Gymnastics is an expression of the cult of the body parallel to
that of art. In order to realize its dimensions, it needs to be
seen from this broader perspective, not as a random set of
exercises. It has a physical and a metaphysical dimension, the
latter related to the obsession with ideal proportions that
eventually were expressed in philosophic terms. There are plenty
of explanations to be considered for both the origin of the
practical experience of sports and the forms this experience took
over centuries. Alluding to some explanations, though not in
order to endorse them, will help to show how diversity of sports
experiences resulted in diversity of interpretations.
The basic assumption of this entire book, human self-constitution
in practical experiences, translates into the statement that
sports is not a reflective but a constitutive experience.
Indeed, through running, jumping, wrestling, or otherwise
participating in some game, human beings project themselves
according to physical characteristics and mental coordination
that facilitate physical performance in the reality of their
existence. This projection is a direct way of identifying oneself
and thus of becoming part of an interacting group of people. The
majority of researchers studying the origins of sports identify
these in the experience of survival, thus placing them in the
Darwinian evolutionist frame. When survival skills, maintenance,
and reproduction skills become distinct and relatively
autonomous, they follow recurrent patterns on whose basis social
practice takes place and new ideas are formulated.
From the perspective of today's jogger, running might seem an
individual experience, and to a great extent it is. But
fundamentally, running as a practical experience takes place
among people sharing the notion of physical exercise and
attaching to it social, cultural, economic, and medical meaning.
We create ourselves not only when we write poetry, tend land, or
manufacture machines, but also when we are involved in athletic
experiences. There is in sports, as there is in any other form of
practical experience, a natural, a cultural (what we learn from
others and create with others), and a social (what is known as
communication) dimension. The sports experience appears to us as
the result of the coordination of all these elements. For
someone attending a sports event, this coordination can become an
object of description: this much is due to training, this much
to natural attributes, and this much to social implications
(pride, patriotism). This is why sports events sometimes appear
to the spectator as having a predetermined meaning, not one
resulting from the dynamics of the interaction characteristic of
this human experience. In the mytho-magical stage of human
dynamics, in which the ability of the body was celebrated, the
meaning seemed to drive the entire event more than it occurs
today in a game of hockey or football. Due to the syncretic
nature of such events, rituals addressed existence in its
perceived totality. The specialized nature of games such as
hockey or football leads these to address only one aspect of
existence-the experience of the particular sport. A game can
degenerate from being a competition structured by rules to a
confrontation of nerves, violence, or national pride, or into
sheer exhibitionism, disconnected from the drive for victory.
Although the physical basis for the practical experience of
sports is the same- human beings as they evolved in time-in
different cultures, different recurrent patterns and different
meanings attached to them can be noticed. This statement does not
align itself with explanations of sports given in Freudian
tradition, Marxist theory, or in Huizinga's model of the human
being as playful man (Homo Ludens). It takes into consideration
the contextual nature of any form of human practice and looks at
sports, as it does at any human experience, from the perspective
of a constitutional, not representational, act; in short, from
the pragmatic perspective. When Japanese players kick a ball in
the game called kemari, the recurrent pattern of interaction is
not the familiar football or soccer game, although each player
constitutes his identity in the performance. When the Zen archer
tenses his bow, the pattern, associated with the search for
unity with the universe, is quite different from the pattern of
archery in Africa or of the archery competition at the Olympic
games of the past. The ball games of the Mayans relied on a
mythology which was itself a projection of the human being in
quest of explaining and finding an answer to what distinguishes
the sun from the moon and how their influence affects patterns
of human practice. It is probably easier to look at the
recurrent patterns of interaction of more recent sports
experiences not rooted in the symbolism of the ancient, such as
baseball, aquatic dancing, or ice skating, to understand what
aspect of the human being is projected and what kind of
experience results for the participants (athletes, sports fans,
public, media). The surprising reality is the diversity. People
never exhaust their imagination in devising new and newer forms
of competition involving their physical aptitude. No less
surprising is the pursuit of a standard experience, modeled in
rules for the competition. Some are intrinsic to the effort (the
rules of the game), others to the appearance (expected clothing,
for instance). Parallel to the standard experience, there is
also a deviant practice of sports (nonstandard), in forms of
individual rules, ad hoc conventions, private competition. The
social level of sports and the private level are loosely
connected. To become a professional means, among other things,
to accept the rules as they apply in the standard experience,
within organizations or acknowledged competition. The language
professional is pretty much in a similar situation. Literacy
serves as the medium for encoding the rules.