ABSTRACT

This chapter reveals that the concept of tacit knowledge is appropriate and fruitful when analysing skills transmission in the field of sport, and the skills themselves can be perceived as the embodiment of tacit knowledge: the sports activity has techniques and the sports teaching has procedure. The sports body's mastering of sports technique is showed by the embodiment of its tacit knowledge in the sports skills. Tacit knowledge in this area can be verbalised, although not completely; its verbalisation is situation-dependent. A detailed analysis of communication during sports training sessions should take into account the relation between language and other ways of communication. Training sessions for more experienced athletes are focused on skills improvement rather than on acquisition. The growing interest in embodiment–the senses, emotions, habits and physical activity–has contributed to perceiving the body as both the site and subject of knowledge or of knowing, which is difficult to verbalise, and as such much more difficult to study.