A Phenomenological Perspective of Movement Learning

This chapter explores the question: what does a phenomenological perspective on movement learning entail? Phenomenology is a branch of continental philosophy, founded by Edmund Husserl in the beginning of the 20th century. More specifically, the chapter highlights how the lifeworld, as the first-person, experiential perspective on the world, provides a way to understand the practical knowledge of movement. The chapter then draws attention to movement learning as acquisition of habits of the body. In this perspective, the body, by withdrawing from conscious attention, allows the meaning patterns of the lifeworld to emerge for the mover. By learning to move, the world of movement becomes infused with new meanings. In this sense, the chapter shows the intertwined, embodied relationship between the learner and the objects of knowing.