La codification des pratiques martiales

Abstract

Résumé Cet article est une tentative d’interprétation structurale des combats duels, ce terme regroupant l’ensemble des luttes, boxes, arts martiaux, duels, sports de combat et autres activités de combat ou dérivées de combat. L’article s’oppose aux discours indigènes qui présentent ces combats soit comme des isolats ethnologiques, soit comme des survivances intactes d’un passé mythique, soit encore comme des synthèses d’efficacité combative. Pour ce faire, l’article présente les dynamiques de transformation qui ont affecté ces activités, individuellement ou collectivement, depuis leur lointaine transformation de combats réels en combats codifiés jusqu’aux plus récents retours à une quête d’authenticité et/ou d’efficacité. Qu’elles suivent des logiques économiques, politiques, pédagogiques ou sportives, ces dynamiques de transformation, par leur enchaînement, font apparaître à la fois les nombreuses interactions qui lient ces activités entre elles, mais aussi la diversité des références qui concurrencent le modèle du sport moderne dans cet ensemble de pratiques.

Conditioning Weapons: Ethnography of the Practice of Martial Arts Training

“…[13] (pp. [5][6] In this way, through a reflective investigation of the researcher's habitus as they are involved in the practice, it is possible to highlight three components of such a habitus: the cognitive, the conative, and the affective one [26]. In other words, it is possible to investigate, separately, the transformation of the perceptive capacities of reception of the world (the cognitive), of proprioceptive and kinesthetic capacities (the conative), and the emotional energies (the affective) inscribed "in the objects, undertakings, and agents that populate the world under consideration" [17] (p. 9).…”

“…At the beginning, the attention was directed to the body pedagogies built through the discipline of a particular traditional martial art; that is, the social construction of a specific martial artist habitus. 1 More general approaches are those by Cynarski et al [4] and Gaudin [5]; analysis concerning the transposition of "Eastern" practices and disciplines into "the West" are in Farrer and Whalen-Bridge [6]; approaches closer to that adopted here are the collection of essays by Sanchez and Spencer [7] and the review by Channon and Jennings [8]; finally, for a definition of the emerging subdiscipline of martial arts studies, see Bowman [9]. However, as my dual path of participant observer in the field and as a kung fu student progressed [10], I realized that the question centered only on the social conduct of the agents did not allow me to explain what distinguishes kung fu from boxing or from other Oriental disciplines.…”

Trans-regional Continuities of Fighting Techniques in Martial Ritual Initiations of the Malay World

“…For example, I have discussed how the linked processes of maturation, growing and purification are mediated by the initiates via the relationship between elder/younger and male/female dyads. Finally, it should be stressed that the practices found in the Malay world (as well as elsewhere in Southeast Asia, Africa, India, the Caucasus and the Middle East) have endured very long-term codification [Gaudin 2009]. While changes might occur according to various temporalities and geographic factors, a socio-historical approach may yet reveal the degree to which these martial ritual initiations have been both transformed and maintained.…”