Chapter published in:
Moving Bodies in Interaction – Interacting Bodies in Motion: Intercorporeality, interkinesthesia, and enaction in sports
Edited by Christian Meyer and Ulrich v. Wedelstaedt
[Advances in Interaction Studies 8] 2017
► pp. 27–56

Chapter 2
Practice as a shared accomplishment

Intercorporeal attunement in acrobatics

Central to our paper is the sequential analysis of an episode from an acrobatics training session in which a novice learns to perform a somersault in cooperation with four other acrobats. We analyze the episode from a perspective mainly inspired by sociological practice theories. Our aim is to show how the novice is attuned to the demands of practicing the somersault in different qualification stages. We illustrate how in verbal, gestural as well as direct body-to-body interactions with the trainer and the other acrobats she is incrementally enabled to participate in and contribute to the shared bodily performance. By taking an approach of theoretical empiricism, we finally explore the ways in which our empirical findings call for a specification of practice theoretical concepts of the body by introducing the notion of a ‘lived-body-in-accomplishment’ and discuss their implications for a concept of intercorporeality.

Keywords: practice, sociological practice theories, acrobatic training, theoretical empiricism, sequential analysis, qualification stages, trust, lived-body-in-accomplishment, intercorporeality, intercorporealization
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Methodological considerations
  • 3.Empirical example: A training episode
    • Sequence one – preparatory exercise: Flexible stability
    • Sequence two – preparatory exercise: Finding a common rhythm
    • Sequence three – the intervening of the trainer
    • Sequence four – the retreat to an earlier qualification stage
    • Sequences five to seven – the gradual development of self-organization abilities
    • Sequences eight and nine – the performative recognition of the shared performance
    • Discussion
  • Conclusion: Training and intercorporealization
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 August 2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/ais.8.02bru
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