Group field trip and exploration of sporting environments and practices in Coventry

As part of the module we [Philip Gaydon and Jonathan Heron] applied for and received funding to take students on a field trip to two locations in Coventry and facilitate a collective, practical engagement with and critical analysis of different sporting practices in the local community.

The trip was extremely interesting and a dynamic companion to the module."
- Yinsu Collins, 3^rd year Film and Television Studies student

Capitol Gym

The group first travelled to the award-winning, independent Capitol Gym. Here they engaged in a phenomenological analysis of a gym experience.

After being led through a warm-up, the group headed out into the main gym to exercise. Most of the students had been in gyms before, although some hadn’t, and they were asked to pay attention to their experiences of equipment, community and space. They could exercise individually or in groups but were also asked to reflect on how this might change their understanding of each of three themes. They were also asked to compare this experience with their tour of the sporting spaces on campus from earlier in the module.

After reflecting on their experiences, students paired up and headed back into the gym with the task of instructing one another in an exercise or on a piece of equipment and to analyse the experience of coaching (an interpersonal dynamic which appeared in both the ethics and phenomenological parts of the module) in the same way that they had just done with their first foray into the gym.

Studying and reflecting in a gym was a very different experience for the students. Their reflections were astute and interesting but clearly came with positives and negatives. For example, whilst the benefits of having such immediate stimuli for thought and engagement were apparent, negatives such as interruptions and a sense of being ‘alien’ to the space whilst reflecting and talking made for uncomfortable moments. However, the students capitalized on this discomfort by using it as a focus for discussion which led to some very interesting observations about their experiences of space and community.

The whole day was very enjoyable, allowing those who went to relate what we have learned over the course of the module to real-life examples. Engaging in physical activity at the gym allowed me to take an alternative viewpoint about environmental space and the idea of community."
Michael Rose, 2^nd year History student

Spiritual Warrior Martial Arts Centre

After their Capitol Gym experience, the group attended a workshop at the Spiritual Warrior Martial Arts Centre – the largest martial arts centre in the midlands – led by Anthony Pillage: member of the Martial Arts World Hall of Fame and elite IMB Coaching Team, 2010 Martial Arts Personality of the Year, winner of The Fighting Spirit Award, and 2010 Coventry Good Citizen of the Year.

The highlight of the day was definitely the trip to Spiritual Warrior. He [Anthony] was a very inspiring man in his own unique way and shared a lot of his experiences and understandings of the way the world works. It was not just his insights into martial arts, coaching and personal development that were useful but some self-defence tips too!"
Cameron Humphreys, 4^th year Maths and Physics student

As well as hearing about Anthony’s work in the community, his remarkable life, and engaging in some practical martial arts, the group asked and discussed whether martial arts could be legitimately classed as a sport, whether it was primarily an aesthetic endeavour or if its main focus should be the embodied expression of and training for an overarching philosophy and way of life.

The role of embodied knowledge within martial arts has been debated vigorously in the niche writings on martial arts and philosophy, and the question of what gives martial arts its ‘artistic’ status is a difficult one for the field.¹ As it does in the literature, the apparent clash between the martial arts' capacity to cultivate a certain set of virtues, its violent embodiments, and the element of competition that many see as definitional to sport came to the fore of the group's discussion.² It was clear that Anthony felt that martial arts, at least as he teaches it, is not a sport, but this was not to say that the way he taught it could not result in sporting success. Indeed, his club has enjoyed much of this on the infrequent occasions they entered competitions, but only as a byproduct, not as a goal.

¹ See Paul Swift, Dale Spencer’s Ultimate Fighting and Embodiment

² “has the rise of modern combat sports […] and the focus on the competitive aspects of the martial arts robbed martial arts in general of its nature as a methodology for self-cultivation” asked philosopher Jonathan Flowers in his address to The Society for the Study of Philosophy and the Martial Arts.