Abstract
Touch is essential to normal human development. It communicates a wide variety of things depending on the culture and the context. Through touch the boundary between subject and object becomes blurred and empathy can be cultivated. In the context of martial arts, touch can paradoxically lower levels of aggression,particularly in a traditional setting. This paper explores how touch is managed in martial arts and the embodied experiences that it can cultivate. Positivistic methodologies have revealed some of the benefits of martial arts on both physical and mental health, and studies that take a quantitative and culturally sensitive approach are revealing other dimensions of bodily experience.
Highlights
Beyond the TactileResearch into the anthropology of the senses has gone beyond what is typically considered the realm of touch in sensation
This paper will focus on how the anthropology of the senses, in particular studies about touch, can help us to understand the embodied experience of martial arts
Touch is associated with sin and indulgence in profane materiality. Though these studies help us to understand the social and cultural functions of touch, they primarily use positivistic methods to make broad generalizations that reveal little about the intricate complexity and subjectivity of touch behaviour. Their generalizations may prove useful as a guide, but in the increasing culturally mixed environment that we live in today, the important point to take from these studies is how crucial it is to understand the context through which touch behaviour is made meaningful and how
Summary
Research into the anthropology of the senses has gone beyond what is typically considered the realm of touch in sensation. In opposition to kalarippayattu as practiced for performance art, this transformation to competitive sport uses instrumental rationality to strip away the cultural context This methodology is employed by many schools in North America to serve the needs of the increasingly popular mixed martial arts world as embodied by the UFC. A tradition that persists is one that is both immovable and adaptable, and as Lorge (2012, 4) notes: “Martial arts as a living tradition is like any craft tradition in that skills must be taught, learned, and performed by individuals who innovate while reproducing the tradition.” Both Columbus and Fuller are correct in their assertion that cross-cultural studies which compare martial arts traditions in their cultures of origin are needed to identify the unique therapeutic traits of a particular practice. These similarities include an emphasis on immediate experience and a transcendence of the dualism that is inherent in Western philosophy; it was not until more than a decade later that researchers began to put this suggestion into action
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