key concepts, namely Die Kehre, Heidegger's famous 'turn' , is actually a skiing term, borrowed from the skiing vocabulary, Heidegger's preferred sport (Janicaud 2015, 242). Apparently, he was quite proficient in it, skiing all the way from his famous hut in Todtnauberg to the lecturing hall at the University of Freiburg (Breivik 2011;Moran 2000). The meaning of skiing may have changed dramatically during recent decades, however, so that nowadays skiing not only exemplifies forgetfulness of nature but also the inauthenticity of contemporary consumerist existence, with tourists buying commodified experiences and quality time (Pine and Gilmore 1999) instead of really exposing themselves to authentic ecstatic peak experiences of self-forgetfulness (Martínková 2011;Vannatta 2008).…”

Deportes De Aventura Realizados Por Competidores De Élite De Raids

“…La práctica de modalidades deportivas en este, como canoa, kayak y rafting, es cada vez más popular entre los DA; sin embargo, se puede convertir en un ambiente hostil para los competidores y deportistas si las condiciones meteorológicas se muestran adversas (Breivik, 2011). Así, es posible observar la importancia que tiene el clima en la práctica de los DA, ya que sus condiciones variarán según la época del año.…”